[167] See Marius, c. 10.
[168] Tribunus Militum, a military tribune. Plutarch translates the term by Chiliarchus, a commander of a thousand. At this time there were six tribunes to a Roman legion.
[169] The Tectosages were a Celtic people who lived at the foot of the Pyrenees west of Narbo (Narbonne).
[170] Mannert (Geographie der Griechen und Römer, Pt. iii. p. 216) wishes to establish that these Marsi were a German nation, who lived on both sides of the Lippe and extended to the Rhine, and not the warlike nation of the Marsi who inhabited the central Apennines south-east of Rome. This is the remark of Mannert as quoted by Kaltwasser; but I do not find it in the second edition of Mannert (Pt. iii. 168), where he is treating of the German Marsi.
[171] The passage is in the Phœnissæ of Euripides, v. 531 &c.:
Why seek the most pernicious of all dæmons,
Ambition, O my son? Not so; unjust the goddess,
And houses many, many prosperous states
She enters and she quits, but ruins all.
[172] The exhibition of wild animals in the Roman games was now become a fashion. In the latter part of the Republic it was carried to an enormous extent: the elephant, the rhinocerous, the lion, and other wild animals, were brought from Africa to Rome for these occasions. When Sulla was prætor B.C. 93, he exhibited one hundred lions in the Circus, which were let loose and shot with arrows by archers whom King Bocchus sent for the purpose. (Plinius, N.H. viii. 16, Seneca, De Brevitate Vitæ, c. 13.) There was an old decree of the Senate which prohibited the importation of African wild beasts, but it was repealed by a measure proposed by the tribune Cn. Aufidius so far as to render the importation legal for the games of the Circus.
Plutarch speaks of Sulla as immediately canvassing for the prætorship after his return to Rome. The dates show that at least several years elapsed before he succeeded.
[173] Probably Sextus Julius Cæsar, consul B.C. 91, and the uncle of the Dictator, C. Julius Cæsar.
[174] Ariobarzanes I. called Philoromæus, or a lover of the Romans, was elected king of Cappadocia B.C. 93, but he was soon expelled by Tigranes, king of Armenia, the son-in-law of Mithridates. Ariobarzanes applied for help to the Romans, and he was restored by Sulla B.C. 92. He was driven out several times after, and again restored by the Romans.