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Frontispiece.

Jducius Cornelius $*ii[Ca JzCipc

a busf in ific^\usco
Cdiatximorifc ( Vatican.)SULLA THE FORTUNATE:

THE GREAT DICTATOR

BEING AN ESSAY ON POLITICS IN THE
FORM OF A HISTORICAL BIOGRAPHY

BY

G. P. BAKER

LONDON

JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W.First Edition . . 1927PREFACE

HERE are many reasons why Lucius Cornelius

Sulla should be of particular interest to us
to-day. His life was a remarkable one; his per-
sonality was still more remarkable ; his significance
in the history of politics makes the story of his career
not only apposite, but even topical. Not to know
who Sulla was, or what he did, is to be ignorant of
one of the crucial episodes of history : an episode
which neatly illustrates the problems of our own age.

Next to Gaius Julius Caesar, he was the greatest
individual produced by ancient Rome. He has
been eclipsed by the figure of Caesar, who undid
his work, overshadowed his fame, and based his own
career to a great extent upon the methods of his pre-
decessor. ... He was as great a soldier as Caesar ;
as great a statesman, though a less successful one;
and if the stray fragments of his lost autobiography,
surviving embedded in the books of later historians,
are any guide, he was a writer whose experiences were
as interesting as Caesar's own. And he was the
Great Dictator; and he died in his bed.

Not until the idea of Dictatorship became a living
contemporary issue was any one likely to see either
interest or meaning in Sulla's career. We shall look
in vain for any authoritative biography of Sulla from
the great Victorians. There is none. There is not
even any sign that they knew what he was, or meant.

56

PREFACE

But with Mussolini dominating Italy, Primo del
Rivera ruling Spain, and Pilsudski Poland, and with
a Dictatorship of the Proletariat reigning in Russia,
and likely to go on doing so—with all these present
actualities, we can look at Sulla with fresh eyes and
suspect that he had more meaning than our fathers
imagined. And he had. He did mean more than
they thought. But there was nothing in the circum-
stances of their own days to reveal what that meaning
was. We can understand Sulla better, because we
live in an age more like his own.

There is a proverb that " History repeats itself."
There is just this much obvious truth in it, that the
history of social institutions is a kind of biology ; for
the collective life of man, like his individual life,
develops by a definite law. We know the series of
changes through which the physical body goes.
Everything we can say about it we can similarly say
of the changes through which civilisation passes.
Both have definite stages. At seventeen, a man
probably falls in love ; at thirty, he may marry some
one else ; at forty-five he is liable to put on flesh ;
at sixty he goes grey ; " three-score and ten years
are the life of a man." . . . The course of civilisa-
tion can be predicted with no less—and no more—
certainty. The traditions of our race have never left
us in doubt on that head. Plato knew that aristo-
cracy precedes oligarchy, and that democracy follows
it; the compilers of the Old Testament knew all
about the development of the tribal system into the
first (or primitive) form of monarchy. But so long
is the wave length of history, that it is only now,
after another two thousand years, that we realise that
what followed Plato and the Old Testament was a
logical development which is very likely to repeatPREFACE

7

itself. We have gone the round afresh. After the
last Augustus—or Augustulus—the tribes re-
appeared, and monarchy followed ; and aristocracy
once more came on the heels of monarchy, and
oligarchy on the heels of that; but we erred in
imagining that the democracy which succeeded was
the last, final, never-to-be-changed form of political
organisation. ... It has all happened before. . . .
On the last journey round, Sulla followed Tiberius
Gracchus as Mussolini has followed Mazzini.

Sulla was thus a very modern man—far more
modern, more one of ourselves, than Alfred the
Great or Cesare Borgia. Sulla faced most of the
problems which a modern statesman has to face.
He was familiar with the decay of religious faith, the
failure of aristocracy, the rise of Bolshevism, the
industrial revolution, and the power of international
finance. He was accustomed to the modern woman;
he was an ardent play-goer ; he was involved in the
problem of the ex-service man. It is an advantage
to see all these things set on a different stage,
detached from our own circumstances, isolated
from our interests and prejudices, and made more
dramatic by their completeness. We do not know
the issue of our own actions ; but we know the issue
of Sulla's. We cannot tell what the Logic of Events
may do with us; but we know what it did with
Sulla's world. ... This is doubtless a wise age,
and Sulla's was a foolish one. " But how dieth the
wise man ? Even as the fool."

Sulla did not exactly invent the policy of dictator- -
ship, for under the Roman constitution the dictator- v
ship in times of emergency was a legal and con-
stitutional office, and in the Greek cities, at a certain '
stage of political evolution, dictators were as common8

PREFACE

as mushrooms ; but he was the first statesman who
applied the idea systematically, intelligently, and
.on a scale sufficiently large to be instructive to us.
/ His life story is one of the very few available to us
'j which give us a working model of a great civilisation
j like our own, struggling with our own difficulties.
1 . . . It may possibly be helpful if it leads some
people to realise that dictatorship is a known stage
in political growth. . . . Not every one falls to the
common ailments. Some states may avoid dictator-
ship. But none avoids the necessity of growing up.

Hence there is much in this narrative that will not
be, or may not be, true of our own age. Sulla saw
civilisation move a step ahead of its " furthest
north " ; with average luck, we may pass that limit.
For we do move ; though we move rather in social
things than in things peculiar to the individual and
his capacities.

This book, therefore, has all the faults and failings
of a book intended to'be useful, and based upon the
lives of actual men who worked, suffered, died, and
have something of real human urgency to tell us as a
result.

