XXII. Metellus also showed, that he feared the man and thought he was powerful; for he made proclamation, that if any Roman killed Sertorius he would give him a hundred talents of silver and twenty thousand jugera of land; and, if he was an exile, permission to return, to Rome: thus declaring that he despaired of being able to defeat Sertorius in the field, and therefore would purchase his life by treachery. Besides this, Metellus was so elated by a victory which on one occasion he gained over Sertorius, and so well pleased with his success, that he was proclaimed Imperator[159] and the cities received him in his visits to them with sacrifices and altars. It is also said, that he allowed chaplets to be placed on his head, and accepted invitations to sumptuous feasts, at which he wore a triumphal vest; and Victories[160] which were contrived to move by machinery, descended and distributed golden trophies and crowns, and companies of youths and women sang epinician hymns in honour of him. For this he was with good reason ridiculed, for that after calling Sertorius a runaway slave of Sulla, and a remnant of the routed party of Carbo, he was so puffed up and transported with delight because he had gained an advantage over Sertorius, who had been compelled to retire. But it was a proof of the magnanimous character of Sertorius, first, that he gave the name of Senate to the Senators who fled from Rome and joined him, and that he appointed quæstors and generals from among them, and arranged everything of this kind according to Roman usage; and next, that though he availed himself of the arms, the money and the cities of the Iberians, he never yielded to them one *tittle of the Roman supremacy, but he appointed Romans to be their generals and commanders, considering that he was recovering freedom for the Romans, and was not strengthening the Iberians against the Romans; for Sertorius loved his country and had a great desire to return home. Notwithstanding this, in his reverses he behaved like a brave man, and never humbled himself before his enemies; and after his victories he would send to Metellus and to Pompeius, and declare that he was ready to lay down his arms and to live in a private station, if he might be allowed to return home; for, he said, he would rather be the obscurest citizen in Rome than an exile from his country, though he were proclaimed supreme ruler of all other countries in the world. It is said, that he longed to return home chiefly on account of his mother, who brought him up after his father's death, and to whom he was completely devoted. At the time when his friends in Iberia invited him to take the command, he heard of the death of his mother, and he was near dying of grief. He lay in his tent for seven days without giving the watchword, or being seen by any of his friends; and it was with difficulty that his fellow-generals and those of like rank with himself, who had assembled about his tent, prevailed on him to come