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[69]
Mithridates had been in collision with the Romans so often that he knew that this war, so inexcusably and hastily begun, would be an implacable one. He made every preparation with the thought that all was at stake. The remainder of the summer and the whole of the winter he spent in cutting timber, building ships, and making arms. He distributed 2,000,000 medimni
1 of corn along the coast. Besides his former forces he had for allies the Chalybes, Armenians, Scythians, Taurians, Achæans, Heniochi, Leucosyrians, and those who occupy the territory about the river Thermodon, called the country of the Amazons. These additions to his former strength were from Asia. From Europe he drew of the Sarmatian tribes, both the Basilidæ and the Jazyges, the Coralli, and those Thracians who dwelt along the Danube and on the Rhodope and Hæmus mountains, and besides these the Bastarnæ, the bravest nation of all. Altogether Mithridates recruited a fighting force of about 140,000 foot and 16,000 horse. A great crowd of road-makers, baggage-carriers, and sutlers followed.