The sources for Sulla's life are well-known and
well-trodden ground—perhaps too well-trodden.
Nothing can be added to facts long familiar. The
only opportunity for originality lies in the reading
of the facts. In this, a biographer who is not a
professional scholar has a great advantage. He
is not bound by any of the responsibilities which
make a professional scholar chary of embarking
on some kinds of adventure. In the present case
the facts have been read according to the probabili-
ties familiar to us in modern life. The assumption
which underlies the whole book is that Sulla was anPREFACE	9

ordinary human being of extraordinary achieve-
ments ; that all his friends and foes were ordinary
human beings ; and that the stuff of human life and
motive is everywhere and always much the same
—only the fashions vary. Human beings are so
inherently interesting that to praise them or blame
them is unnecessary ; all that is needed is to under-
stand them.

G. P. B.

Elmer, Sussex,

1927.CONTENTS

chap.	page

Preface........5

Importance of Sulla—The key to Sulla lost—" Re-
capitulation " in social development—Modernity of
Sulla—Dictatorship—The parallel only approximate
—Sources—The unknown is to be interpreted by the
known.

I Sulla............19

State of Europe—Britain—The Frisians—The Baltic
—Germany—Gaul—The small political unit—Limita-
tion of energy—Rome the real centre of interest—Rome
in Sulla's day—An age of transition—Ancestry of Sulla
—Sulla's person—Eccentricity of his appearance—His
early days—His family poor—The lady Nicopolis—His
stepmother—His Bohemian tastes—The drama—
Complexity of his character—His passivity—His
conventionality—Limits of his conventionality—His
caution—He was an opportunist on principle—The
theory of " Fortune."

II The Antecedents of Sulla's World . . 40

" Mediterranean " civilisation—The city state—Evolu-
tion of the tribe—Larger political units the ideal—The
state rationalised—The abolition of kingship—Political
control made responsible—Development of Rome—
Law brought under the control of the state—The
aristocracy controlled by law—Abolition of privilege
—The state strengthened by the changes—The war of
Hannibal—The Roman state proof against force—Ruin
of the peasantry—The problem of action—Tiberius
Gracchus—Economic action to be controlled by the
state—Impatience of Tiberius—He is murdered—Gaius
Gracchus—The bankers support Gaius—The state to be
controlled by economic forces—The financiers privi-
leged—Projected extension of the Roman franchise—

Gaius a revolutionary—Drusus the elder—The electors
detached from Gaius—Force employed—The move-
ment suppressed—Consequences of the suppression.

Ill Sulla's World......65

Sulla aet. 17—The prestige of law damaged—Import-
ance of Rome—Objections to the Gracchan policy—
Importance of the aristocratic tradition—Difference
1112	CONTENTS

chap.	page

between the oligarchy and the aristocracy—The aristoc-
racy and wealth—Divorce of political and economic
power—The roots of Roman rule—The Romans
possessed the gift of association—The aristocracy
originated it—Decay of aristocracy—Educative effect
of aristocracy—The expansion of Rome a consistent
process—Difficulties consequent—Necessity of unity in
the control—The bankers and merchants—Parallel
with the nineteenth century—Insecurity of the state—
The problem of popular rights—Power of the economic
control—Economic effects of slavery—The European
character—Variability of the European type—Dis-
qualifications of the European as a master—Political
control necessary—The aristocratic policy the only
practicable one—Sulla's relation to these theories—
His conduct explained by them.

IV	The Rise of Sulla to Fortune . . .86

Character of Gaius Marius—Marius tribune, 119 B.C.—
Marius praetor, 115 B.C.—Propraetor in Spain, 114 B.C.
—He marries into the family of Caesar—The trouble in
Africa—Jugurtha—Revival of the Populates—The
African war—Trouble in the North—Competence of
the oligarchy in question—Marius in Africa, 108 B.C.
—Marius Consul I, 107 B.C.—The army reforms of
Marius—-Sulla quaestor aet. 31—Marius commander
in chief in Africa, 106 B.C.—Difficulties of the war—

Sulla arrives in Africa—The problem of King Bocchus
—Sulla sent to Bocchus—Sulla receives the am-
bassadors—The embassy in Rome—Sulla's second
mission to Bocchus—Danger on the road—Sulla
reaches Bocchus—The official conference—The secret
conference—Sulla successful—Bocchus and Jugurtha—
Capture of Jugurtha, 105 B.C.

V	The Triumph of Marius . . . .113

Fresh danger—The Cimbri and Teutones—Party
position in Rome—Caepio in Gaul—Defeat at Arausio
—Panic in Italy—Demand for Marius—The crime of
Caepio—Marius Consul II, 104 B.C.—His triumph—

Sulla legate under Marius—The new army—Marius
Consul III, 103 B.C.—Doubts of Marius—Marius
Consul IV, 102 B.C.—Sulla takes work under Catulus
—Movements of the Cimbri and Teutones—Battle
of Aquae Sextiae—Marius Consul V, 101 B.C.—
Catulus in retreat—The Cimbri—Battle of Vercellae
—Sulla's version of the battle—Dispute on the field.

VI The Political Struggle.....133

Problems of the peqce—Electoral campaign, 101 B.C.
—Sulla's political position—Criticisms of Marius—

Sulla's view of Marius—Catulus—Relation of Catulus
and Sulla—Metellus Numidicus—Marius as a politicianCONTENTS	13

chap.	page

—Marius Consul VI, 100 B.C.—The cabal against
Marius—Saturninus and the Senate—Difficulties of
Marius—" The Catonic pose "—The equites go over—
Elections for 99 B.C.—Triumph of the oligarchy—The
Italians—Marius travels in Asia—The Italians and the
franchise—Scaevola : lex Licinia Mucia—The eques-
trian courts again—Hesitation of the oligarchy—The
" group "—Scaevola's administration in Asia—Rutilius
impeached—Sulla praetor, 93 B.C., aet. 45—Rutilius
condemned—Exiled—Condition of Asia—Character of
Mithradates—Asiatic despotism—Policy of Sulla—
Results—The gold plaque—Impeachment dropped—
Drusus the younger—The programme of Drusus—
Difficulty of his policy—His success—His failure—
His murder—Revolt of the Italians.

