The Italians, being deprived of the support of Drusus, were more than ever oppressed, and the multitude, whom it is customary to regard as synonymous with the liberal party, became vehement in denouncing the idea of allowing an equality of rights to all classes of Roman subjects. The Italians, therefore, came to the resolution, that if Rome was not to exist for them, it should not exist at all; but that they would either bring the city to the ground, or raise themselves from the dust to which injustice had lowered them. Several of the Italian nations formed themselves into a league, but never did a league go to such lengths as the one in question; for some of its members murdered the prætor, Servilius Cœpio, and his legate, who attended a meeting in the hope of conciliation at the Theatre of Asculum.

The next step of the Italians was to start a republic of their own, under the name of Italica; and by way of giving it an imposing appearance, it was to have a senate five hundred strong—though in a deliberative assembly numbers are not so much an element of strength as of weakness. It was to have two annual consuls, and no less than twelve prætors; it being perhaps the policy of the framers of the constitution to have plenty of patronage to tempt adherents to the new government. The two consuls first appointed were Silo Popædius, a Marsian, and C. Papius Mutilus, a Samnite, who took the field with great vigour, but took little else in the first instance; for Silo fell in the fight, though Mutilus, whose army was terribly mutilated, obtained some success in Campania.

Though the Italians had commenced their operations as fast friends, they loosened considerably in their friendship as the war advanced, and made separate treaties of peace, by which Rome was enabled to deal with them piecemeal, instead of being compelled to stand against their united efforts. The Samnites evinced their old obstinacy, and waited, as usual, to be cut to pieces, before they abandoned the hope of holding together. When the sword had been busy among them for three years, there remained still a mass of sufficient importance to induce the Romans to offer the franchise to all who would lay down their arms; and of this proposal the Samnites at last reluctantly availed themselves.

Rome having acquired a large accession of new citizens, was puzzled to determine what to do with them. Had they been distributed amongst the thirty-five country tribes, the old members would have been swamped by the new, and the latter were, therefore, formed into—some say six, some say eight, and some say fifteen separate bodies. Such is the disagreement of the learned doctors on this head, that we cannot put confidence in one without discrediting two; and we consequently take the more impartial course of believing none of them. So great is the discrepancy of the authorities on nearly every point, that, for the sake of history, we can only hope they do not go for their facts to the same sources which have supplied their figures. It is true that they usually profess to deal with round numbers alone; and perhaps if every number employed were literally round, it would represent the sum of what is known with certainty on the subjects that are spoken of.

The fact, however, is indisputable, that, in the times to which our history relates, the weaker states were the prey of the stronger,—might overcame right; and the only mode by which a small society could save itself from destruction by one power, was by the sale of its independence to another. Those places which were incompetent to practise the noble art of self-defence, could only obtain protection against violence on the right hand, by submitting to robbery on the left; and the Romans, who were usually appealed to for aid, always plentifully helped themselves at the cost of those by whom their help was required.

By the foreign policy of Rome, ambassadors were always planted in all places of importance, to interfere in the quarrels between nations and their kings; and the ambassadors took care, by fomenting quarrels, that there should be no lack of material for their diplomacy. The cost of intervention fell heavily on those upon whom it was bestowed, but it eventually helped to ruin Rome itself; for neglect of one's own affairs is the inevitable consequence of interfering with the affairs of one's neighbours. The professed object of this meddling on the part of the great republic, was to give to other states the benefit of freedom. There is, however, no slavery more abject than that which induces a nation to accept a foreign, instead of a domestic, tyranny. Those who are willing to import their independence from abroad, will never find it flourish at home; and there is not a more melancholy object—as recent events have proved—than a transplanted tree of liberty.

CHAPTER THE TWENTY-FIFTH.

MITHRIDATES, SULLA, MARIUS, CINNA, ET CÆTERA.

ollowing the order of dates, we come to Mithridates, the son of old Mithridates the Fifth, surnamed Eupator, who had been a fast ally of Rome; but his son, who was much faster in another sense, soon came to hostilities.

The birth of young Mithridates had been, according to Justin,[69] signalised by the appearance of a wondrous comet, which was, probably, an idle tale; but those whose eyes are always strained towards a rising sun, are liable to be dazzled by all sorts of illusory visions.

If the comet was to have brought prosperity to Mithridates, the consignment must have been dropped on the way, inasmuch as none of it reached the young prince, whose early years were passed in hot water; for he was in one continual perspiration, caused by the constant discovery that his life was in danger. His grandmother, Laodice, had killed five of her children, when young Mithridates, fearing that infanticide might run in the family, resorted to matricide, as an alternative for checking the fearful disease, and, according to Appian,[70] murdered his mother. It is said that his guardians did their utmost to get rid of him, by encouraging him in all sorts of dangerous games;—that they gave him weapons for playthings, and that one of his toys was a real sword, with which the child might have accidentally cut the slender thread of his own existence.

