adroitness and apparent success, and he returned to Rome with new honors
to finish the Social war.

It was no easy work. The Samnites were tough and determined. For two years
they continued to struggle, and the contest was not yet over when news
came from the East appalling as the threatened Cimbrian invasion, which
brought both parties to consent to suspend their differences by mutual
concessions.

[1] I follow the ordinary date, which has been fixed by the positive
statement that Caesar was fifty-six when he was killed, the date of
his death being March, B.C. 44. Mommsen, however, argues plausibly
for adding another two years to the beginning of Caesar's life, and
brings him into the world at the time of the battle at Aix.




CHAPTER VII.


Barbarian kings, who found Roman senators ready to take bribes from them,
believed, not unnaturally, that the days of Roman dominion were numbered.
When the news of the Social war reached Mithridates, he thought it
needless to temporize longer, and he stretched out his hand to seize the
prize of the dominion of the East. The Armenians, who were at his
disposition, broke into Cappadocia and again overthrew the government,
which was in dependence upon Rome. Mithridates himself invaded Bithynia,
and replied to the remonstrances of the Roman authorities by a declaration
of open war. He called under arms the whole force of which he could