VII The Military Struggle in Italy . . .163

The Social War, 90 B.C.—The opposing forces—Change
in character of Rome—The Italians apprehend the true
nature of the war—The Varian tribunal—Sulla in Cam-
pania—Roman reverses—Marius in central Italy—
Success of Marius—Dissensions in Rome—Problem
of the franchise—Change of opinion—Italians weakened
by the concessions made to them—Changes in com-
mand, 89 B.C.—Sulla commands in Campania—The
reversion of the Asiatic command—Second year of the
war—Sulla and his army—Sulla's raid into Samnium
—His success—The war a military defeat but a moral
victory for the Italians—Consequences of the war—

News of Mithradates—The massacres in Asia—Italy
seriously damaged by the Social War—Alarm of the
equites—Sulpicius Rufus—Sulla Consul I, 88 B.C., aet.
50—" Fortune "—His marriage to Caecilia Metella—
Lampoons against Sulla—Sulla's action against
Sulpicius—Sulla is assaulted and intimidated—The
eastern command offered to Marius—Sulla prepares
to enforce his claims—Murder of the tribunes—
Sulla's march on Rome—Entry into the city—Escape of
Marius—Death of Sulpicius—Audacity of Sulla's act
—Its justification—His intentions—His measures of
pacification—He leaves for the east.

VIII Sulla in Greece......189

Situation in Greece—Sulla's advance—Lucullus—the
siege of Athens—Difficulties of supply—Requisition
of the treasures of Delphi—The siege drags—111
news from Rome—Athens taken by assault—The
army of relief—The journey of Lucullus—Reaction
against Mithradates—Sulla in Boeotia—Arrival of the
Pontic army—Sulla occupies the fords—The en-
trenched position—Battle of Chaeronea—The Pontic
left wing broken—Rout of the Pontic army.14	CONTENTS

chap.	page

IX The Vengeance of Marius and the Retention

of Asia ....... 207

Italy unsettled—The equites dissatisfied—Cinna acts for
them—Blundering of Octavius—Civil war—Arrival of
Marius—He takes Ostia—The Senate surrenders to
Cinna—Mental condition of Marius—The Marian
proscription—Impossibility of controlling him—Marius
Consul VII, 86 B.C.—Death of Marius—The Populates
supreme—Their intellectual impotence—The refugees
flee to Sulla—Flaccus sent to supersede Sulla—Sulla
and Flaccus—They part—Sulla at Orchomenos—The
new Pontic army—Sulla's engineering—Archelaus
attacks the ditches—Sulla's complete success—Flight
and death of Flaccus—The war goes against Mithra-
dates—Negotiations—Sulla drafts terms—Attempt to
modify the terms—Sulla's interview with Mithradates
—The terms ratified—The army disappointed—
Fimbria—The Fimbrian army melts—Attempt to
assassinate Sulla—Suicide of Fimbria—Settlement of
Asia—Sulla's financial diplomacy—Legal position of
Sulla—He writes to the Senate—Cinna murdered.

X Sulla comes Home.....237

83 B.C., Sulla, aet. 55—Sulla's rest in Greece—Difficul-
ties of invading Italy—His undertakings—He lands in
Italy—-The March to Campania—Defeat of Norbanus
—Accessions to Sulla—Crassus—Pompeius—Sulla
meets Pompeius—Negotiations with Lucius Scipio—

Sulla alleges an agreement with the Consul—82 B.C.

Sulla, aet. 56—Sulla's plans—Advance of Metellus
Pius—Sulla's advance—The troops worn out—Battle
of Sacriportus—Praeneste invested—Murder of
Scaevola—Sulla's advance on Carbo—The arrival of
the Samnites—Carbo flees—Samnites resolve to destroy
Rome—They are delayed by a sally—Battle of the
Colline Gate—Sulla's troops broken—Panic—Crassus
successful—End of the battle of the Colline Gate.

XI The Dictatorship of Sulla .... 254

State of Rome—Sulla's triumph—" Sulla Felix "—
His policy—The problem of restoration—The logic of
events—Massacre of the prisoners—Praeneste taken
—Fate of other towns—The Dictatorship—Its terms—
Samnium devastated—Financial difficulties—The
" Capital levy "—Principle of the Sullan proscription
—Doubts of his friends—The lists—Views of the
proscription—Scandals—Sulla unable to prevent abuses
—The auctions—Success of the proscription—Sulla's
creative measures—Poverty of material for a new
aristocracy—Sulla's practical reforms—The franchise
confirmed to the Italians—Local government—The
franchise partly ineffective—Land colonisation—TheCONTENTS

IS

chap.

page

equites—Legal reforms—The Senate—Civil and
military power separated—Sulla's aim the repression
of monarchy—Reasons against monarchy—Sulla Consul
II, 80 B.C., aet. 58—Sulla ignoring the real truth—
His inconsistency.

XII The Death of Sulla.....281

Pompeius in Sicily—His tolerance—Sulla disappointed
in him—Pompeius recalled—Pompeius and the opposi-
tion—Breach between him and Sulla—The turn of
the tide—Sulla contemplates failure—The Opimian
wine—Death of Metella—Valeria Messalla—Ofella—
The parable of the husbandman—Lepidus—Sulla's
verdict on Pompeius—Sulla resigns—He retires—
Attacked by sickness—His commentaries—He bursts a
blood-vessel—His death, 78 B.C., aet. 60—Pompeius
protects the dead man—The funeral.

