552]: but a tumult that immediately arose prevented the court from being convened. Publius Paetus and Cornelius Sulla (a nephew of that great Sulla) who had been appointed consuls and then convicted of bribery, plotted to kill their accusers, Gotta and Torquatus, Lucii, especially after the latter had been convicted in turn. Among others who had been suborned were Gnaeus Piso and Lucius Catiline, a man of great audacity; he had himself sought the office and was on this account inclined to anger. They were unable, however, to accomplish anything because the plot was announced beforehand and a body-guard given to Cotta and Torquatus by the senate. Indeed, a decree would have been pronounced against them, had not one of the tribunes opposed it. And since even so Piso showed signs of audacity, the senate being afraid he would cause some riot sent him straightway to Spain on the pretext that he was to look after some disorder.[-45-] He there met his death at the hands of natives whom he had wronged. Pompey was at first making ready to sail to Crete and to Metellus, and when he learned the decrees that had been passed pretended to be annoyed as before, and charged the members of the opposite faction with always loading business upon him so that he might meet some reverse. In reality he received the news with the greatest joy, and no longer regarding as of any importance Crete or the other maritime points wherever anything had been left unsettled, he made preparations for the war with the barbarians. Meanwhile, wishing to test the disposition of Mithridates, he sent Metrophanes bearing friendly proposals to him. Mithridates at that time held him in contempt; for Arsaces, king of the Parthians, having died about this period he expected to conciliate Phraates, his successor. But Pompey speedily contracted friendship with Phraates on the same terms and persuaded him to invade in advance the Armenia belonging to Tigranes. When Mithridates ascertained this he was alarmed and by means of an embassy immediately arranged a treaty. As for Pompey's command that he lay down his arms and deliver up the deserters, he had no chance to deliberate; for the large number of deserters who were in his camp hearing it and fearing they should be delivered up, and the barbarians fearing that they should be compelled to fight without them, raised an uproar. And they would have done some harm to the king, had he not by pretending falsely that he had sent the envoys not for the truce but to spy out the Roman troops, with difficulty kept them in check.