17.5
Presently the Romans, who were forcing the pursuit, were hard upon him, and it was for no lack of speed that they did not take him. Indeed, they were very near doing so, but greed, and petty soldier’s avarice, snatched from them the quarry which they had so long pursued in many struggles and great dangers, and robbed Lucullus of the victor’s prize.
17.6
For the horse which carried the king was just within reach of his pursuers, when one of the mules which carried the royal gold came between him and them, either of his own accord, or because the king purposely sent him into the path of pursuit. The soldiers fell to plundering and collecting the gold, fought with one another over it, and so were left behind in the chase.
17.7
Nor was this the only fruit of their greed which Lucullus reaped. He had given orders that Callistratus, who was in charge of the king’s private papers, should be brought alive to him, but his conductors, finding that he had five hundred pieces of gold in his girdle, slew him. However, Lucullus allowed such soldiers as these to plunder the enemy’s camp.
18.1
In capturing Cabira and most of the other strongholds, he found great treasures, and many prisons, in which many Greeks and many kinsfolk of the king were confined. As they had long been given up for dead, it was not so much a rescue as it was a resurrection and a sort of second birth, for which they were indebted to the favour of Lucullus.
18.2
Nyssa, a sister of Mithridates, was also captured; and her capture was her salvation. But the sisters and wives of the king who were thought to be at farthest remove from danger and quietly hidden away in Pharnacia, perished pitifully, since Mithridates paused long enough in his flight to send Bacchides, a eunuch, to compass their death. Among many other women, there were two sisters of the king, Roxana and Statira, about forty years old and unmarried; and two of his wives, of Ionian families, Berenicé from Chios, and Monimé, a Milesian.
