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XXVI. Now Perpenna, having got several to join him in his conspiracy, gained over Manlius, one of those who were in command. This Manlius was much attached to a beautiful boy, and to give the youth a proof of his attachment he told him of the design, and urged him not to care for his other lovers; but to give his affections to him alone, as he would be a great man in a few days.
Sardinia had been speedily wrested by Lucius Philippus from the governor of the revolutionary government Quintus Antonius , and Transalpine Gaul offered little or no resistance; but in Sicily, Spain, and Africa the cause of the party defeated in Italy seemed still by no means lost. Sicily was held for them by the trustworthy governor Marcus Perpenna.
Against these Pompeius was sent with a large force: and Perpenna immediately evacuated Sicily upon his arrival. Pompeius relieved the cities which had been harshly treated, and behaved kindly to them all except to the Mamertini in Messene.
Most of the officers fell in the battle; but Perpenna was brought to Pompeius, who ordered him to be put to death, in which he did not show any ingratitude, nor that he had forgotten what had happened in Sicily, as some say, but he displayed great prudence and a judgment that was advantageous to the commonweal.
However, he went presently to Perpenna, and giving him notice of the danger they were in, and of the shortness of their time, desired him immediately to put their designs in execution.
But meanwhile Metellus had come up, had overthrown the corps of Perpenna ranged against him, and taken his camp: it was not possible to resume the battle against the two armies united.
The consul Lupus impatiently pressed for a decision, and did not listen to the disagreeable advice of Marius that he should exercise his men unaccustomed to service in the first instance in petty warfare. At the very outset the division of Gaius Perpenna, 10,000 strong, was totally defeated.
"Perpenna, who had come into possession of the papers of Sertorius, offered," says Plutarch, "to produce letters from the chief men of Rome, who had desired to subvert the existing order and change the form of government, and had therefore invited Sertorius into Italy.
Nor were the Spaniards alone ambitious to serve him, but the Roman soldiers, also, that came out of Italy, were impatient to be under his command; and when Perpenna Vento, who was of the same faction with Sertorius, came into Spain with a quantity of money and a large number of troops, and designed to make war against Metellus on his own account, his own soldiers opposed it, and talked continually of Sertorius, much to the mortification of Perpenna, who was puffed up with the grandeur of his family and his riches.
And Pompey, fearing that these might be the occasion of worse wars than those which were now ended, thought it advisable to put Perpenna to death, and burnt the letters without reading them.
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