V. Sulla now thought that his military reputation entitled him to aspire to a political career, and accordingly as soon as the campaign was ended he began to seek the favour of the people, and became a candidate for the prætorship; but he was disappointed in his expectations. He attributed his failure to the populace, for he says that they knew he was a friend of Bocchus, and if he filled the office of ædile before that of prætor, they expected to have brilliant hunting exhibitions and fights of Libyan[172] wild beasts, and that therefore they elected others to the prætorship, with the view of forcing him to serve as ædile. But that Sulla does not state the real cause of his failure appears evident from what followed. In the next year he obtained the prætorship, having gained the votes of the people, partly by solicitation and partly by bribery. It was in allusion to this, and during his prætorship when he was threatening Cæsar[173] to use his own authority against him, that Cæsar replied with a laugh, You are right in considering your authority as your own, for you bought it. After the expiration of his prætorship he was sent to Cappadocia, for the purpose, as it was given out, of restoring Ariobarzanes[174] to his power, but in reality to check Mithridates,[175] who was very active and was acquiring new territory and dominion as extensive as what he already had. Sulla took with him no large force of his own, but meeting with zealous co-operation on the part of the allies, he slaughtered a great number of the Cappadocians, and on another occasion a still greater number of Armenians who had come to the relief of the Cappadocians, drove out Gordius, and declared Ariobarzanes king. While he was staying near the Euphrates, the Parthian general Orobazus, a commander of King Arsaces,[176] had an interview with him, which was the first occasion on which the two nations met; and this also may be considered as one of the very fortunate events in Sulla's successful career, that he was the first Roman to whom the Parthians addressed themselves in their request for an alliance and friendship with Rome. Sulla is said to have had three chairs placed, one for Ariobarzanes, another for Orobazus, and a third for himself, on which he took his seat between the two, while the business was transacted. The king of the Parthians is said to have put Orobazus to death for submitting to this indignity; as to Sulla, some commended him for his haughty treatment of the barbarians, while others blamed him for his arrogance and ill-timed pride. It is said there was a man among the attendants of Orobazus, a Chaldæan,[177] who examined the countenance of Sulla and observed the movements of his mind and body, not as an idle spectator, but studying his character according to the principles of his art, and he declared that of necessity that man must become the first of men, and he wondered that he could endure not to be the first already. On