Chapter M: Livius Drusus (2)

When Sylla entered upon his consulship, no one seems to have had a foreboding of any danger threatening the republic from a civil war; and before he marched against Mithridates, he wished to put an end to the struggle in Italy. Nola then held out, we know not by what means: this part of the Social War is called _bellum Nolanum_, even as its beginning is called _bellum Marsicum_. This _bellum Nolanum_, however, was chiefly kept up by the Samnites who were still in arms; it was more of an insurrection in which there were no large armies. It was one of Sylla’s great qualities, not for any consideration to leave any undertaking unfinished, in which he had once embarked; and the war with Mithridates which was now impending, did not make him withdraw from Nola. While Sylla was still staying there, P. Sulpicius was tribune of the people at Rome: it is he who in Cicero’s books _de Oratore_, as a youth, takes a share in the conversation. Whatever may now have led this young man of high family thus unhappily astray,--personal hatred perhaps against Sylla,--it was with him that the calamities of Rome originated. He brought forward a motion that the command in the war against Mithridates should be transferred to Marius; for according to precedent (since the Hortensian law), the people had the right of settling the matter, even though the senate had already assigned the provinces. At the same time, he proposed that instead of forming the new citizens (by whom are meant the Latins, Etruscans and Umbrians) into fresh tribes, as had been intended, they should be distributed among the old ones. The new tribes were in fact to have voted after the others, as the _urbanæ_ did after the _rusticæ_, owing to which, as the _prærogativa_ had great weight, their rights were much curtailed. The new citizens might indeed have a vote in their turn; but they deemed it a mockery, that a right was granted them by which, nine times out of ten (the Roman tribes being almost always unanimous), they would not be called upon at all: for as soon as there was a clear majority, the votes were no longer taken. That eighteen polled against seventeen, was what very seldom happened. Sulpicius’ motion therefore was in one respect an injustice to the old citizens; yet Velleius Paterculus takes too harsh a view of the case: for, as most of those who were in the _tribus rusticæ_ lived far from Rome, and did not come to town at all, whilst, on the other hand, the _libertini_, who dwelt in the city itself, had got themselves enrolled among the _tribus rusticæ_, the measure must after all be termed a substantial improvement. A great deal therefore might have been said for and against it.

P. Sulpicius is very badly spoken of by Plutarch and Appian. That his conduct towards Sylla was unjustifiable, needs no further proof, and it is also possible that he did not act from pure motives; yet I cannot believe that he deserved to be so disparaged. The man of whom Cicero,--even though it be only from the recollections of his youth,--quite contrary to his usual feelings towards democrats, speaks with so much reverence, cannot have sunk so low. Sulpicius must, according to Cicero, have been a man of great refinement, and of the most brilliant genius; and though he may have allowed himself to be beguiled into acts of wickedness, Cicero could not indeed have looked upon the matter in such a bad light as the Greeks did. Cicero admires him also for his talents as a speaker: he had still heard him in his youth. Plutarch’s hatred of Sulpicius is not to be wondered at, as he followed the memoirs of Sylla who was most justly exasperated against him: yet for this very reason such statements are suspicious.

As the old citizens opposed the motions of Sulpicius,--for there is no longer any question of aristocrats and democrats,--Sulpicius called whole crowds of new citizens into the town to carry his laws by force. But as the bill for giving the command to Marius was tacked to them, Sylla resolved on taking up arms to prevent this. In former days, a man like Fabius Maximus Rullianus would perhaps with a bleeding heart have bowed himself to the will of fate; but those times were gone. That Sylla had recourse to arms, is a thing which, considering the age in which it was done, ought to be judged of with indulgence: he had to fear that Sulpicius and his party would not stop short, but that they would try and have his life. Calling together his soldiers near Nola, he pointed out to them that Marius would form a new army, and disband them, and thus the rich war would slip out of their grasp, and they would be left in disgrace: they resolved one and all to follow him to Rome. He marched with six legions along the Appian road; the senate, which was under the power of Sulpicius, stood aghast at the approach of an army, and sent delegates to enquire what he wanted. Sylla gave an evasive answer, but kept on advancing, and was joined by his colleague, Cn. Octavius.

Marius and Sulpicius had made preparations for a defence: but these were of little avail, as Rome was no fortress, and the eastern suburbs, which in fact were the most splendid quarters of the city, lay open. It was to no purpose that they closed the gates: for the walls afforded no longer any protection, having gone to ruin in some places, while in many others they could easily be climbed over from the suburbs, owing to the houses which were built against them on both sides, now that the town had so greatly increased. Even as late as the war with Hannibal, Rome might have still been defended; but this could now be done no more. Nor did Marius try to make a stand at the gates; he withdrew into the inner part of the city. There was some fighting at the Carinæ; but Sylla outflanked the enemy with his superior numbers, and he marched down the _Via sacra_ to the Forum, on which all dispersed. Marius and Sulpicius made their escape.