XIII The Death of Sulla's World . . . 295

Reaction—Sulla's success temporary—The oligarchy—
Mithradates—Sertorius in Spain—Spartacus—Fall of
Sertorius—Pompeius burns the correspondence of
Sertorius—Weakness of the Populates—Rise of Crassus
—Consulship of Pompeius and Crassus—Sulla's
constitution cancelled—Lucullus in Asia—Caesar—The
memory of Marius revived—Lex Gabinia, 67 B.C.—
Lex Manilia, 66 B.C.—Caesar financed by the bankers
—The trophies of Marius restored—Dissensions
among the Populates—Conspiracy of Catilina—Caesar
in sole control of the Populates—The first Triumvirate,
60 B.C.—Caesar goes to Gaul—The Triumvirate re-
newed, 56 B.C.—Results of the murder of Caesar—The
empire—Review of Sulla's work—Realism of Caesar
—The empire a new type of monarchy—Aristocracy
cannot be deliberately created—The oligarchy neglected
ability—The army becomes a guild—Political power
controls all others—The change beneficial to the
economic power—The empire ended the political
evolution of Rome—Defects of Caesar's policy—
Christianity necessary as a counterbalance—Christi-
anity a " political " organisation—Dualism of allegiance
unsatisfactory—Faults of Sulla—Sulla's work a stage in
our own evolution.

Index

318ILLUSTRATIONS

Portrait of L. Cornelius Sulla Felix	Frontispiece

After a bust in the Vatican

facing page

Portrait of Sulla; and King Bocchus delivering

jugurtha to sulla......86

Portrait of Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus . . .281

After the Palazzo Spada, Copenhagen and Naples busts

Portrait of Gaius Julius Caesar .... 295

After a bust in the British Museum

MAPS AND DIAGRAMS

page

Genealogy of the Sulla Family .... 30

Map of the Cimbrian War.....112

Plan of the Forum Romanum.....132

Map illustrating the Social War . . . .162
Plan of the Battle of Chaeronea . . . .188

Map of the War in Greece.....206

Map of the Italian Campaigns of Sulla . . . 236
Genealogy of the Caesar Family .... 268

17SULLA THE FORTUNATE

CHAPTER I

SULLA

i

NARROW street, paved with cobbles : soar-

ing tenements, straight, ugly, many-win-
dowed : a distant roar of traffic : Rome, twenty-one
centuries ago. A strongly built, middle-sized man,
with startling blue eyes, a purple-and-white com-
plexion, and a shock of golden hair : Sulla, whose
tale this is.

Glance over the Europe in which Sulla dwelt.
Take your stand on Ludgate Hill—a smooth slope
rising up from the undulating ground north of the
Thames, overlooking the marshes. There, already,
probably, stood Ludd's Dun, a fortress of great
earthworks crowned with timber walls, and stocked
with its sheds of munitions and supplies : from
which continued the town of little wooden houses to
the other earthwork on what is now Tower Hill,
guarding the way east. It was no great town then—
chiefly the river-port that kept the more important
town, which is now St. Albans, in touch with the sea.

The salmon-haunted, silver old Thames was a

ii

19ao

SULLA

wide, shallow, marsh-bordered stream, which had
hardly time in summer to drain off the winter flood-
water. Vast forests filled the Kent and Sussex
wealds, which are now cleared and cultivated, while
the now wooded hills were bare. It was a wild
land of hill emerging smooth from thick woods
scored by flooded streams and determined swamp—
a savage, pioneer land to which civilisation had not
yet come ; the hills dotted with ringed villages that
were ramparted with high turf walls and wicker
battlements, wherein long-haired, scarlet-clad tribal
chiefs with wonderfully decorative but soft-bladed
swords ruled in rural splendour over the common
people who still used the flint knife to shear the sheep
and ring the bull: a pastoral people, fishing and
bird-trapping in the marshes, and hacking out
scanty allotments of corn-land on the hill-sides.

Britain was a land of local diversity and local
government; its rulers suspicious and exclusive.
It could be traversed only by certain roads—and
these so well watched that the traveller could not
easily escape being examined and turned back, unless
his credentials were uncommonly good. Produc-
tivity was low: population thin, and somewhat
scattered. There was no national organisation
either public or private. Education was in the
hands of a Druid church of distinctly theosophical
colour. Trade was restrained, not only by the low
productivity of industry, but by the degree to which
all enterprise was repressed by the exclusive mono-
poly of the local tribal groups. Nothing could be on
a large scale.

The northern trade was largely in the hands of <
Frisians, who brought in furs, amber, fish and eggs,
and took in return the tin that came from Cornwall,THE NORTH

21

and a certain amount of gold from Ireland : return- Y
ing home to sell the tin and the gold to the men who
came down, laden with more amber and furs of the
Baltic, in many-oared whale-boats steered by cold-
faced, blue-eyed kings who let no stranger into their
countries. The Frisians held this trade because it
was dangerous to cross the North Sea, and in all ways
safer to steer by the coast and come over the narrow
sea to the Thames mouth, or on to the ports of Gaul.

Not much was known of the Baltic. The Frisians
kept that market in their own hands, and the North-
men in these times did not care to come further
down themselves, although it is possible that in
earlier times their whale-boats had traded as far
south as Brittany and Spain. Germany was back-
ward and disunited, having been swept by repeated
devastating wars ; but in other respects was the
same predatory, militaristic Germany with which we
have been familiar : and Germany formed a barrier
which prevented any easy access by land to the
North. But the Baltic lands were then, as now, pro-
gressive and intelligent—their artificers expert metal
workers who could cast trumpets and bronze chains,
and forge and inlay iron, though not, as yet, temper
it. On the whole, north-western Europe was in a
state of transition and decadence—fallen off from
many of the splendours of an earlier age, and not yet
risen to its new future.