They mounted him, also, upon the highest horses that could be found, which was the height of cruelty; but though the animals often kicked and hurled the youngster from his seat, fortune always decided the throw in his favour. He soon acquired such skill, that he was deep enough to meet the most fearful amount of plunging; and when placed upon a determined jibber, he could always back out of his danger. Though the horses given him to ride were quite unbroken, his neck remained entire; and he at length became such an excellent horseman, that he could travel on horseback—according to Polybius—125 miles a day, a length to which we are not prepared to go with the ancient historian. Young Mithridates, going at full gallop, for several successive hours, presents a spirited picture to the mind's eye, but duty compels us to pull him up at the turnpike of truth; for we can allow no evasion of the important trust of history.

Among his other accomplishments, it is said that he could hurl the javelin to such a distance, that the enthusiasm of the spectators would be roused to the utmost pitch; but we are obliged to add, that his power in throwing the spear was not equal to that of the chroniclers in throwing the hatchet.

His guardians having failed to kill him by physical force, attempted to do so by the force of physic, and were continually giving him poisonous drugs, which, though exceedingly unpleasant, he was not nice enough to reject, for he had the bad taste to swallow them. They put him through a course of hen-bane, but he was now no chicken, and had learnt to neutralise the effects of the bane by a powerful antidote. So admirably did the latter answer its object, that he could swallow arsenic by the drachm without a scruple, and his inside was rendered thoroughly poison-proof, though there is an utter absence of historical proof to support the statement.

In order to harden himself externally, as well as internally, we are informed that he would lie at night in the open air; but we do not believe he was any more hardened by lying than those who make the statement. He would trust to the chase for a dinner, and he was often very hard run for a meal, which he sometimes sought by a contest with a wild beast: and the question then was, whether the latter was to be cooked, or Mithridates himself done for.

The excitement of an encounter with some ferocious animal furnished the continual source of a sauce piquante to what he took to eat, which formed food for his courage as well as for his appetite. He was well versed in physics, which he was continually imbibing at the hands of his enemies, and, in accordance with the saying fas est ab hoste doceri, he turned the dosing to good account by studying the power of antidotes. He became a master of languages, and taught himself; so that he was, in fact, his own master and his own pupil. His object appears to have been to save the trouble and expense of diplomatic agents, by qualifying himself to talk with all foreign ambassadors, and to prevent the chance of matters being misinterpreted through the mouth of an interpreter.

Those historians who have built up a considerable fabric on inconsiderable grounds, do not hesitate to add to their fabrications another story, by describing Mithridates as a giant in growth, and as a lad so tall that he might have overlooked an ordinary ladder.

Such had been the education and pursuits of the young man whom we find occupying the throne of Pontus, and interfering in the affairs of Cappadocia, to which he undertook to supply a king, from his own family, whenever a vacancy happened. Rome, also, began to take an interest in Cappadocia, and the only party without a voice in the affair, consisted of the Cappadocians. They were assailed with the offer of freedom and a republic at the point of the sword, on one side,—while, on the other, they were asked to pin their faith to a monarchy which would otherwise be pinned to them by the blades of a foreign army. The Cappadocians had a wholesome horror of republican freedom, especially when imported from abroad; and Rome, therefore, sent them a king, who was accepted until his throne was overthrown by Mithridates—the Cappadocians having to pay a heavy fine on each change of government.

The king, who was thoroughly put out by Mithridates, applied to Rome, which raised an army in three divisions; but the Romans were so hated in Asia Minor, that they encountered every opposition from the inhabitants. Appius and Aquilinus, who were leaders of two of the divisions, soon fell into the hands of Mithridates, and it is said that he punished their avarice by pouring melted gold down their throats; but this is more than any one could swallow.

The Roman Senate, irritated by defeat, called upon L. Cornelius Sulla—or Sylla, as, by an alteration of the first syllable, he is sometimes called—to take the command of the army. The family boasted of its antiquity, though one family must be quite as old as another, if everybody's pedigree could be traced; and the real wonder would be to find a man whose ancestors had a beginning, instead of the ordinary case of one with an apparently endless line of progenitors. The family of Cornelius Sulla claimed connection with that of Cornelius Rufinus, who, in the year of Rome 540, instituted the Ludi Apollinares, in honour of Apollo, and in conformity with the directions of the Sibylline books, from which he had taken the name of Sibylla. This had, according to the interpretation put upon it by family pride, been corrupted into Sulla; and such is the empty boast of ancestry, that even corruption is eagerly acknowledged as a proof of ancient lineage. The father of L. Cornelius Sulla had left little—not even an unsullied name—to his son, but had been equally wasteful of fortune and character. The boy was clever and quick, but his speediness speedily degenerated into fastness. Having neither morality nor means, he took a cheap apartment, where he entertained a low set, and there was nothing to be envied either in his room or his company.