Sylla used his victory with moderation; so that at that time he appears in a favourable light: yet he unhappily sinned against the forms of the constitution by causing Marius and his son, Sulpicius and nine of their followers, to be outlawed. Sulpicius was seized and put to death, as were also one or two besides; but these were all. Marius escaped with his son to the sea-coast; came in a boat to Tarracina, where he was in danger of being given up; and from thence he went on to Minturnæ on the Liris: there he hid himself in a marsh, and was taken. The magistrate had him thrown into prison, and as a price had been set on his head, sent a _servus publicus_ to kill him. The latter, a Cimbric captive, affrighted at the sight of Marius, whom he recognised as his conqueror, ran away from him with a cry of terror at the fickleness of fortune. The decurions then let Marius go away in a boat; and he first went to Ischia, and from thence in a small vessel to Africa. Here he lived during the troubles which followed, among the ruins of Carthage, forgotten and unheeded: there was either no governor just then in Africa, or the proconsul must have belonged to his party. No one thought of seeking a refuge with Mithridates.

Sylla was so little of a tyrant as to leave the election of consuls for the next year free, owing to which men of both parties were chosen, Cn. Octavius (perhaps a son of the tribune M. Octavius), who belonged to that of Sylla, and L. Cornelius Cinna, who was on the side of Marius: which is another proof how utterly the division into patricians and plebeians was now forgotten, the democracy being headed by one of the Cornelii and one of the Valerii (L. Valerius Flaccus), downright demagogues, who trampled under foot every vested right. At the end of the year, Sylla, when he thought that he had put things in order, as the struggle with the Samnites was one that would last long, went over to Greece: there he carried on the war against Archelaus, who commanded the army of Mithridates.

To Q. Pompeius, the colleague of Sylla, the province of Italy was in the meanwhile given for the following year, that he might withstand Cinna, uphold Octavius, and end the Social War. Cn. Pompeius, the father of Cn. Pompeius Magnus, was still at that time with an army in Apulia, on the shores of the Adriatic. Of this Cn. Pompeius, Cicero says, _homo diis nobilitatique perinvisus_: he might also have said, _populo Romano_; for no one was more generally hated. He was a man of deep cunning and of crooked policy, like the men of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, especially in Italy. Neither party knew, whether he was for, or against them; nor was he for any of them, as in reality he was calculating how, at the end of all this confusion, the power might fall into his own hands. To this Cn. Pompeius, Q. Pompeius turned himself, to take the command from him. Cneius pretended to obey the senate, and to give up the _imperium_ to him; but he secretly set the soldiers against Quintus, who, when he wanted to make them take the oaths, was murdered, on which Cneius, under a shallow pretence of popularity, was compelled by the troops to resume the command;--a farce, like those played off in Spanish South America by Bolivar, and others of the same stamp. He then wrote to the senate, reporting what a calamity had befallen him, and asked to be confirmed in his command, that he might set on foot an enquiry, and do what he could for the welfare of the republic; a request which indeed they were weak enough to grant him. He was now at the head of this army, and he waited to see what would happen. Sylla being in Greece, the Samnites had time to take breath.

It was not long (665) before the breach between Cinna and Octavius became an open one. In Italy, owing to the transactions concerning the franchise, the Latins, Italians, and Etruscans had different interests. Cinna, who was evidently aiming at absolute power, stood forth as the leader of the Marian party, and offered the Italians, as a bait to win them over, that they should be distributed among the old tribes. The Samnites were still in arms, hoping to conquer Rome or to remain independent; and therefore they would not hear of accepting the citizenship: this, however, separated them from all the rest, who earnestly wished to have it. Cinna’s party consisted of the old Latin towns from Tibur to the neighbourhood of Capua, especially Tibur, Præneste, the Hernican towns, and several places between the Liris and the Vulturnus. He now demanded that all these should be distributed among the old tribes; nor can we understand, why Sylla with his political principles should not have been for this measure, as it indeed was the only effectual means of infusing a sort of aristocracy into democracy:--it may have been that those old shadows of tribes were the very things which he was attached to. The new citizens came thronging in crowds to Rome to carry the law, for they hoped to overawe the people by their numbers. Cn. Octavius declared himself against it, and there was a fight in the city, in which many of the new citizens were killed: ten thousand are said to have fallen; but I consider that number as quite uncertain. The senate had now the courage to oppose Cinna; but it was guilty of the irregularity of depriving him by a _senatus consultum_ of his consulship, which it had by no means the right of doing by itself: for according to the existing forms, the assent of the people was needed. Things had indeed come to such a pass, that the sovereignty of the people could not have been acknowledged any more; but in point of form, the step was certainly a revolutionary one. The war at Nola was still going on, that town being besieged by a Roman army which could not have been sufficient to overpower that of the Samnites. Thither Cinna went, and bribed the officers and soldiers. These had been taught by Sylla’s success what they could do; and they espoused his cause, and encouraged him to resume the consular _insignia_, to break the pride of the oligarchy, and to march to Rome and assert his dignity by force. It is very likely that a truce was concluded with the Samnites. To give a greater lustre to himself and his party, Cinna invited the aged Marius to return from Libya, and recalled the other outlaws. The old general came to Etruria, where he formed Etruscan cohorts, and gave freedom to all the slaves who joined him. Another man whom they called upon, was Q. Sertorius, a follower of Marius’ party, which he had joined from disgust to those who were ruling, though he kept himself quite clear of all the tyranny of the demagogues. He is one of the most spotless characters of that age: he was generous, open-hearted, and humane, free from the haughty exclusiveness of a Roman citizen, and gifted with all the qualities of a great general. He was in that position in which, at the outbreak of a revolution, the very best men will often find themselves, as they get involved at the beginning, and afterwards cannot go back, but without knowing what they are about, and against their own wishes, are made to share in the crimes which are sure to be committed at such times; yet he kept his hands unstained during the scenes of horror which he had to witness after the victory. Sertorius hastened to Cinna, who now marched with his army from Campania along the Appian road to Rome, as Sylla had done before. Cinna was joined by Carbo, a man deeply compromised in his guilt, who in the course of these events became notorious; and Marius likewise advanced from Etruria. In their distress, the senate called upon Cn. Pompeius for help; and the latter gave up the war on the shores of the Adriatic, and came to Rome. Octavius was encamped on the Janiculum; Pompeius, before the _Porta Collina_. For some time his conduct was so doubtful, that the senate only expected that he would betray them. Yet at last, a battle--probably an insignificant one--was fought with Cinna; and though the latter had the best of it, the senate had at least a pledge that Cn. Pompeius was serving them. A plague now broke out in both armies, each of which thus lost many thousands of soldiers. Pompeius also died of it: according to other accounts, he was struck within the camp by a flash of lightning. The people were so exasperated against him, that they tore his corpse from the bier, as it was passing through the city, and mutilated it.