The central fact was, perhaps, that north-western
Europe still lingered in a definitely tribal stage of
social organisation, in which great social and
economic unities were impossible. Men were
limited and hindered by this fact, and were awaiting
some fresh form of organisation in which their
energies could be safely unleashed. Such develop-22

SULLA

ments do not come in a day; but events were
already moving, though the news came through
slowly and sporadically. The coast of Denmark
gave way and let in the sea, as in later ages it broke
into Holland and formed the Zuyder Zee. The
Cimbri and Teutones were swamped out, and began
to look for new homes : and there was local trouble
and war, and movement as far south as the Rhine.
The Goths of Sweden were crossing over to the
south coast of the Baltic, and colonising the valley
of the Vistula. Something was impending over
Europe. The Etruscan augurs declared that a new
age was beginning—whatever that might mean.

in

Amid this confinement and restriction of energy,
the attention of an onlooker would almost insensibly
wander to the real centre of interest; and the way
would have been to strike the Tin Road, the Pil-
grim's Way, which led to Winchester, and by a side
road to Southampton. There sea-going ships with
leathern sails and iron anchors would take the
traveller (fare uncertain and fixed by private treaty)
over into the ports of the Loire. The tin and gold
went by that .trade route, either up the rivers, or
overland, southward, in return for the iron of Gaul.
In Gaul, at first, it would seem much as it was in
Britain ; but there was a leaven at work ; the social
unit was perhaps greater ; the hills might be higher,
and the marshes vaster, but certainly the villages
were larger, and the ringed forts bigger. Cattle-
breeding was the chief occupation ; but a good trade
was done in iron and metal work. The Gaulish
craftsmen were the first to invent enamelling, and
to discover the processes of tinning and silvering.THE SOUTH

23

The further south one went, the richer the land be-
came : till one came to the Cevennes, and walked
straight into a new world.

The vine and the olive began at the Cevennes,
and a road or two, and landed estates, and all the
first signs of civilisation. And going forward, one
would meet more roads, and farms and vineyards,
and country houses, and so come at last to the outer
villages, and then to the subordinate towns, and then
to the suburbs, and then to the walls, of a roaring
city of civilisation with factories, and shops, and
working men, and middle-classes, and millionaires,
and old aristocratic families—labouring, idling,
trading, speculating, swindling—doing all those
things which, for good or evil, civilised men do.
Her harbours were full of ships, her banks full of
money. This, you ask, was Rome ? So any intelli-
gent Briton, who got so far, would reverentially ask.
No—it was Marseilles. But here " Rome " began.

And now all was changed. There were surveyors
and civil engineers in the Roman world. It was not
indeed until a hundred years later that they linked
up the Italian road system with the roads of Transal^
pine Gaul, and built the solid graded highway that ran
from Marseilles, with bridge, bank, and causeway as
necessary, forking at Aquae Sextiae, round, past and
over the barrier of the Alps to Pisa, along the old
track-way between the mountains and the sea. So in
these days it was still the simplest course to take ship
direct to Pisa. And at Pisa was another great city ;
and here, in Italy, the world was civilised. Social
problems, political disputes, administrative systems ;
public baths, water supply, drainage, rates and
taxes ; theatres, circuses, and other less respectable
places of entertainment—all were here. It was not24

SULLA

long since a political crisis. Another crisis might
come to pass at any time. You could have enjoyed
an intelligent conversation with any respectable
person as to whether the Dole was really a just and
an expedient policy, and whether Catulus or Metellus
would succeed in gaining the second place in the
consular elections : and why Italians should not have
the vote. You could have been introduced into a
political or a social club : you could have put up
in lodgings or in an hotel. True, these things were
not in all cases shaped in precisely our way : the
fashion was different: but the substance was there
in full measure. Italy, in Sulla's day, was socially
nearer to us than the England of 1600.1

And all these things depended on a certain order
of man. By degrees he might be identified : a more
or less prosperous, pushing, confident man with a
chin, who took the pavement of every one—a Roman,
whatever mysterious significance that term might
have. And there was a mystery attached to it.
You would hear the name and fame of Rome and yet
see no police and no soldiers. It was a civilisation
conducted without the gendarme. The court of
justice sat, and recorded its judgments ; but there
was no obvious reason why they should be respected.

Take the road from Pisa—the great Via Aurelia
that ran south, passing through ancient cities,
between the Apennine and the sea, down through the
rich cultivation of old Etruria, where the chain-gangs
worked in the vineyards, and the chained shepherd
watched his flocks by night—amid the signs of ever

1 The absence of machinery—the most obvious difference
—was due to an economic cause : slave labour was so cheap
that the sinking of capital in machinery was not commercially
profitable.ROME

growing wealth, of transcendent prosperity. It is a
Whig civilisation of vast estates and huge isolated
country houses—a world of the nouveau riche who
is already nearly an aristocrat, and soon will be.
Thicker become the houses ; you pass miles of grave-
stones set up beside the road, and reflect on the
quaintness of foreign customs; you come to the
Pons Aurelius ; you cross it-

And there is Rome !

Not the Rome of eighteenth-century classical
idealism, nor even the Rome of the Palladian
renaissance (which resembled it rather less than
Sir Edward Burne Jones's pictures resembled the
Middle Ages), but the real Rome, with its temple of
Capitoline Jupiter still flaring with Etruscan colour,
and its senators still clad in purple-edged mantles
and scarlet shoes ; a Rome rammed together tight
within walls too small to hold her tremendous traffic
and roaring life ; the poorer quarters built tenement
above tenement, and packed room over room, beside
narrow streets; an unimproved, old-fashioned
Rome, like the London of the 'sixties, with, in one
way, all the world at her feet, and, in another, with
all the world before her : a seething, wood-and-brick
Rome, over-brimming with a life just cut loose from
the trammels of old decorum and old incredible
religion, not yet provided with Higher Thought,
Oriental Mysteries, or the Artistic Life : a Rome with
the remembrance of wonderful deeds of human
courage and iron heart, but no idea, as yet, what to
do with the results. It was a Rome as much unlike
the later Rome as the London that any man of middle
age can still remember, before they pulled down
Holywell Street and began to build the Bush Build-
ing, is unlike modern London. It would have26

SULLA

repaid the trouble of wandering through its streets
and examining its life.

