That Sertorius had formed connections with the Italian and Macedonian enemies of Rome, cannot be distinctly affirmed, although he certainly was in constant intercourse with the Marians in Italy.

With the pirates, on the other hand, he had previously formed an avowed league, and with the Pontic king-- with whom he had long maintained relations through the medium of the Roman emigrants staying at his court--he now concluded a formal treaty of alliance, in which Sertorius ceded to the king the client-states of Asia Minor, but not the Roman province of Asia, and promised, moreover, to send him an officer qualified to lead his troops, and a number of soldiers, while the king, in turn, bound himself to transmit to Sertorius forty ships and 3000 talents (720,000 pounds).

The wise politicians in the capital were already recalling the time when Italy found itself threatened by Philip from the east and by Hannibal from the west; they conceived that the new Hannibal, just like his predecessor, after having by himself subdued Spain, could easily arrive with the forces of Spain in Italy sooner than Pompeius, in order that, like the Phoenician formerly, he might summon the Etruscans and Samnites to arms against Rome.
Collapse of the Power of Sertorius But this comparison was more ingenious than accurate.

Sertorius was far from being strong enough to renew the gigantic enterprise of Hannibal.

He was lost if he left Spain, where all his successes were bound up with the peculiarities of the country and the people; and even there he was more and more compelled to renounce the offensive.