In early life he had distinguished himself as a soldier in the Jugurthine War; and he subsequently obtained the office of Prætor, in which he won the affections of the people, by introducing into the entertainments of the amphitheatre the extraordinary attraction of 100 real lions.

These noble animals had been the gift of a Mauritanian king, and as Sulla might have wished the present absent, if he had been saddled with the cost of the keep of no less than one hundred monarchs of the forest, the donor forwarded a band of Moors, who were to serve as food for the lions, by being turned into the arena with them when occasion required.

Sulla had excited the jealousy of Marius during the Jugurthine War, and the latter, though now a man of seventy, still cherished his old animosity with all the obstinacy of a most inveterate veteran. He was still ambitious of the laurel, though he should have been thinking only of the cypress; and with one foot in the grave, he was anxious to march with the other at the head of an army. Limping into the Campus Martius, where the soldiers were being drilled, he placed himself by the side of the youngest, and hobbled through the exercise with an air of ill-assumed juvenility. His feeble evolutions excited a mixed feeling of ridicule and disgust among the lookers-on, instead of obtaining for him the command to which he aspired. Having been disappointed of producing the effect he had anticipated, he had recourse to his friend, the tribune P. Sulpicius, who exercised a sort of reign of terror by means of 3000 gladiators, whom he always had about him. This formidable band of armed ruffians went by the name of the Anti-Senate of Sulpicius, who employed them to carry any measure he proposed, by showing the point of the sword to those who did not see the point of his argument. In order to gain time, the Senate appointed a series of holidays, or Feriæ, during which all business was suspended for the celebration of public sports, which often enabled the authorities to play a game of their own, by delaying any measure that was opposed to their interests. After a brief interval, the Senate appointed Sulla to the chief command, whereupon the Anti-Senate appointed Marius; and the former had no sooner heard the news, than he marched upon Rome with the whole of his army. The utmost consternation ensued; for no army having been expected at Rome, there had been no preparations for defence; and though the gates were closed, they were almost as crazy and unhinged as the terrified inhabitants.

A feeble attempt was made to bolt the doors against Sulla and his soldiers, but it was impossible to bar their entrance. As they marched through the streets, they were assailed from the houses with showers of brick, which, though very destructive, could not have been so damaging as the modern mortar. Some of the inhabitants were armed with slings, and now and then an arrow was discharged from a bow window. Orders were immediately given to set fire to the quarters whence the annoyance proceeded, and the directions were acted upon with that indiscriminate ferocity which is too often displayed by an incensed soldiery against an unarmed populace. The anger excited by the few was vented on the unoffending many, and the troops performed, with savage alacrity, the most humiliating service on which they could have been employed—the butchery of their defenceless fellow-citizens.

The leaders, or, rather, the mis-leaders of the people in this miserable conspiracy, were the first to seek their own safety in flight, and the tribune P. Sulpicius, who had set the example of employing brute force, evinced the most cowardly haste in running away from it, when he seemed likely to become one of its victims. Marius made for the marshes near Minturnæ, where he stuck in the mud, and covered his reputation with a number of stains that are quite indelible. On being discovered in his ignoble retreat, by those who had pursued him through thick and thin, he was dragged to the town and lodged in the nearest station. A price had been put upon his head, but the article does not seem to have been worth much, for he had shown very little sense in the part he had been playing. His gray hairs, or, perhaps, rather, his total baldness, still commanded so much of sympathy, that nobody evinced a disposition to become his executioner, until a Cimbric soldier undertook the discreditable office. He approached the veteran with a drawn sword, but Marius had got into a dark corner, and succeeded in frightening the man-at-arms by putting on a voice of the most dismal character. The soldier fancying himself in the presence of a ghost, failed in plucking up a sufficient spirit; and when a moan was heard—inquiring, "Who dares kill Caius Marius?" the would-be assassin, having flung down his sword, ran away, exclaiming—"Not I, for one, at any rate!" The soldier, of course, exaggerated the cause of his fears, and declared that the eyes of Marius had appeared to him like two candles burning in their sockets. The inhabitants of Minturnæ became as nervous as the panic-stricken soldier, and put Marius on board a ship, which, after being tossed about for several days, came to an anchor, or ran aground, high and dry, on the fine old crusted port of Carthage. Here he rambled about the ruins, and rested his aching head upon its broken temples. The Roman Governor, Sextilius, not knowing what to do with such an embarrassing visitor, sent a messenger to request him to "move on;" but the exile, with a dignified air, claimed his right to repose upon the dry rubbish. "Tell thy master," he observed to the officer on duty, who had respectfully told him he must "come out of that," in compliance with the orders of the authorities,—"Tell thy master that thou hast seen Marius, sitting on the ruins of Carthage." The intelligence was not new, but it seems to have been rather startling, for it had the effect of causing Marius to be allowed to remain; and we will, therefore, leave him there, while we proceed with the march of our history.

