ates would land and cut them off was immediate. They would
then be between the devil and the deep sea. But Sulla's iron will did
not quail. The man whom Rome regarded as a creature of pleasure shared
every hardship of the soldiers and encouraged them day and night by his
personal courage and calm. He showed marvellous ingenuity and resource
in collecting supplies and a complete disregard of everything but the
purpose in hand. He was a Greek scholar with a real admiration of Greek
literature and art: yet he ransacked the temples and melted down the
ornaments and treasures of centuries to make money; cut down the trees
of the Sacred Grove of the Academy where Plato had walked with Socrates
to make trench props. His ablest officer, Lucius Lucullus, was sent off
to collect a fleet, somehow or other.

All through the winter and the whole of the next year Athens held out.
The next winter came before Mithridates' fleet sailed: it could do
nothing till the spring. But with this news came that of a new danger.
The Roman Government of Cinna was sending out an army against Sulla. He
was between two fires. But his nerve did not fail. Athens fell to a
supreme assault on the 1st March (86) before the new Roman army left
Italy. Moving south Sulla then met Mithridates' army on the Boeotian
plain and at Chaeronea gained a victory that rang through the world. The
spell of Mithridates' name was broken: Rome was still invincible. The
revolted cities of the East began to come back. In the same year Sulla
gained another great victory. At first the Roman line broke,
panic-struck. Sulla, leaping from his horse, snatched a standard and
rushing into the hottest of the fight shouted to his men, 'Soldiers! If
you are asked where you abandoned your general, say it was at
Orchomenus.' Stung by this reproach and the supreme courage of their
general, the men recovered. The day was won. Flaccus, the Roman general,
made an agreement with Sulla: to him, whatever the orders of the Home
Government, it seemed impossible that Roman armies should fight against
one another when there was a common enemy to face. But a captain in the
ranks, Fimbria by name, stirred up a mutiny, Flaccus was murdered, and
Fimbria prepared to march on Sulla.

Sulla was now in a dilemma. His life was in danger unless he made peace
with Mithridates. To do so was not magnificent: it was not even highly
honourable. But Sulla was not a man to be stayed by such ideas. His own
life was a