Near Albano, at the foot of the Monte Cavo, there was another Roman army opposed by a rebel one. Latium, which formerly had dreadfully suffered in the Volscian and Samnite wars, but had enjoyed peace for more than two centuries, now got its death-blow. Ostia, Aricia, Lanuvium, and Antium, were taken by storm and laid waste by Marius; Tibur and Præneste joined him of their own accord. Rome was now hemmed in by four camps; and though these were indeed too weak to venture upon an assault, a terrible famine arose in the city, and both soldiers and commanders became so dispirited, that the senate determined upon parleying with Cinna, the very man whom it had denounced as a traitor. As he had not laid aside the consular _insignia_, he at once asked, whether he was treated with as consul; and to this the senate had to submit. Marius stood as a private individual by the side of the curule chair, with a sneering laugh, and with looks in which the delegates might have read their sentence of death. When it was stipulated that no blood should be shed, Cinna only gave the very ambiguous answer, that it should not be done with his wish; and on this he demanded that Merula, who had been chosen consul in his stead, should be deposed. To this humiliation also, the senate seems to have yielded. But Octavius, the other consul, would not give way: he betook himself with a small troop to the Janiculum, having the madness to think of defending himself. When Marius and Cinna entered the city, which was about the end of the year, the bloodshed immediately began, chiefly at Marius’ instigation. Cn. Octavius was cut down by the soldiers as soon as they had marched in; and L. Cornelius Merula, the _Flamen Dialis_, opened his veins and died near the altar of the temple of Jupiter.

Marius now had himself proclaimed consul for the seventh, and Cinna for the second time, without any election whatever. He had always hoped for this consulship which had been prophesied to him even from a child, when a nest, with seven young eagles in it, fell down into his lap from a tree which is called in Cicero Marius’ oak. His acquaintance also with the Syrian fortune teller may have led him to dwell upon the number seven, which was of high import among the Syrians and Jews, as was the number three with the Romans. The victory was followed up with the fellest cruelty: Marius had his body-guard of freed slaves which he sent out to murder people. All who were distinguished in the hostile party, the very flower of the senate, were put to death without any reason assigned, without even a proscription, on a bare order; especially his personal enemies, as the orators Antonius and Crassus. Q. Catulus, Marius’ colleague in the Cimbric war, was likewise marked out to die; but he killed himself: Marius’ conduct towards him is one of the most deplorable acts of that wretched man. Some very few persons of real worth were with Cinna, among whom was Sertorius, nor is Marius Gratidianus, a cousin of Marius, to be judged of too harshly; but Cinna, Carbo, and their friends were monsters, whereas those who were at the head of the other side, that of the senate, were the most refined, and, according to the standard of that corrupt age, the noblest of men.

The work of murder went on until Q. Sertorius prevailed upon Cinna, to have that band of assassins surrounded and put to the sword. Marius died in the middle of January, it would seem, a maniac, after having been consul for sixteen days. There now followed the rule of a faction, of which we know but little; the shedding of blood, however, was at an end.

Whilst Cinna was drawing near to the city with his army, the senate had given Metellus, who was stationed near Nola, full power to make peace with the Samnites on any terms. But the Samnites tried to drive the hardest possible bargain, not only demanding the franchise for themselves, the Campanians, and Lucanians, but also that the Romans should yield up their prisoners and deserters, without their doing the same on their side: on the contrary, the deserters, who abode with them were likewise to have the citizenship.[98] All this was granted by Metellus, and confirmed by Marius; and thus, when by a later law the Samnites had likewise become citizens, they were henceforth the main props of the party of Marius. The newly formed tribes were now done away with, and the citizens enrolled in the old tribes; whether in all of them, or in some only, is more than we know. In Cicero’s times, there is every reason to think that those Italian peoples which belonged to the same stock, were huddled together into one tribe; as, for instance, the Marsians and their neighbours in the _tribus Sergia_, and all the _municipia_ round Arpinum in the _Æmilia_. This seems to have been one of Sylla’s changes, who drew the Italians out of the tribes, to take away from them their preponderance.

