Lucullus being in Galatia assigned portions of the captured
land and gave other presents to whom he chose; while Pompeius, who was
encamped at a short distance, prevented any attention being paid to
the orders of Lucullus, and took from him all his soldiers except
sixteen hundred, whose mutinous disposition he thought would make them
useless to himself, but hostile to Lucullus. Besides this, Pompeius
disparaged the exploits of Lucullus and openly said that Lucullus had
warred against tragedies and mere shadows of kings, while to himself
was reserved the contest against a genuine power and one that had
grown wiser by losses, for Mithridates was now having recourse to
shields, and swords and horses. Lucullus retorting said, that Pompeius
was going to fight with a phantom and a shadow of war, being
accustomed, like a lazy bird, to descend upon the bodies that others
had slaughtered and to tear the remnants of wars; for so had he
appropriated to himself the victories over Sertorius, Lepidus and
Spartacus, though Crassus, Metellus and Catulus had respectively
gained these victories: it was no wonder then, if Pompeius was
surreptitiously trying to get the credit of the Armenian and Pontic
wars, he who had in some way or other contrived to intrude himself
into a triumph over runaway slaves.
XXXII. Lucullus[254] now retired, and Pompeius after distributing his
whole naval force over the sea between Phoenicia and the Bosporus to
keep guard, himself marched against Mithridates, who had thirty
thousand foot soldiers of the phalanx and two thousand horsemen, but
did not venture to fight.
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