IV

It was an age of rapid change, when one world
was coming to an end, and another was beginning.
• Men, manners and modes—the economic system,
the spiritual tension, the necessity, the ideal—were
all simultaneously altering. Economic changes sent
the Roman landholder into the city to live, and to
Campania for his holidays, while a bailiff or agent
took over the practical charge of his estates ; increas-
ing business kept the Roman financier there;
growing wealth enlarged their houses and their
households. The dour old Kruger-like farmer was
a disappearing species—except when the type was
revived as a pose—and his descendant was a washed,
manicured person, with a study, and a secretary,
and perhaps a room full of scribes (typists being as
yet unborn): who might collect objects of art,
might write poetry (as Lucullus did), and betrayed
his ancestry only by a certain robustness of neck.
The muveau riche was plentiful. And he, whose
father had sat at the foot of the table in the old
farm-house, might now boast of his butler and his
expensive cook, and all the other details of the
fashionable life, which were pretty much then what
they are now; while he whose fathers had sat at
the head as lord and master might be living in lodg-
, ings—as Sulla did.

For Sulla sprang of the great Cornelian house
whose origin went back, not to any equivalent of a
Norman Conquest, but to an age of gods and heroes,
lost in an infinite antiquity. He belonged to the
branch called Rufinus, which, some century and aSULLA'S APPEARANCE

half before, had acquired instead the name Sulla. v
Lucius Cornelius Sulla was his full name. And he
indeed lived in lodgings, though the magistracies
of Rome, from the beginning, had been filled by
innumerable Cornelii.1

v

But first of Sulla himself as a person. If his
portrait be authentic, be belonged to the same
Roman type as Julius Caesar—the old Roman
aristocratic type, which was as distinctive as the
Norman. Any one who walks down the gallery of
busts of Roman emperors in the British Museum
may obtain a profitable lesson in some historical
facts. They are, most of them, to a modern eye,
extraordinarily wide in the face. Perhaps the type
culminates in Nero, whose broad jaw and upturned
chin are startling in their peculiarity and distinct-
ness . It was the typical face of the Roman governing
class in the days when the old aristocracy was dying
out, or dead. Nero was of the plebeian family
Domitius. Walk on a step or two to the end of the
gallery. There, last of all the busts, stands that
of the founder of the empire, Gaius Julius Caesar.
And it is far more startling than Nero's—but in this
case because of its human splendour. The head
is vast, a gigantic brain-case, magnificently modelled,
above a face thin, finely boned, aquiline of nose,
with a small firm jaw and a large but thin-lipped
mouth curled into proud repose. Nero's face gives
one the impression of a human soul struggling dim
through the mountainous tyranny of appetite and

1 Of 140 patrician consuls between 366 B.C. and 173 B.C., 30
(equivalent to 21*3 per cent) were Cornelii. The Valerii, who
came next, were somewhat less than 13 per cent.28

SULLA

physical dominance. Caesar's looks out as through
a mask of crystal. Every line of it speaks of power,
refinement, and quietude. It may (we do not know)
have been the most splendid of its kind. It was
certainly almost the last of its kind.

Sulla belonged to that type. He had the same
shape of brain-case, immense in capacity, yet beauti-
fully moulded—the same fine, silky hair, very slightly
wavy; fairer than Caesar's, which was reddish.
Sulla's mouth was smaller, and instead of the passion-
less repose of Caesar, the ghost of a sad wounded
spirit haunts the lips. The lower lip is thicker.
The Creator of mankind has not struck off many
faces nobler than these. . . . The modelling
throughout is remarkably decisive. Compare the
portrait of Lucius Lucullus, who was of a plebeian
family. Lucullus had a kindly and pleasant mouth;
he had no particular sort of nose, and no particu-
larly striking head ; his flesh is dimpled where
Sulla's, like Caesar's, is hewn in smooth definite
planes. Men of the type of Nero made much
money, and were powerful men ; but the men like
Sulla and Caesar conquered the world.

VI

The complexion of Sulla raises some curious
questions. It was a prominent fact to his contem-
poraries ; they have handed down express notice
of the peculiarity of his appearance; and yet,
whether through delicacy or carelessness the descrip-
tion is not sufficiently definite to tell us what it was.
It cannot have been the well-known symptom of
cardiac disease, for Sulla was a very vigorous and
active man, who lived to a good age and died of
something very different. The overwhelming prob-EARLY DAYS	39

ability is that he was disfigured by a birth-mark.
If so, it scarred his soul as well as his body. Every
one who knew Sulla knew that he was oddly incalcul-
able, liable to fits and starts of sudden resentment—
capable of cruelty, yet easily moved to tears—until
those who recorded his actions did not know whether
he were a good-humoured man who was sometimes
vindictive, or a vindictive man who was usually
cheerful. He certainly had the touch of perversity
which (as in the case of Byron) is apt to belong to
those who are irresistibly conscious of carrying a
peculiarity they hate. The atrocities of the sack
of Athens probably owed much to certain Greek
verses chanted on the wall, reflecting on Sulla's
appearance : he wiped out the insult in blood which
ran out of the city gates. Some of his incalculable
cruelties may have turned on a self-conscious expres-
sion, an unwise stare, a betrayal of noticing that
which was not to be noticed. If he worshipped
Pompeius, it was partly because Pompeius had all
the silly perfection of which Fortune had deprived
Sulla. . . . We know the nature of men. The
great Julius himself was ashamed of being bald.