Three years now passed away, during which Sylla carried on the war in Achaia and Asia, whilst in Italy, Cinna, who was at the helm of the state, was preparing to attack him. But the latter became more and more hated on account of his exactions; so that he mistrusted even his own party, and began to demand hostages, which, however, were refused him. L. Valerius Flaccus, his colleague after the death of Marius, had gotten the command against Mithridates, and had gone to Asia by Illyricum, Macedon, and Greece; and he himself was on the eve of marching into Greece against Sylla, having formed a large army near Ariminum, which was to follow. But the soldiers refused to go on this expedition, and a mutiny broke out in which Cinna was killed. After him ruled Cn. Papirius Carbo, who did not have a colleague chosen: he was nominally a consul, but in reality a tyrant.

THE FIRST MITHRIDATIC WAR. SYLLA RETURNS TO ROME. HIS DICTATORSHIP AND DEATH.

In the year 665, Sylla had gone to Achaia and Thessaly. At that time, Archelaus and Taxiles, the generals of Mithridates, were masters of the Peloponnesus, and of Greece south of Thermopylæ. Then Sylla won the battle of Chæronea from a countless host of Asiatics,--a battle which he surely could not have classed among those on which he rested his glory; for the Asiatics, who were a hundred thousand men, showed themselves as cowardly as ever were the troops of Indian princes. They were indeed drawn up in phalanx; but it was true of them what somebody has said with regard to those ingeniously prepared dishes in Lent, that fish, even when dressed by the very best of cooks, is after all nothing but fish. Sylla lost but a few men here and there. A different defence was made by Archelaus in the Piræeus. The walls between the city of Athens and its port had been destroyed, perhaps by Demetrius Poliorcetes, and as early as the siege by Antigonus Gonatas the communication seems not to have been free; but the huge walls of Themistocles, as restored by Conon, were still standing. In the Piræeus, where there was a Pontic garrison, Archelaus gallantly held out; in the city, the tyrant withstood the enemy with hired troops. Archelaus did everything in his power to supply Athens with provisions; but to no purpose, as he was baffled by the vigilance of Sylla, who far surpassed him in talent and resources. The distress in the city rose to such a height, that the inhabitants had no strength left; the circumference of the wall amounted to a German mile, and there were not men enough to defend it. The town was stormed, and a frightful slaughter ensued, as if the Athenians had been the deadliest enemies of the Romans. Afterwards the Piræeus also was taken. In Athens itself, few of the buildings were touched, not even the walls being destroyed: in the Piræeus, however, the walls, the noble arsenal, and other buildings, were completely demolished; so that from that time the place was like the decayed towns in the north of Holland, where the grass grows in the streets: Pausanias found only a small hamlet where it had stood. Athens was almost depopulated, and after this the saying of Lucan held good with regard to it, _Rarus et antiquis habitator in urbibus errat_.

Sylla now gained several other advantages, and drove the generals of the king of Pontus quite out of Europe into Asia. Even before him, L. Valerius Flaccus had come thither as proconsul; but he had been murdered by his quæstor or _legatus_, C. Flavius Fimbria, who took upon himself the _imperium_ in his stead. Mithridates, thus hemmed in between two armies which were hostile to each other, marched first against Fimbria who had destroyed Ilium. Sylla now concluded a peace which almost startles one’s belief. Mithridates abandoned all his conquests, and renounced all claim to Paphlagonia, Cappadocia, Bithynia, and Phrygia, thus confining himself to his hereditary dominions; moreover, he paid down two thousand talents, and yielded over seventy ships of war: in return for this, Sylla did not insist upon his advisers being given up. Sylla now pressed Fimbria so hard, that he took away his own life, and his soldiers went over to his rival, who, however, did not trust them, as they were as _contaminati cœde consulis_, and partizans of Marius: for most of them were certainly Italians, enlisted against Sylla at the time that Marius was in power. These soldiers still remained there, under the name of Valeriani, for many a year, until the days of Pompey and Lucullus; just as the soldiers of Cannæ had to stay so long in Sicily.

After having made this peace, he laid a fine on the Greeks and the Hellenized inhabitants of Asia Minor, the Ionians, Lydians, and Carians, who had murdered the Romans, even to the amount of five years’ taxes,--probably the arrears for the whole period of the war,--and a war contribution besides. This crushed them for a long time: but the countries in those parts may so truly be called an earthly paradise, that even under a bad government, be it only not so barbarous as that of the Turks, the land must, after a few generations, again be rich and thriving, and more so perhaps than any in the south of Europe. Thus they also then recovered, and under the emperors, they were most flourishing; but it had taken indeed several generations to set them up again: the first generation after the days of Sylla, was utterly ruined. An officer once told me, how he had seen a succession of countries, each finer than the other: first Rome; then Naples, which is much more blooming still; then the Peloponnesus, which in fertility and luxuriance of vegetation, is infinitely ahead of Naples; then Smyrna, which, beyond comparison, far surpasses all the rest. The contributions, which amounted to thirty millions (of Prussian dollars), were collected with the greatest harshness within a wonderfully short space. The Roman knights, who always followed in the train of the generals, now advanced the money at the rate of twenty-four, thirty-six, even forty-eight per cent., and afterwards enforced the payment of principal and interest with the help of the governors. This was the most frightful tyranny, the sword itself having wasted those countries not near so much as usury did: but Sylla, it is true, could not have carried on his war without money.

