[230] This was Aulus Gabinius, who was sent by Sulla B.C. 81 with orders to L. Licinius Murena to put an end to the war with Mithridates. Ericius is not a Roman name: perhaps it should be Hirtius.
[231] This is Juba II., king of Mauritania, who married Cleopatra, one of the children of Marcus Antonius by Cleopatra, queen of Egypt. Juba was a scholar and an author: he is often quoted, by Strabo, Plinius (Nat Hist.), and other writers.
[232] "Our city" will explain why Plutarch has described the campaign in the plains of Bœotia at such length. Plutarch's battles are none of the best; and he has done well in making them generally short.
[233] The cave of Trophonius was at Lebadeia in Bœotia. Pausanias (ix. 39) has given a full account of the singular ceremonies used on consulting the deity.
[234] The word is ὀμφῆς, literally "voice," which has caused a difficulty to the translators; but the reading is probably right.
[235] This was Lucius Licinius Murena, who conducted the war against Mithridates in Asia B.C. 83 as Proprætor. He was the father of the Lucius Murena in whose defence we have an extant oration of Cicero.
[236] The old story is well told by Ovidius (Metamorphoses, iii. 14, &c.)
[237] A temple of the Muses.
[238] Kaltwasser has followed the reading "Gallus" in his version, though, as he remarks in a note, this man is called Galba by Appian (Mithridat. War, 43), and he is coupled with Hortensius, just as in Plutarch.
[239] This clumsy military contrivance must generally have been a failure. These chariots were useless in the battle between Cyrus and his brother Artaxerxes B.C. 401. (Xenophon, Anabasis, i. 8.) Appian (Mithridatic War, c. 42) mentions sixty of these chariots as being driven against the Romans, who opened their ranks to make way for them: the chariots were surrounded by the Roman soldiers in the rear and destroyed.