g some encomiums upon the
ancient Athenians, he said he would pardon the many for the sake of
the few, and the living for the sake of the dead. Sulla states in his
Memoirs, that he took Athens on the Calends of March,[223] which day
nearly coincides with the new moon of Anthesterion, in which month it
happens that the Athenians perform many ceremonies in commemoration of
the great damage and loss occasioned by the heavy rain, for they
suppose that the deluge happened pretty nearly about that time. When
the city was taken the tyrant retreated to the Acropolis, where he was
besieged by Curio, who was commissioned for this purpose: after he had
held out for some time, Aristion was compelled to surrender for want
of water; his surrender was immediately followed by a token from the
deity, for on the very day and hour on which Curio took the tyrant
from the Acropolis, the clouds gathered in the clear sky, and a
violent shower descended which filled the Acropolis with water. Sulla
soon took the Peiraeus also, and burnt the greater part of it,
including the arsenal of Philo,[224] which was a wonderful work.

XV. In the mean time Taxiles, the general of Mithridates, coming down
from Thrace and Macedonia with one hundred thousand foot, ten thousand
horse, and ninety scythe-bearing four-horse chariots, summoned
Archelaus, who was still lying with his ships near Munychia,[225] and
was neither inclined to give up the sea nor ready to engage with the
Romans: his plan was to protract the war and to cut off the supplies
of the enemy. But Sulla was as quick as Archelaus, and moved into
Boeotia from a niggardly region, which even in time of peace could not
have maintained his troops. Most people thought that he had made a
false calculation in leaving Attica, which is a rough country and ill
adapted for the movements of cavalry, to throw himself into the
champaign and open tracts of Boeotia, when he knew that the strength of
the barbarians lay in their chariots and cavalry. But in his flight
from famine and scarcity, as I have already observed, he was compelled
to seek the hazard of a battle. Besides, he was alarmed for
Hortensius,[226] a skilful general and a man ambitious of distinction,
who was conducting a force from Thessaly to Sulla, and had to pass
through the straits where the enemy was waiting for him. For all these
reasons Sulla moved into Boeotia. But Kaphis, who was from my town,
evading the barbarians by taking a different ro