[Sidenote: B.C. 74.]
The nature of man is so constructed that a constitution so administered
must collapse. It generates faction within, it invites enemies from
without. While Sertorius was defying the Senate in Spain and the pirates
were buying its connivance in the Mediterranean, Mithridates started into
life again in Pontus. Sylla had beaten him into submission; but Sylla was
gone, and no one was left to take Sylla's place. The watchful barbarian
had his correspondents in Rome, and knew everything that was passing
there. He saw that he had little to fear by trying the issue with the
Romans once more. He made himself master of Armenia. In the corsair fleet
he had an ally ready made. The Roman province in Asia Minor, driven to
despair by the villainy of its governors, was ripe for revolt. Mithridates
rose, and but for the young Caesar would a second time have driven the
Romans out of Asia. Caesar, in the midst of his rhetorical studies at
Rhodes, heard the mutterings of the coming storm. Deserting Apollonius's
lecture-room, he crossed over to the continent, raised a corps of
volunteers, and held Caria to its allegiance; but Mithridates possessed
himself easily of the interior kingdoms and of the whole valley of the
Euphrates to the Persian Gulf. The Black Sea was again covered with his
ships.
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