Towers were raised to a greater height as a means of annoying the besieged with brands and darts.Had not night stopped the conflict, the siege would have been begun and finished within one day.
Next day they sent an embassy asking mercy for the freeborn, and offering ten thousand slaves.As it would have been inhuman to slay the prisoners, and very difficult to keep them under guard, the conquerors rejected the offer, preferring that they should perish by the just doom of war.The signal for massacre was therefore given to the soldiers, who had mounted the walls by scaling ladders.The destruction of Uspe struck terror into the rest of the people, who thought safety impossible when they saw how armies and ramparts, heights and difficult positions, rivers and cities, alike yielded to their foe.And so Zorsines, having long considered whether he should still have regard to the fallen fortunes of Mithridates or to the kingdom of his fathers, and having at last preferred his country's interests, gave hostages and prostrated himself before the emperor's image, to the great glory of the Roman army, which all men knew to have come after a bloodless victory within three days' march of the river Tanais.In their return however fortune was not equally favourable; some of their vessels, as they were sailing back, were driven on the shores of the Tauri and cut off by the barbarians, who slew the commander of a cohort and several centurions.
Meanwhile Mithridates, finding arms an unavailing resource, considered on whose mercy he was to throw himself.He feared his brother Cotys, who had once been a traitor, then become his open enemy.No Roman was on the spot of authority sufficient to make his promises highly valued.So he turned to Eunones, who had no personal animosity against him, and had been lately strengthened by his alliance with us.Adapting his dress and expression of countenance as much as possible to his present condition, he entered the palace, and throwing himself at the feet of Eunones he exclaimed, "Mithridates, whom the Romans have sought so many years by land and sea, stands before you by his own choice.Deal as you please with the descendant of the great Achaemenes, the only glory of which enemies have not robbed me."The great name of Mithridates, his reverse, his prayer, full of dignity, deeply affected Eunones.He raised the suppliant, and commended him for having chosen the nation of the Adorsi and his own good faith in suing for mercy.He sent at the same time envoys to Caesar with a letter to this effect, that friendship between emperors of Rome and sovereigns of powerful peoples was primarily based on a similarity of fortune, and that between himself and Claudius there was the tie of a common victory.Wars had glorious endings, whenever matters were settled by an amnesty.The conquered Zorsines had on this principle been deprived of nothing.For Mithridates, as he deserved heavier punishment, he asked neither power nor dominions, only that he might not be led in triumph, and pay the penalty of death.
Claudius, though merciful to foreign princes, was yet in doubt whether it were better to receive the captive with a promise of safety or to claim his surrender by the sword.To this last he was urged by resentment at his wrongs, and by thirst for vengeance.On the other hand it was argued that it would be undertaking a war in a country without roads, on a harbourless sea, against warlike kings and wandering tribes, on a barren soil; that a weary disgust would come of tardy movements, and perils of precipitancy; that the glory of victory would be small, while much disgrace would ensue on defeat.Why should not the emperor seize the offer and spare the exile, whose punishment would be the greater, the longer he lived in poverty?
Moved by these considerations, Claudius wrote to Eunones that Mithridates had certainly merited an extreme and exemplary penalty, which he was not wanting in power to inflict, but it had been the principle of his ancestors to show as much forbearance to a suppliant as they showed persistence against a foe.As for triumphs, they were won over nations and kings hitherto unconquered.
After this, Mithridates was given up and brought to Rome by Junius Cilo, the procurator of Pontus.There in the emperor's presence he was said to have spoken too proudly for his position, and words uttered by him to the following effect became the popular talk: "I have not been sent, but have come back to you; if you do not believe me, let me go and pursue me." He stood too with fearless countenance when he was exposed to the people's gaze near the Rostra, under military guard.To Cilo and Aquila were voted, respectively, the consular and praetorian decorations.
In the same consulship, Agrippina, who was terrible in her hatred and detested Lollia, for having competed with her for the emperor's hand, planned an accusation, through an informer who was to tax her with having consulted astrologers and magicians and the image of the Clarian Apollo, about the imperial marriage.Upon this, Claudius, without hearing the accused, first reminded the Senate of her illustrious rank, that the sister of Lucius Volusius was her mother, Cotta Messalinus her granduncle, Memmius Regulus formerly her husband (for of her marriage to Caius Caesar he purposely said nothing), and then added that she had mischievous designs on the State, and must have the means of crime taken from her.
Consequently, her property should be confiscated, and she herself banished from Italy.Thus out of immense wealth only five million sesterces were left to the exile.Calpurnia too, a lady of high rank, was ruined, simply because the emperor had praised her beauty in a casual remark, without any passion for her.And so Agrippina's resentment stopped short of extreme vengeance.A tribune was despatched to Lollia, who was to force her to suicide.Next on the prosecution of the Bithynians, Cadius Rufus, was condemned under the law against extortion.
