Please note that Mommsen uses the AUC chronology (Ab Urbe Condita), i.e. from the founding of the City of Rome. You can use this reference table to have the B.C. dates
The result in the two cases was different. The annexation
of Cyprus was decreed in 696 by the people, that is, by the leaders
of the democracy, the support given to piracy by the Cypriots
being alleged as the official reason why that course should
now be adopted. Marcus Cato, entrusted by his opponents
with the execution of this measure, came to the island without an army;
but he had no need of one.
The king took poison; the inhabitants
submitted without offering resistance to their inevitable fate,
and were placed under the governor of Cilicia. The ample treasure
of nearly 7000 talents (1,700,000 pounds), which the equally
covetous and miserly king could not prevail on himself to apply
for the bribes requisite to save his crown, fell along with the latter
to the Romans, and filled after a desirable fashion the empty vaults
of their treasury.