Sulla having reduced the city to the most complete subjection, made a merit of not pursuing his vengeance farther against the defenceless inhabitants; and so great was his confidence in the efficacy of his work, that he acquiesced in the appointment of L. Cornelius Cinna, a partisan of Marius, to the consulship. Sulla proceeded to Greece, where he blockaded Athens, whose inhabitants he plundered, as a practical acknowledgment of their worth; and he spared their lives, to show how he valued their ancestors. He manifested his respect for their arts by robbing their city of its chief ornaments; and he paid their learning the compliment of stealing their principal libraries.

In the meantime Cinna had entered on the duties of the consulship at Rome, but there the truth of the maxim, that two heads are better than one, was rendered extremely doubtful by the constant dissensions between himself and his colleague. The latter was Cn. Octavius, who opposed whatever the former recommended; and while one tried to carry his measures by brute force, the other endeavoured to defeat them by armed violence. Cinna appealed to the mob, and Octavius trusted to the army, both forces being the principal movers under a republican rule or misrule, and both being equally repugnant to the spirit of constitutional government. The arms of such a republic might have for its supporters the bludgeon and the sword, with the figure of Liberty battered and bleeding, slashed and sabred, gagged and fettered, in the middle. Octavius and the sword had, on this occasion, got the upper hand; and Cinna, the clubbist, was glad to break his bludgeon or cut his stick, in flying from the city.

The Senate decreed that he had forfeited the consulship, and Cinna, having been well received in the Italian towns, decreed that the Senate had forfeited their authority. The Government was thus reduced to two negatives, which could not make an affirmative; and in the midst of a theoretical perfection of republican forms, there existed only the substance of practical anarchy. The inhabitants of the Capitol, with the sword at their throats, elected a Consul, who was, of course, declared by the executive to be their free choice; while the people in the provinces protested, as loudly as they dared, against the violence that had been done to all the principles of law and liberty. Cinna, who had possessed himself of large sums of public money, employed bribes and promises to get himself acknowledged as the lawful Consul, for it is customary with despotism, acting under the name of freedom, to rob the people with one hand, in order to corrupt them with the other.

The veteran Marius, who, after making his bed on the ruins of Carthage, was not too anxious to lie there, had been wanted to join the party of Cinna, and the great captain of the age was received with enthusiasm, in consideration of the great age of the captain. Papirius Carbo and Q. Sertorius also gave in their adhesion; but Cn. Pompeius, who was stationed with an army at Umbria, waited to see which side would pay him best, and of those who would bid the highest, he was prepared to do the bidding. Marius, in the meanwhile, landed in Tuscany with a few friends; but to excite commiseration, he dressed himself in rags, which was, indeed, putting on the garb of poverty. He spoke so repeatedly of his reverses, and touched so frequently on his old clothes, that the subject was completely threadbare. Rags are seldom attractive, but in this instance, they were successful in obtaining for the wearer a large crowd of followers.

Cn. Pompeius had at length consented to espouse the cause of the Senate, but the alliance was one of interest on his side, for he would not espouse anything without a very large pecuniary settlement having been made in his favour. He met the army of Cinna under the walls of Rome, but both forces were enfeebled by sickness. Each party proceeded to do its best, but the soldiers on both sides were so wretchedly ill, that none of them could, for one moment, stand at ease; and all were much fitter to be in bed than in battle. A storm did sad havoc among the defenders of Rome, and a flash of lightning falling naturally upon the conductor of the army, caused the death of Cn. Pompeius. The gates of the city were thrown open, Cinna was restored to the Consulship, and though there had been an understanding that no blood should be shed, Marius set a band of slaves and mercenaries upon the defenceless people.

Under the pretence that he would only act according to law, this sanguinary impostor, declaring himself an exile, pretended that he would not enter the city until the sentence should be repealed; and with a sword at every throat, he demanded an expression of the voice of the people. The decision need scarcely be told, and Marius entered the city, where, standing behind Cinna's consular chair, he made a series of savage grimaces at his intended victims. Among these was the Consul, Octavius, who, soothed by the soothsayers into the belief that he had nothing to fear, boldly refused to fly, until some hired assassins executed their task, by executing the unhappy officer. He met his death while still maintaining his seat, and expired in the arms of his armchair of office.

Marius being now master of the situation, did all he could to make the situation vacant by a system of indiscriminate murder. The heads of the nation were not only imprisoned, but struck off. The two Cæsars were savagely seized and killed, while Marc Antony—an orator of considerable mark—had concealed himself in a place that was made known to Marius. The tyrant was at supper when he heard the news, and as if determined to sup full of horrors, he started up with a determination to witness the murder, which he desired should immediately take place; but his friends pacified him with the assurance that the head should be brought in to him.

