vernment
recognized the root of the evil in the neglect of their marine,
and showed earnestness in the matter at least so far as
their decrees reached.

Beginning of the War

Thus the war began in 680 at all points. It was a misfortune
for Mithradates, that at the very moment of his declaring war
the Sertorian struggle reached its crisis, by which one of his
principal hopes was from the outset destroyed, and the Roman
government was enabled to apply its whole power to the maritime
and Asiatic contest. In Asia Minor on the other hand Mithradates
reaped the advantages of the offensive, and of the great distance
of the Romans from the immediate seat of war. A considerable
number of cities in Asia Minor opened their gates to the Sertorian
propraetor who was placed at the head of the Roman province,
and they massacred, as in 666, the Roman families settled among them:
the Pisidians, Isaurians, and Cilicians took up arms against Rome.
The Romans for the moment had no troops at the points threatened.
Individual energetic men attempted no doubt at their own hand
to check this mutiny of the provincials; thus on receiving accounts
of these events the young Gaius Caesar left Rhodes where he was staying
on account of his studies, and with a hastily-collected
band opposed himself to the insurgents; but not much could be
effected by such volunteer corps. Had not Deiotarus, the brave
tetrarch of the Tolistobogii--a Celtic tribe settled around
Pessinus--embraced the side of the Romans and fought with success
against the Pontic generals, Lucullus would have had to begin with
recapturing the interior of the Roman province from the enemy.
But even as it was, he lost in pacifying the province and driving
back the enemy precious time, for which the slight successes
achieved by his cavalry were far from affording compensation.
Still more unfavourable than in Phrygia was the aspect of things
for the Romans on the north coast of Asia Minor. Here the great
Pontic army and the fleet had completely mastered Bithynia,
and compelled the Roman consul Cotta to take shelter with his
far from numerous force and his ships within the walls
and port of Chalcedon, where Mithradates kept them blockaded.

The Romans Defeated at Chalcedon

This blockade, however, was so far a favourable event
for the Romans, as, if Cotta detained the Pontic army before Chalcedon
and Lucullus proceeded also thither, the whole Roman forces might unite
at Chalcedon