Sylla showed himself to be great indeed. His house was pulled down, and his property destroyed; his family had been obliged to fly the country; his friends were either murdered, or driven into banishment, and many of these last came to him, entreating him to return. Mithridates, moreover, would long since have concluded a peace which indeed would have been less advantageous to the Romans; but Sylla wished to bring the war quite to an end, and to get the most favourable terms possible, first taking care of the interests of his country, before he looked to his own. Thus he now returned with a victorious army which was proud of him, and attached to him, being also in possession of great pecuniary resources. He had not more than thirty thousand men, whereas there were opposed to him in the whole of the Italian peninsula as far as Gaul, four hundred and fifty cohorts, that is to say, more than a hundred and eighty thousand men: (for at that time armies were counted by cohorts of four hundred and twenty men, more rarely by legions.) And this was a party besides, which had to fight for its very existence, containing also the Samnites, who could not under any circumstances have concluded a peace with Sylla. This army he attacked in full reliance on his own strength and good fortune, and conducted the war in a manner which was most glorious to his fame.

When Sylla brought back his army to Italy, L. Cornelius Scipio and C. Norbanus Balbus were consuls: here also we again find patricians siding with the democrats. If any one of them had had dictatorial power, and had known how to make use of it; if therefore the military resources had been properly managed, Sylla must have been lost: for against the overwhelming numbers of the opposite party, his success would have been impossible. But the Roman state was at that time so disorganized, and the leaders after Marius’ death so incapable; that it was just as it was in France, in the year 1799, when the Directory was so helpless, that without Buonaparte’s return it would have been lost. Under such circumstances, rebellions multiply, as the people expect more from any change, than from the continuance of the existing state of things. Sylla reckoned on the incapacity of the chiefs of the opposite faction, and on the hatred which every one had had for their leaders: that now happened which the judicious Cælius Rufus writes to Cicero of the contest of Cæsar and Pompey.[99] Even of the new citizens, very many were filled with disgust and abhorrence against the actual government, and ready to go over to Sylla, if they had only a hope of being maintained in their rights: could the ruling party have relied on the bulk of the new citizens, and on part of the old ones, Sylla would certainly never have been victorious. He therefore, even while his first campaign was still going on, made an alliance with the new citizens in which he confirmed all their rights. Thus, when he landed at Brundusium, he was received with open arms. Preparations for attacking him had been talked of; but those ordered by Carbo, had miscarried owing to the general opposition. Sylla marched quite peacefully through Apulia; near Canusium,[100] if a statement which certainly is very likely, be correct, he had a battle indeed with the consul Norbanus, although it was but an insignificant one. The main force of the enemy, however, he found encamped near Capua, quite close to which city, in the neighbourhood of Mount Tifata, he once more defeated Norbanus; the very troops arrayed against him already went over to him by whole sections. When still in Greece, he had begun to treat, endeavouring to bring about a fair agreement without any exclusive rights for himself; and now he again entered into negotiations with the consul Scipio, and an armistice was concluded, and hostages given. But this truce was broken by Sertorius, because he saw that Sylla was only temporising that he might deceive the consuls and tamper with the soldiers: he therefore occupied Suessa which had declared for Sylla. The soldiers, however, partly from contempt for their general, and partly because they were dazzled by the renown of Sylla, went over to him in such numbers that Scipio was left quite alone. Towards the end of the year, when Sylla was gaining ground in the south of Italy, several of his partisans took up arms: Metellus Pius, in what is now the Romagna; Cn. Pompeius (Pompey),--who afterwards got the surname of Magnus, and was then twenty-three years of age,--in Picenum, where his influence was great, as that district, which had been subjected by his father, stood in a kind of clientship to him; M. Lucullus and several others. Their party and their forces consisted in some degree of old Romans, but mostly of new citizens; Metellus, however, may have had with him a greater number of the older ones from Cisalpine Gaul and the Romagna.

The beginning of the next year was most bloody and decisive. Marius the younger, said to have been a son or nephew of C. Marius (very likely an adopted son), a young man about twenty-seven years of age, was consul with Cn. Papirius Carbo. The latter took the command in northern Etruria and in the neighbourhood of Ariminum, especially against Metellus, Pompey, and Lucullus; Marius was stationed at the frontier of Latium, whither Sylla came from Campania where he had passed the winter. Here the decisive battle near Sacriportus was fought, probably on the road from Segni to Palestrina, hard by the latter place: perhaps there was only a defile. Marius had concentrated thither all the troops which belonged to him, most of which were Samnites, that he might cover Rome; and so long as he held this position, Sylla could not march by the Appian road against the city. All this country, as well as Etruria, was the stronghold of Cinna’s party, the Latin towns there being most zealous in the cause: the rest of the Italians, on the other hand, with the exception of the Samnites and Lucanians, seem to have been lukewarm, even when they did not keep aloof. Thus at Sacriportus, Sylla gained a decisive victory, and, it is said, with very little loss to himself. Marius fled to the strong town of Præneste, which was quite devoted to him, and was also at that time a very large place; the Palestrina of the present day, a town of six thousand inhabitants, is but a part of the ancient _arx_, and lies within the precincts of the temple of _Fortuna_. Here Sylla hemmed in his conquered foes, intrusting the siege to Q. Lucretius Ofella, who blockaded and starved the city in which, besides the Prænestines, there were old Romans, and Samnites.