VII

The lodgings in which Sulla lived during his
early days were tenements obeying the economic
law governing all great cities. The influx of the
wealthy sent up the price of land and houses ; so for
those of modest means there arose great blocks of
flats, floor upon floor, suitable for all purses. The
ancient Romans called them " insulae "—islands. ^ '
They were probably ugly, and certainly uncomfort-
able. In later centuries, when Rome had been
greatly improved, the traffic was deafening by day,GENEALOGY OF L. CORNELIUS SULLA FELIX

P. Cornelius Rufinus
Twice Consul

? Cornelius Rufinus
I.

P. Cornelius Sulla
Praetor 212 B.C.

I

P. Cornelius Sulla
Praetor 186 B.C.

I.

L. Cornelius Sulla

Servius [?] Cornelius Sulla

o r—~

Servius

Cornelius

Sulla

Ilia (i)=L. Cornelius Sulla Felix.
Twice Consul. Dictator

Publius

Cornelius

Sulla

Q. Pompeius

Rufus = Cornelia

Gn. Pompeius
Magnus

r

L. Caecilius
Metellus Dalmaticus

= Caecilia (4) = Valeria (5)

Metella

1

Pompeia=Faustus C.=Fausta
Memmius
Pompeia=C. Julius Caesar

Messala

Posthuma=MiloPOVERTY	31

and the vehicles which were not allowed to enter
during the day, made sleep an impossibility at night.
Gaius Gracchus, as befits a reformer, voluntarily
occupied a house in one of the humbler districts ;
but Sulla's domicile had the additional discomfort
of necessity. He could not even boast of being a
" Settlement." He was that most embittering of
things—an out-at-elbows aristocrat.

Sulla paid £26 a year for a flat in the lower floors :
having for neighbour overhead a freedman who paid
£17. The authority for this is not Sulla but the
freedman, who, when in later years thrown off the
Tarpeian Rock for concealing political offenders,
publicly called attention to his old acquaintance with
the Dictator. Sulla possibly did not enjoy the recol-
lection ; or possibly (as so often happens) he had
old scores to wipe out with his neighbour overhead ;
for at any rate the reminder did not save the freed-
man. It is a pity that we do not know his name, and
have not the benefit of his further recollections.
Who called upon Sulla in those days ? How did he
occupy his time ? What had the freedman to put
up with, in the way of bachelor parties ? We do
not know. We only know that Sulla was a poor man
of aristocratic descent, who lived in obscure lodgings
while laying the first foundations of his career.

VIII

That career must, of course (if it were to exist
at all), be political and military. No other was
open to a,man of noble birth, unless he chose to
declass himself: no other was conceivable. But
to begin it, money was necessary, and Sulla had
none. His family had never been rich. Only one
of his ancestors had reached the highest honours32

SULLA

—Publius Cornelius Rufinus,1 who had been consul.
But disaster had overtaken Publius. He had been
convicted by the censors of possessing more than
ten pounds of silver plate above the legal maximum,
and had been expelled from the Senate. His
family, burdened with this scandal, had continued
more or less in proud obscurity. Sulla, however,
had lived it down, we may believe. It is not likely
that he retained any silver plate: and besides,
public opinion was changing. Silver plate, even in
large quantities, was no longer regarded as altogether
scandalous.

But as to the funds necessary for beginning a
career, Sulla had been blessed with striking rather
than engaging looks : he was not like his friend in
later life, the young Pompeius, from whom Flora,
the courtesan, could never part without biting him.
Nobody ever wanted to bite Sulla, save in the way

1 P. Cornelius Rufinus was consul in 290 B.C. with the famous
Manius Curius Dentatus : fought in Samnite wars, and was
granted a triumph : consul again in 277 B.C.: fought the Sam-
nites and South Italian Greeks, and captured Croton. He was
expelled from the Senate in 275 B.C. on the grounds alleged by
the Censors G. Fabricius and Q. Aemilius Papus. His grandson
was the first to assume the name " Sulla."

These particulars have suggestiveness in view of the career
of his descendant. M. Curius Dentatus, moreover, was a
grand old Roman—a hard-bitten fighter and countryman, whom
the Samnite ambassadors found sitting over his hearth roasting
turnips. He told them that he preferred ruling over men who
possessed gold, to possessing it himself. He also built the old
Anio aqueduct, and drained the lake Velinus, thereby first
creating the falls of Terni. If Sulla possessed any ancestral
images, he may often have surveyed Publius Rufinus with inter-
esting side thoughts about his eminent colleague, who resembled
in many respects an even more famous contemporary of Sulla's
own.STRUGGLES

33

of unkindness. The deficiency needed to be made
good, and the obvious way was by cultivating a
charm that should compensate, as it so often does,
for lack of beauty. And who so liable to fall victims
to charm without beauty as those with neither ?—
especially when aristocratic birth is thrown in to
weight the scale.

Sulla therefore began his career by paying court
to a rich plebeian lady who was not accepted in the
best society. Without the details, now lost, we
can reconstruct her in imagination : probably plain,
possibly deeply interested in occultism and the
contemporary forms of spiritualism and higher
thought: delighted to find a poor but proud youth
of high descent, who listened patiently and never
failed with the appropriate compliments. It may
have been then that Sulla first discovered his
Fortune, his occult friend. . . . He never failed
in any of his serious undertakings, and this must
have been a very serious one. ... In due time
the lady Nicopolis died, leaving Sulla heir to the
whole of her fortune. We may believe that Sulla
promptly moved out of his £26 flat, and that the
freedman on the floor above saw him no more as a
neighbour.

Sulla's father (of whom we know little else,
though the indicatipns point to a somewhat Micaw-
berish person) was also co-operating in building
up the family fortunes. He married again, and
this time made a wealthy match. Sulla made him-
self so agreeable to his stepmother that " she loved
him as if he were her own son " : and when she
died, he was found to be her heir. The foundations
of a career were now, from a business point of
view, thoroughly well laid. Sulla had the means

8.F.	C14	SULLA

necessary for advancement: that is, for life, adven-
ture, the society of his equals, and whatsoever
Fortune could perchance add to these.