If the chroniclers are to be credited, Marc Antony owed his detection to his fastidiousness as to the sort of wine that was placed before him. While in concealment, his daily supply was procured from a neighbouring tavern, by a messenger who was in the habit of tasting several bottles before he was satisfied. This excited the curiosity of the landlord, who became anxious to know the name of his very particular customer. The messenger, on one occasion, had taken so much of the wine in, that he let the truth out, when the wine-merchant treacherously proceeded to betray the hiding-place of Marc Antony. Soldiers were sent to his lodgings; but he grew so eloquent over his generous wine, that he excited among the guards a generous spirit. His life would probably have been spared, had not the tribune Annius rushed up-stairs, and himself struck off the head of the unhappy Antony.

Several men of consideration, in the most inconsiderate manner, killed themselves, to avoid the fate which was intended for them by Cinna, and that still greater sinner, Marius. Q. Lutatius Catulus proceeded to the temple, and getting into a corner among the statues of the gods, placing himself opposite Pan, perished by the fumes of charcoal. Merula, the Flamen of Jupiter, may be said to have snuffed himself out, or extinguished his own vital spark; for, seating himself in the portico of the Capitoline, he calmly made preparations for suicide, and took off his flame-coloured cap, in which it was not lawful for him to expire. Producing some surgical instruments from his pocket, he sat ruminating over his case, and taking out a lancet, he showed that he was no longer in the vein to live, but quite in the vein to die, for he opened an artery. The tyrant himself took to drinking in his old age, and frequently rolled about in a state of frenzy, under the impression that he was commanding an army against Mithridates. He ultimately drove himself to delirium tremens, and he contracted a constant shake of the hands by his frequent use of cordials. He died after a short illness, on the 15th of January, B.C. 86, without having devoted himself to that sober reflection, which would have induced him to repent of his numerous enormities. Such was the end of a man, whose faults have been sometimes glossed over with the varnish of flattery, though at the hands of truth they can only receive an appropriate coat of blacking.

CHAPTER THE TWENTY-SIXTH.

DEATH OF CINNA. RETURN OF SULLA TO ROME. C. PAPIRIUS CARBO.
DICTATORSHIP OF SULLA.

Liberty being now established on a republican basis, by the massacre of all who had a word to say against the military usurper Cinna, that individual began the task of consolidating his power. He nominated L. Valerius Flaccus to the consulship; and those of the aristocracy who wished for freedom, were free to leave Rome if they did not like living under a tyrannical government. To speak openly in the forum or the courts of justice, was prohibited; and the scantiness of the reports that have come down to us of the events of the times, can be no matter of surprise, when we consider that the reporters were not permitted to give an account of actual occurrences.

It was necessary to amuse the masses by what are termed liberal measures, and as an excess of liberality, it was proposed that every debtor, paying one fourth of his debt, should be released from all further liability to his creditor. This was sure to be a popular act in a country already ruined by political agitation, and the despotism to which it frequently leads; and, as the debtors were by far the most numerous class, a sort of general Insolvent Act was hailed with acclamations by a bankrupt community.

Sulla, who was still in Greece, refused his allegiance to the despot at home, and L. Valerius Flaccus was sent to supersede him in the command of the army. Flaccus was not popular with his soldiers, and as the head of the Government had set the example of setting aside all law by a coup d'état, an imitator was soon found in the person of one Flavius Fimbria, a lieutenant, who, by a coup de tête, got rid of his obnoxious general. Flaccus being thus disposed of, Fimbria promoted himself to the chief command; but, cowardice and cruelty going hand in hand, he took his own life on hearing that Sulla was setting out against him. The soldiers of Fimbria, with the most revolting faithlessness, revolted to Sulla, who was now master of Asia. He called upon the conquered nation for 20,000 talents, and as the subdued people had not so large a sum by them, they were obliged to borrow it with one hand at enormous interest, in order to pay it with the other. The Roman capitalists lent the cash, and the Roman soldiers assisted them with their swords to draw a ruinous per-centage from the unfortunate borrowers. Sulla now prepared to march upon Rome, where Cinna had re-elected himself as Consul, in conjunction with one Papirius Carbo, a political incendiary, who acted like so much touch-paper and coal upon the flame of discord. Intending to meet their rival, they proceeded with an army into Italy; but the soldiers no sooner found themselves on the Italian soil, than they declared their determination to remain there. Cinna called them together, and endeavoured to persuade them to go forward, but even when he gave the word of command there was no advance on his bidding. From passive resistance they proceeded to active insubordination, and, denouncing him as a tyrant whom it was high time to see through, they perforated him with their swords in several places.