Sulla himself marched upon Rome. As yet, he displayed great moderation; nay, had it not been for the infatuation of his opponents, he would perhaps have made up his mind to settle affairs without bloodshed: but these were quite drunk with rage; for there was a fanaticism among them, just as there was at the destruction of Jerusalem. Even in the last days of the rule of Cinna’s party, the prætor Damasippus had all the partisans of Sylla, whether open or suspected, put to death, particularly the senators: among those who were thus murdered, was the venerable _pontifex maximus_, Q. Mucius Scævola, who, being conscious of his innocence, had not left the city. But as this fury after all did not give them strength to defend the city, the leaders made their escape. Rome opened her gates to Sylla, and he promised moderation; but his moderation had a terrible meaning. He first went to Etruria, where Carbo was: on the side of the Etruscans, the war was truly a national one, as Sylla took away from them the rights of citizenship which had been granted them: the details of this campaign are shrouded in impenetrable darkness. Carbo had posted himself near Clusium, from whence he made two vain attempts to relieve Præneste; he also engaged in other expeditions which were equally unsuccessful, as, for instance, that against Picenum, in which Carinas was concerned. The troops of the Marian party dwindled to nothing under his hands, desertion spreading more and more among them. Of this there were many cases which are quite inconceivable. Even at the very outset, P. Cethegus, one of the twelve who were outlawed with Marius, had surrendered himself to the mercy of Sylla; and Albinovanus, to make his peace with him likewise, now murdered his colleagues and legates at a banquet.

The last effort was made by Pontius Telesinus, whose brother commanded with Marius the Samnites in Præneste. He and the Lucanian M. Lamponius, had tried to relieve Præneste, and had failed; after which, believing Sylla to be out of the way, they marched in all haste to surprise Rome: but Sylla heard of it, and came up just in time to ward off the danger. Had they been successful, they would have destroyed Rome; but the very fear of this must have roused the Romans to exert themselves to the utmost. There were said to have been forty thousand Samnites and Lucanians; the dread of such allies led many a partisan of Marius to fight under the banners of Sylla. The terrible battle near the Porta Collina now followed, by which the fate of the world was decided; and it was only after fortune had long wavered, and had often been in favour of the Samnites, that Sylla in the evening of the day broke through the ranks of the enemy: so great was their defeat, that Telesinus died by his own hand. After such a blow, Marius also, and the younger Telesinus in Præneste, gave themselves up for lost. They tried to escape from the town by passages under ground which led into the open fields; but the outlets were guarded, and so they both killed each other. Of the son of Marius, we cannot say as we did of the father, “he was a great man:” he was rather a dreadful man; he had the faults of his father, without any of his great qualities but that of perseverance, in which, under such circumstances, there is nothing so very wonderful. Carbo also soon fled from his men to Africa. Unless perhaps in Spain, the party had no longer an army; and in Italy, although single towns still held out, the war was virtually at an end.

Eight thousand Samnites had been taken prisoners in the battle before the Colline gate; and Sylla had them surrounded with troops in the Campus Martius, and cut down to a man. When also, after the death of the younger Marius, Præneste surrendered at discretion, he caused the Roman citizens, the Prænestines, and the Samnites, to be divided into three bodies: to the first he granted their lives; but the Prænestines and Samnites he ordered to be shot down with javelins. The Etruscan towns yielded to him one after another, and met with the same fate as Præneste, besides being razed to the ground. Thus also fared Clusium, Aretium, Populonia, and Volaterræ; the latter after a two years’ siege. So perished likewise all the larger towns of Etruria; with the exception perhaps of Fæsulæ, which, however, may also have been rebuilt afterwards.

