Mithridates. Upon the destruction of Corinth
by the Romans, the merchants retired to Delos, an island which from
religious considerations was looked upon as a place of safety:
[101]
besides, it was extremely well situated for the commerce of Italy and
Asia, which, since the reduction of Africa and the weakening of Greece,
had grown more important.
From the earliest times the Greeks, as we have already observed,
sent colonies to Propontis and to the Euxine Sea — colonies which
retained their laws and liberties under the Persians. Alexander, having
undertaken his expedition against the barbarians only, did not molest
these people.
[102]
Neither does it appear that the kings of Pontus, who
were masters of many of those colonies, ever deprived them of their own
civil government.
[103]
The power of those kings increased as soon as they subdued those
cities.
[104]
Mithridates found himself able to hire troops on every
side; to repair his frequent losses; to have a multitude of workmen,
ships, and military machines; to procure himself allies; to bribe those
of the Romans, and even the Romans themselves; to keep the barbarians of
Asia and Europe in his pay;
[105]
to continue the war for many years, and
of course to discipline his troops, he found himself able to train them
to arms, to instruct them in the military art of the Romans,
[106]
and to
form considerable bodies out of their deserters; in a word, he found
himself able to sustain great losses, and to be frequently defeated,
without being ruined;
[107]
neither would he have been ruined if the
voluptuous and barbarous king had not destroyed, in his prosperous days,
what had been done by the great prince in times of adversity.
Thus it was that when the Romans had arrived at their highest pitch
of grandeur, and seemed to have nothing to apprehend but from the
ambition of their own subjects, Mithridates once more ventured to
contest the mighty point, which the overthrow of Philip, of Antiochus,
and of Perseus had already decided. Never was there a more destructive
war: the two contending parties, being possessed of great power, and
receiving alternate advantages, the inhabitants of Greece and of Asia
fell a sacrifice in the quarrel, either as foes, or as friends of
Mithridates. Delos was involved in the general fatality, and commerce
failed on every side: which was a necessary consequence, the people
themselves being destroyed.
The Romans, in pursuance of a system of which I have spoken
elsewhere,
[108]
acting as destroyers, that they might not appear as
conquerors, demolished Carthage and Corinth; a practice by which they
would have ruined themselves had they not subdued the world. When the
kings of Pontus became masters of the Greek colonies on the Euxine Sea,
they took care not to destroy what was to be the foundation of their own
grandeur.