On the death of Cinna, legal authority began to raise its humbled head, and Carbo was summoned to hold a Comitia at Rome; but on the day appointed, the attendance of voters not promising a satisfactory result, the augurs declared the auspices unfavourable, and dissolved the meeting.

A deputation had been sent to Sulla to endeavour to make terms, but the members of the deputation were forced to return without any terms having been agreed upon. Sulla did not march immediately upon Italy, but went to Ædepsus, in Eubœa, for the benefit of the hot baths, though he did not limit himself to the waters, for he addicted himself to the spirits abounding in the neighbourhood. He amused himself in the society of those who are sometimes said to live upon their wits, though their existence is really derived from the want of wit in others. Sulla, however, had a counterpoise to any demerits of his own, in the still greater demerits of those who were opposed to him.

The new Consuls were L. Cornelius Scipio, a highly respectable man, and C. Julius Norbanus, a mere creature of Carbo. Against these leaders Sulla marched from Greece in the rudest health and the most exuberant spirits. His pockets, however, were as light as his heart; but this signified little, for the troops were so devoted to him that there was not an officer unattached; and so far from making any difficulty about their pay, they undertook to raise money among themselves, if necessary, for the use of their leader.

The expedition landed at Brundusium, where the inhabitants received Sulla with open arms, or rather without any arms at all, for they permitted him to occupy the place without opposition. Passing through Calabria and Apulia, he approached the encampment of Norbanus, in the neighbourhood of Capua, and sent ambassadors to treat; but their treatment was anything but courteous. They were insulted by all kinds of abuse, and it is said that they had a great deal more thrown in their face than mere reproaches. When Sulla heard of their reception, or rather their rejection at the enemy's camp, he fell upon it with such force that everything fell under him.

He next turned his attention to L. Scipio, whose army went over in a body to the side of Sulla, while Scipio and his son were sitting together, talking over general matters in the tent of the general. L. Scipio had despatched his son with directions for the right division, when the youth returned to say, that of the right division, there was not one man left; and when Scipio himself went to look after his men, he found there was not one remaining, even for the look of the thing, to mount guard at the tent of their commander. He, of course, proposed a series of strong resolutions, seconded by his son, that all those who had joined Sulla were enemies to the state; but the state in which he then was, rendered his denunciations idle, if not ridiculous. The position of Sulla was becoming rather alarming to the party of Carbo, who caused himself to be appointed Consul, for the year B.C. 82, in conjunction with young C. Marius, who, as the heir of his father, had inherited a large stock of wickedness. Cn. Pompeius had already sent in his adhesion to Sulla, who had received him as a very promising young man, for he had a fair share of popularity, and a good amount of property. Young Pompey was opposed to old Carbo, and the former so harassed the latter, that his temper, always sour, became equal to carbonic acid in its inflammable tendency.

Sulla took young Marius in hand, and followed him up to a place called Sacriportus, where, in consequence of a dream—for the ancients were addicted to taking advice with their eyes shut—an attack by the former on the latter was resolved upon. Sulla ordered his soldiers to advance, but they were so fatigued that they fell asleep on the road, and caused their leader to wonder what they could possibly be dreaming of. Instead of their being equipped in the arms of the warrior, they were stretched in the arms of Somnus, and Sulla, though reluctant to go counter to his dream, perceived the folly of marching to battle with a somnambulist army. He gave orders, therefore, to halt, and the men had commenced digging the foundations for a camp, when the cavalry of Marius rode up for the purpose of annoying them. Irritated by the conduct of the enemy's horse, the soldiers of Sulla kicked against it, and even while engaged in their work, picked out, with their pickaxes, a few of the foremost of the Marian army. This led to a general engagement, in which Sulla's forces forgot their fatigue, and pursued the enemy to the neighbouring town of Præneste, the gates of which were shut in such haste, that all the fugitives had not time to get in, and Marius himself was pulled up by a rope over the wall, together with a few immediate hangers-on, who had tied themselves to his fortunes. Sulla is said to have slain 20,000 men, and to have taken 8000 prisoners, while he lost only twenty-three; but as he is his own authority for the statement,[71] we must take in a purely figurative sense many of his figures.

The Marian party, fearing that the successes of Sulla might encourage resistance to the despotism still prevailing at Rome, determined on getting rid of the principal politicians of the day, the heads of the National Assembly of the period. The modern practice might have been to have shut up the place of meeting, and prevent the members, by armed force, from going in—slaughtering them, of course, in case of their perseverance; but the Marian policy was to summon them to the Curia Hostilia, and having got them in, to butcher those who attempted to go out again.

The prætor, L. Damasippus, was entrusted with this sanguinary business; and every eminent politician, who was suspected of having an independent opinion of his own, was at once massacred. This step was declared to be necessary to give strength to the Government, and to insure the unanimity of the nation, by cutting the throats of all who ventured to be of a way of thinking contrary to that of the ruling power. Unfortunately, some of the best and wisest men of the day were blind to the virtues of the chief of the republic; and the whole of these, including Q. Mucius Scævola, the eminent jurist, were unceremoniously sacrificed.