At Rome, Sylla now held absolute sway, and although until then had been humane, he all at once showed himself at length a bloodthirsty monster. For he gave for the first time the example of a proscription; that is to say, he made out a list of all those whom not only any one might kill with impunity, but on whose head moreover a price was set. There were among his victims few indeed who were to be compared to those whom Marius and Cinna massacred; but in the extent of suffering inflicted, nothing could surpass the revenge of Sylla, who visited even whole peoples with his wrath. That proscription affected the lives of several thousands; two thousand four hundred knights[101] are said to have been in it: that so many had been on the list, seems doubtful. Twenty-three (according to another, but probably incorrect statement, forty-three,) legions had military colonies allotted them. The first colonies of Rome were settlements, in which one of every _gens_ was placed to garrison the conquered towns; these men had a third part of the land, and, of course, they kept themselves under arms. The Latin colonies were divided between the Romans and Latins: very likely, every one who belonged to them had served as a soldier; but this was only an accidental circumstance, that colonisation being no special reward for military service. After the second Punic war, we meet with the first instances of the _ager publicus_ being assigned to superannuated soldiers; and in Bononia alone there are signs of a still continuing obligation to serve in war, a difference being made there between the lots given to horsemen, centurions, foot-soldiers, &c. Sylla’s are the first true military colonies, a system by which the inhabitants of some particular town were stripped of the whole of their land, and some legion or other, which was now discharged, was to form the population there: should the territory of the town not be sufficient, there was added to it from the adjoining districts as much as was required. Thus the soldiers gained a right of having land assigned to them, a right to which in former days plebeianism only could give a title. According to an old and extremely plausible Florentine tradition,--which cannot indeed be traced to any classic author, but which is all but proved by an old reading in the orations of Cicero against Catiline,[102]--we may say that Florence has risen as such a military colony out of the old Fæsulæ; thus it was also with New Aretium and several places of Etruria, with Præneste and other towns, of which, however, few only can be ascertained by satisfactory evidence; in these cases, the inhabitants had almost everywhere been murdered. These legions were the corner-stone of Sylla’s power. Something of the same kind was done in places where the old inhabitants were not exterminated: the new comers became κληροῦχοι, whilst the old residents had to pay a land tax for the allotments which they still retained. This was especially the fate of the old Latin colonies. Those which did not fare thus, had by the _lex Julia_ become _municipia_, and remained as such; those, on the other hand, which Sylla had proscribed, were now called _coloniæ_, not, however _Latinæ_, but _Romanæ militares_,--Sylla’s military colonies. These are the _coloniæ_ of which Pliny[103] speaks, and which always have been mistaken. This matter was an obscure one even for the ancients: Asconius Pedianus, a writer of first-rate historical learning, did not in his time understand how Cicero could have called Placentia a colony, when it had become a _municipium_.[104] Nearly the whole of Etruria became a wilderness, and the towns which had not been turned into military colonies, lay in ruins as late as in the days of Augustus. The Samnite nation he had all but rooted out, the whole of the Hirpinian country being laid waste: all that had been made _ager publicus_, was left by him to his favourites.

A marked feature of Sylla is a sort of fantastic activity. He looked upon himself as born to be the achiever of great things, especially as a reformer: he was aware of the disorganized condition of the nation; but he did not know that when what is old is worn out, the only thing to be done, is to create, in the spirit of the ancient institutions, new ones which are suited to the age. What Sylla wanted to do, could have been of no avail whatever: it was the restoring of what was dead, the return to a state of things which had fallen away because the life had fled from it;--he recalled the old forms of the republic into existence, and believed that they had strength enough to stand. He thought (as in Tieck’s World Turned Upside Down) that he could push the world back to the point at which in his opinion it ought to have stopped. Moreover, he deemed himself called upon to rule; and therefore he stuck at nothing, as he held that he was above all these forms, so that they did not affect him in the least.

He reorganised the senate, which was fearfully diminished after the many executions. It might have been expected that he would have tried to restore it from the ranks of the old nobility; yet instead of doing so, he selected the new senators--with a remarkable inconsistency, which shows that notwithstanding all his arbitrary rule, he was swayed by circumstances--not only from the knights, but also from his own low-born centurions, who were ready, it is true, to lay down their lives for him. He had not the elements of an aristocracy at hand: the party, which really had vitality, influence, and refinement of mind and manners, being that of the monied classes, the knights and the Italian _municipia_. These he hated and wanted to crush; and as in such cases, one has usually recourse to the rabble, thus Sylla, true to the example of all oligarchs and counter-revolutionists, filled up with the lowest of the people his senate which was a mere skeleton, and ought most naturally to have been recruited from the rich class of the _equites_; this was just as in the year 1799 at Naples, when the dregs of the populace were armed. Whilst wishing to save the republic by forms, he began by departing from them himself.

As long as his influence lasted, even for four years running, a patrician and a plebeian were regularly made consuls; before that plebeians alone had often been chosen for four or five years in succession: beyond this Sylla durst not go, as all the leaders of his party were plebeians. This was indeed quite a childish arrangement.

The tribuneship he brought back to its original state, as it was before the Publilian law of the year 283; which was as much as going back four hundred years. For he took away from the tribunes the right of bringing bills into the assembly of the people, and revived the old way of making laws: these were now proposed by the consuls, and passed by the senate and the centuries. One might wonder at his not having restored the curies; yet he could not do this, as they were so changed that he would have had in them a democratical assembly. As he neglected every means which ought to have been tried for raising the state again to a healthy condition, he despaired of all gradual improvement, and therefore he rushed headlong into violent measures and all kinds of makeshifts. Much might be said for his changes in the tribuneship, as at that time the office could no longer be made available for good: it had become a nuisance, every one cried out against it; and so the tribunes were henceforth to be only _ad auxilium ferendum_. No tribune of old could have been allowed to have a curule office, as he was a plebeian; and therefore Sylla, wishing in this respect also to retrograde, lessened the influence of the tribunes by enacting that no tribune, after having laid down his magistracy, should fill any office which was a stepping-stone to the senate.

