19.5
He therefore inscribed upon his trophies the names of Mars, Victory and Venus,A deity of good fortune among the Romans. in the belief that his success in the war was due no less to good fortune than to military skill and strength. This trophy of the battle in the plain stands on the spot where the troops of Archelaüs first gave way, by the brook Molus, but there is another planted on the crest of Thurium, to commemorate the envelopment of the Barbarians there, and it indicates in Greek letters that Homoloïchus and Anaxidamus were the heroes of the exploit.
19.6
The festival in honour of this victory was celebrated by Sulla in Thebes, where he prepared a stage near the fountain of Oedipus.So named because in it Oedipus washed off the blood of his murdered father (Pausanias, ix. 18, 4). But the judges were Greeks invited from the other cities, since towards the Thebans he was irreconcileably hostile. He also took away half of their territory and consecrated it to Pythian Apollo and Olympian Zeus, giving orders that from its revenues the moneys should be paid back to the gods which he had taken from them.Cf. chapter xii. 3-6.
20.1
After this, learning that Flaccus, a man of the opposite faction, had been chosen consulWith Cinna, to succeed Marius, who died in 86 B.C. and was crossing the Ionian sea with an army, ostensibly against Mithridates, but really against himself, he set out towards Thessaly in order to meet him. But when he was come to the city of Meliteia, tidings reached him from many quarters that the regions behind him were ravaged again by an army of the king which was no smaller than the former.