The news of the success of Sulla at Sacriportus, caused a panic among those who had been combining the butcher's business with that of government at Rome, and the perpetrators tried to fly when they heard the enemy was approaching the city. Sulla, leaving Lucretius Ofella to keep watch at the gates of Præneste, lest Marius should attempt to creep out, marched in person on the capital. Directing his steps towards the Colline gate, he found there an army of those same Samnites, who had been previously cut into so many pieces, and who were ready to be cut into so many more, should occasion require the alarming sacrifice. Their general, Pontius Telesinus, rode in front of them, entreating them to come and be killed for positively the last time; and the dux had sufficient influence to induce them to rush like a flock of geese on their own destruction. The victory of Sulla was complete; and Pontius Telesinus having been overlooked by the foe in the heat of battle, supplied the omission in the business of the day by making away with himself—after the usual cowardly fashion of the heroes of antiquity.

Sulla's success seemed only to have effected a change of tyrants; and his conduct proved that the monster grievance of Rome was the series of inhuman monsters who had got hold of the government. The atrocities attributed to Sulla are, however, so enormous, as almost to border on the burlesque; and it is comfortable to feel in the exaggeration a ground for hope that in the account furnished by the historians, much may fall under the head of "Errors excepted."

It is said that 3000 of the enemy at Antennæ implored his mercy, which he granted, on the understanding that they were to assassinate their associates—a service that was performed with brutal eagerness. When the 3000 claimed their own pardon as a reward, they were, according to Plutarch, conveyed to Rome, and butchered with a few thousand others, who had the misfortune to differ in opinion with the chief of a republican government.

It was found so extremely embarrassing to heads of families and others who were liable every day or hour to be cut off, that it was at length proposed, as a matter of convenience, that Sulla should save time by publishing a short list, containing the few names of those whom he did not intend to sacrifice. He replied, by bringing out a very long list of those he did, which he stated to be merely the first number of a serial work, which he did not pledge himself to complete within any particular period. As every copyright is liable to be infringed, the work of Sulla was the subject of numerous imitations; and there were many who made lists of their own, containing names disagreeable to themselves; so that no man could walk the streets without the chance of reading his own death-warrant on the walls of the capital. Sulla, in many instances, offered rewards for the heads of his victims, and his doors were beset from morning till night with the cry of, "Butcher!" by those who called for the sums they had earned as slaughtermen. Assassinations proceeded to such a fearful degree, that Q. Catulus asked Sulla, in confidence, whether it was the intention of the latter to spare any human being at all? for there seemed a chance of his having no one left to rule over but himself; and such a man was likely to find self-government exceedingly difficult.

While these things were going on at Rome, Marius was besieged in Præneste, from which he tried to make his escape through the common sewer; a mode of insuring his life that was far from dignified. He, however, was espied through an iron aperture, which was so grating to his feelings, that he called upon his slave to run him through; when the faithful fellow immediately bored him to death with a trusty and rusty weapon.

Sulla, the perpetrator of all the acts of despotism and cruelty which are above described, was without any legal authority, and had no more right than the meanest subject of the republic to the power which he exercised. His reign was a reign of terror, supported by the swords of a sordid soldiery. Of the two Consuls, Marius was already dead; and Carbo, being taken prisoner, was condemned to death; so that Carbo—the blackness of whose conduct justified his title of the coal—was soon reduced to ashes.

The senate, which had been cut down by assassination to suit the views of Sulla, elected L. Valerius Flaccus as interrex, who immediately caused Sulla to be invested with the power of doing whatever he liked, as long as he liked; or, to use the official phraseology, made him dictator for an unlimited period.

On receiving his appointment, the first measure of Sulla was to reward the tools who had assisted him, and L. Valerius Flaccus was immediately made master of the horse, while the military murderers, who had acted as executioners in the execution of his plans, received grants of land in the places which had been unfavourable to the tyrant. He courted a certain sort of popularity by extending the suffrage to some 10,000 emancipated slaves, who retained enough of their slavishness to cause them to vote as their master desired. He affected to reconstitute the legislative body which he had illegally destroyed, and he sent into it a quantity of that noxious scum which, in the troubled waters of revolution, is frequently cast up to the surface of society.

