Page:Frontinus - The stratagems, and, the aqueducts of Rome (Bennet et al 1925).djvu/197

 STRATAGEMS, II. v. 29-30

as they scurried in terror from tlieir cainp, and also, by laying ambuscades, to catch the Carthaginians, who, he knew, would rush forward to assist their allies. Both plans succeeded. For when the enemy rushed forward unarmed, thinking the conflagration accidental, Scipio fell upon them and cut them to pieces.^

Mithridates, after repeated defeats in battle at the hands of LucuUus, made an attempt against his life by treachery, hiring a certain Adathas, a man of extraordinary strength, to desert and to perpetrate the deed, so soon as he should gain the confidence of the enemy. This plan the deserter did his best to execute, but his efforts failed. For, though admitted by Lucullus to the cavalry troop, he was quietly kept under surveillance, since it was neither well to put trust at once in a deserter, nor to prevent other deserters from coming. After this fellow had exhibited a ready and earnest devotion on repeated raids, and had won confidence, he chose a time when the dismissal of the staff-officers brought with it repose throughout the camp, and caused the general's headquarters to be less frequented. Chance favoured Lucullus ; for where- as the deserter expected to find Lucullus awake, in which case he would have been at once admitted to his presence, he actually found him at that time fast asleep, exhausted with revolving plans in his mind the night before. Then w^hen Adathas pleaded to be admitted, on the ground that he had an un- expected and imperative message to deliver, he was kept out by the determined efforts of the slaves, who were concerned for their master's health. Fearing consequently that he was an object of