Mithridates raged. He had been torn from sleep by screams at the farthest end of his camp. His own tent was in the mouth of the narrow pass, and as his sleepy mind cleared, he realized they were under attack from the safe side, where he knew his men had cleared out Roman settlements all the way from the encampment to the frightened cities along the eastern coast.

His ten thousand men covered a vast stretch of the valley, and by the time he had brought his captains to the scene of the attack and begun restoring order, the Romans were gone.

Grimly, they tallied the dead. The officers who survived estimated a full five thousand had come against them, leaving more than a thousand Greek dead on the ground. Mithridates roared in frustration as he saw the bodies piled in tents, killed before they even had a chance to face the enemy. It was carnage and he knew again the frustration he had felt when Sulla had come for him years before.

How could they have got behind him? he wondered silently as he walked amongst the ungainly dead. He looked into the dark scrub and was overcome with anger, throwing his sword into the night. The darkness swallowed it almost as soon as it left his hand.

“The sentries are dead, sir,” an officer reported.

Mithridates looked at him with eyes made red from smoke and interrupted sleep.

“Post more and break the camp ready for a dawn march. I want them hunted down.” As the man ran to fulfill his orders, Mithridates looked again at the desolation around him. A thousand men had been lost and he had seen only a few of the Romans on the ground amongst them. Why did they retreat? Whichever legion it was, it looked as if they could have run right over the camp before light came, such had been the panic and disarray of his men. Where would they be safe, if not in the heart of their own land, their own camp?

When he had retired that night, it had been with the confidence of leading the biggest army he had ever gathered, ever seen. Now he knew he would not sleep again without fear that their strength would be mocked, their lives cut from them with savage ease. He watched the faces around him, seeing the fading shock and terror, and doubt crept into him. He’d thought himself surrounded by lions, but found they were lambs.