Having established his position through the brutality of one part of the people, and the cowardice of the other, he set about the business of a reformer; and, though he did much harm, the little good that he accomplished must not be denied to him. Being a despot by nature, he limited, as far as he could, the popular element in the constitution, by curtailing the power of the tribunes; and he increased the government patronage by adding to the number of pontiffs and augurs, so that he might have the privilege of appointment to lucrative, but useless, offices. His changes in the criminal code were, however, really beneficial, for he made murder, whether committed by poison or violence, a crime by law; and, indeed, it was necessary that the point should be clearly defined, for military murders at the hands of the executive had been so numerous that it was reasonably doubted whether human life was henceforth to be protected at all by the government. Many old laws were re-enacted, though they had never been repealed; but the usurpers of power had so thoroughly trampled on every legal form, that it was impossible to know which of the laws were to be regarded as imperative on the people.

Sulla, and his friends, boasted that his firmness had given tranquillity to Rome; but tranquillity can scarcely be a desirable condition to one whose quietude is the result of a gag in the mouth, a sword suspended over the head, and chains on every part of the body. The repose, or rather, the stillness thus obtained, was no less costly than inconvenient, for there was a wholesale confiscation of the property of all who were supposed to entertain views different from those of the government. The iniquities of the master will often be followed by the man, and, in conformity with this rule, a fellow, named Chrysogonus, one of Sulla's creatures, caused the murder of Roscius of Armenia, in order to get the opportunity of robbing him. The property of Roscius was knocked down at a mock auction to a bad lot of ruffians, who were there to intimidate the auctioneer into doing their smallest bidding. Everything went for positively nothing, and Chrysogonus was understood to have got nearly the whole of it at a ludicrously low figure.

The laws made by Sulla, though perhaps plain enough in their purport, had an ambiguity in their application which was extremely inconvenient. Though binding at some times, in some places, upon some persons, they were not so at other times, in other places, upon others. He had laid it down as a rule that no one could be elected consul until he had been prætor; though, in the case of his own adherents, Sulla was not at all particular. When, however, L. Ofella, the commander at Præneste, who had never been prætor, put up for the consulship, Sulla declared such conduct was not to be put up with at all, and had him killed in the middle of a morning's canvass. The people were rather angry at the outrage, when Sulla, walking among a group with a sword in his hand, "demanded silence for an anecdote."[72] A circle drew round him, tremblingly alive to what he was about to say, when the despot proceeded as follows: "A labourer," said he, "was at work at the plough, when he was annoyed by insects, which caused him to stop and beat them off by dusting his own jacket. Finding himself annoyed a second time he took off his jacket and threw it into the fire. Now, I advise those whom I have twice conquered not to oblige me to try the fire," The people, who knew something of Sulla's threatened fire, dreaded it with all the horror of a burned child, and he was left to pursue his career of unchecked atrocity.

A man who has the cruelty of a brute has, generally, the other debasing appetites of the lower order of animals; and Sulla had as much of the sensualist as of the tyrant in his character. To a thirst for blood he added the appetite of a glutton; and, having amassed enormous wealth by murder and rapine, he longed for the opportunity to expend his ill-gotten means in idleness and debauchery. He accordingly called the people together in the forum, and, having walked up and down for some time asking if anybody dared to make a charge against him, he resigned the dictatorship. This abdication has been lauded by some as a proof of magnanimity and disinterestedness; but, to sum up the truth in a few words, he had practised human butchery as a trade, and, having realised an enormous fortune, he retired from business. Having secured all the profits that were likely to accrue from his unprincipled career, he left to others the difficult work of sustaining the results of his policy. He retired to Puteoli, where he passed much of his time in the company of actors, and became the intimate associate of one or two popular low comedians. In his sober moments—which were very few during the latter part of his life—he wrote his own memoirs, and was employed upon the work until within a few days of his death, which happened B.C. 78, when he had reached the age of sixty. Seldom had a man, who had reached but three-score, left so many scores unsatisfied. Such was his cruelty, that he delighted in loading prisoners with fetters, and then shedding their blood, which caused it to be said of him that he was no less fond of mangling than of ironing. He had so little regard for old associations, that when one of his acquaintances reminded him of the days when they lived in the same house—Sulla paying 2000 sesterces for the basement, and his former friend 3000 for the first floor—the Dictator refused to spare his fellow-lodger's life, but brutally remarked, that the story, whether upper or lower, was an old one, and had long ago lost its interest. It is said that dungeons or cellars were attached to Sulla's house for the purpose of keeping a supply of human beings always on hand for occasional sacrifice. The manner of his death rendered him an object as repulsive as he had become by his mode of life; for, his licentiousness led to a disease which developed itself in the generation of vermin in his skin; and he may be said to have been almost eaten up with corruption before he expired. By his own desire his body was burned; as if he had thought that fire might act in some sort as a purifier of his memory. The ladies of the nobility threw perfume on the funeral pile,[73] but it was too late to bring him into good odour. Numerous attendants carried spices of every kind; and, in addition to the ordinary mace-bearers, there were several officers laden with cinnamon. The fact of incense having been offered at the funeral pile of such a monster, is enough to incense any one who reads a statement so humiliating to humanity.