To secure himself still further, he deprived the children of those who had been proscribed, of part of their rights as citizens, that is to say, of eligibility to hold office. This unjust law remained many years in force until Cæsar repealed it.

The administration of justice he gave back to the senators. The knights had employed the power which they had acquired by the exercise of such jurisdiction, entirely against the nobility. The senators should now have taken some care to do away with the old reproaches made against them, by judging righteously; but the courts were never as venal as they were then. Sylla’s faction so basely and infamously abused the advantages which they had gained, that they cut their own throats; and had it not been for the military colonies, a heavy vengeance would soon have been wreaked upon them.

Sylla was a very active legislator, nor are every one of his enactments to be found fault with. For though he showed great want of sense in his constitutional measures, in those which were administrative, as in criminal legislation, he did things which prove that he had excellent advisers; in fact, he was the first who placed these matters on even a tolerable footing. And for the management also of criminal trials, his regulations were real improvements. He likewise made a _lex annalis_ to settle the order in which the different offices were to be held.

Moreover, it is one of Sylla’s changes that there was a considerable increase in the number of the magistracies and priesthoods. In the earliest times, the pontificate consisted of four members, two from each of the oldest tribes, besides the _pontifex maximus_: so it was with the augurs. Afterwards, the number of the pontiffs was, by the addition of four plebeian ones,[105] raised to nine, in which the _Pontifex Maximus_ was included, his office being common to both orders; the augurs were also increased, as it was still intended in those days that the two orders should share the priestly dignities alike. It cannot be stated with certainty, when this was no longer done; yet it must have been before the _Lex Domitia_. Sylla himself thought no more of dividing these between the patricians and plebeians; so much did the power of circumstances prevail over the crotchets which he otherwise used to form! He suspended the _lex Domitia_; restored to the priestly colleges the right of co-optation; and raised the number of the pontiffs[106] and augurs to fifteen.

This had no material influence on the state; but certainly the great increase of the prætors and quæstors had. By his reforms of the criminal law, he assigned to the prætors the _quæstiones perpetuæ_; and because the vast extent of the commonwealth had now made many more accountants necessary, he raised the establishment of quæstors to twenty. Thus there was a considerable multiplication of curule and other dignities. The senate he enlarged to six hundred;[107] and now every year, more as a matter of course than by any wish of his, the twenty quæstors came into it, forming the thirtieth part of the whole body. As no one was quæstor more than once, its numbers were almost always full, and thus the censors all but lost their power of choosing the members. Thus the question whether the senate was elective, is placed in quite a different light. The senate is never to be looked upon as a representative body, unless it were in the very earliest times, when it was elected directly by the curies; its being filled up by the quæstors, makes it indeed an elective assembly.

Sylla had a body-guard of freedmen whom he called Cornelians, and these soon became most powerful people. That at that time, anybody in the country towns who had either interest or connexions with these Cornelians, especially with Chrysogonus, Sylla’s favourite, might do whatever he listed, and even commit murder; is borne out by the evidence of Cicero’s orations _pro Sexto Roscio Amerino_ and _pro Cluentio_. The state of things in those days, was horrible and shocking beyond description.

Sylla gave all these laws as dictator, which, after the deaths of Marius and Carbo, he had caused himself to be made for an indefinite period by the interrex L. Valerius Flaccus. It was thought that he would never again lay down the dictatorship; but he held it only two years. He was tired of every thing around him: he would either have had to wage wars abroad, for which perhaps he felt that he was too old, and for which he had no longer any taste; or he must have gone on with reforms at home, though he thought that this had been done already as far as it was practicable.[108] For this reason he resigned the dictatorship, a step which was not by any means so very bold as it would seem; for the condition of the republic, the utter prostration of the enemy, and his military colonies insured his safety. He went to Puteoli, where he was attacked by that most dreadful of all diseases, the phthiriasis: his whole body became full of boils which bred vermin. This in all likelihood is no romance: the chief cases of this disorder are those of tyrants, like Philip II., Herod the king of the Jews, Antiochus Epiphanes, and of land-owners who have ground down their peasants; but the philosopher Pherecydes likewise had it. Though Sylla’s strength was wasted away by this sickness, his death was brought on by an accident, and it was most lucky for him that he died before the whole of the machinery which he had created fell to pieces. He thought, that in Puteoli he might even lead history astray, and make posterity believe that all his measures had only been overthrown by the bad management of those who came after him; yet he still ruled the state, even from thence, by means of his trembling creatures who could not do without him. He amused himself at Puteoli with the legislation of the place, wishing to seem as if he were nothing more than a plain citizen, yet for all that his will was to be law: being contradicted one day, he got into such a rage that he broke a blood vessel and died, at the age of sixty. Even if his death had happened ten years later, his last days would have been peaceful: the party against him was crushed, the tribunes were paralysed, and the whole of Italy was occupied by military colonies on whose devotion he could rely. His body was brought to Rome; and the pomp of his burial, which was not inferior to that of Augustus, shows that his rule was not dependent on his person, nor on the circumstances of the moment.

LITERATURE. MANNERS AND MODE OF LIVING.