The essence of Sulla's quality is shown in these
early incidents. He had the gift, when he chose to
exercise it, of attracting real affection. . . . This
is a gift not always meant to be exercised for its
own sake. In later life he used it to control a fierce
mercenary soldiery and to get his way with difficult
and dangerous men ; but he first practised the art,
as most men do, with women.

IX

But he had his disinterested interests. While he
was being thus acceptable in appropriate quarters,
he was cultivating others which were acceptable to
him. He never tired, even as an elderly man, of the
more Bohemian side of things. He thoroughly
enjoyed the company of immoral persons of both
sexes. He maintained a lifelong friendship with
Metrobius, the actor, and was deep in the company
of dancers, mimes, and actresses. The testimony
to Sulla's looseness of life is sufficiently emphatic,
for it to be recorded as a fact; but it is a fact of
which we cannot estimate the precise value. We
are not told, nor is there any evidence, that he was
an indiscriminately loose person ; the gravamen of
the charge is that he mixed much, and very intimately,
on cordial and kindly terms, with people of the
stage.

No doubt he took their colour and shared their
code of manners, which have never coincided with
those of the more austere sections of the com-
munity. Besides this, he must have shared their
interests. He may well have known them firstHIS TASTES	35

when he had nothing to offer them except apprecia-
tion and friendship ; and if actors are alike in all
ages, he may in those days have owed them more
than they owed him. He was certainly a good
amateur singer, and wrote comedies of his own for
private performance.

A deep and genuine passion for the stage is
consistent with the rest of his character. Possibly
it appealed to some part of his mind which craved
for it as a necessity ; there may have been some
hunger in him for the artistic perfection of imper-
sonation, the dramatic completeness of episode,
which nothing else could give. The art of the
stage has qualities which bring it nearer the sym-
pathies of the man of action than the cool, con-
templative, static art of the sculptor or painter.
Many of Sulla's ways of thought and action suggest
(as we shall see later) something of this interest
in the theatre. A dozen times in his life he solved
the problem of a difficult situation by a bold dramatic
improvisation; he certainly had a flair for a good
" curtain." The question is even suggested,
whether the Sulla Felix, from whom we shall part
at the end of this book, were not, to some extent, a
dramatic invention.

The proof that Sulla's life was a loose one is
found, not in any testimony, but in his own character.
He was obtuse on some points of conduct, in a way
which shows that he had dulled his fineness of per-
ception. He was five times married; his first two
wives, Ilia and Aelia, of whom little is known, may
be mentioned as belonging to his early life. His
three later marriages all have some anecdote attach-
ing to them, illustrative of some inherent quality in
him which struck even his contemporaries as being36.	SULLA

open to criticism. And there were other incidents
bearing on the same point. Nothing that has been
recorded of him shows the spirit of his great suc-
cessor, Gaius Julius Caesar, who refused to divorce
one wife for political reasons, and of another,1
whom he did divorce, made the famous remark:
" Caesar's wife should be above suspicion " : which,
whether perfectly sincere or not, illuminates the
mental attitude of the man who made it.

x

Sulla was, therefore, a man of double nature :
a Roman aristocrat, with all the hereditary qualities
of power and leadership, which his hard-bitten
ancestry had given him, built into the fabric of his
character : but a different kind of man dwelt in
the fabric—a cultivated, emotional man, who loved
an emotional art, and mixed with unconventional
people, and did unorthodox things2: and this
second man was human, cheerful, vainglorious,
easily moved by imagination, cynically witty, almost
childishly hopeful. These two sides to his mind
were not antagonistic, so far as action was con-
cerned ; indeed, so far from warring together, they
co-operated in building up his amazing career and
his striking personality. But there was a certain
sphere where the two did clash and become irrecon-
cilable. It became visible only towards the close
of his life, when events were moving to their dramatic
consummation, and death and judgment (at least,

1	She was Sulla's own granddaughter, Pompeia. See
Genealogy, p. 30.

2	He was a good Greek scholar, just as in modern times
similar tastes would make it probable that a man would know
French.HIS PASSIVITY	37

the judgment of mankind) were at hand. It
probably did not affect his youth.

There are all kinds of avenues to success, and
many kinds of success. It depends on the man,
and on suiting the means to the end. It may
come through hard work, or dexterous steering
through troubled waters ; but it may (given the
kind of man) come through a studied negligence,
an almost careful carelessness, a wise drift with
angry currents. Such a course suited Sulla very v
well. We know that in after years he never reckoned
too closely. He gave full scope to the operations
of that force which men call chance, or luck, or ,
fortune ; his task was to grasp opportunities rather
than to create them. We know that—as the story
will show-—he could not only act promptly, but »-
wait patiently. It is an easy deduction that he
went by this rule from the first: if anything, we
may infer that he avoided long plans and rigidly v
fixed projects, preferring to let the drift of things
carry him passively until the chance of action came
into view. This would explain why, when he first
appears upon the scene as a political person, he
has power and influence without the snare of attach-
ments. He had spent his time in the simple task of
becoming socially accepted.

There was discernment in this. Men—any men,
all men, but especially rich and official classes—
distrust ideas and plans. They just as instinctively
trust those who do what every one else does, without
putting forth any set projects or noticeable bias.
Hence, as soon as he had the means to enter their
circle, Sulla became gradually known to all the men
of his class : they met him, did business with him,
caroused with him, knew his secrets, and let him38

SULLA

know theirs, for he was one of them. Nor could
Sulla have forged that passport to acceptance.
He was indeed one of them. His protective
coloration was genuine enough.

XI

But let us note that Protective Coloration with
closer attention. If he conformed to type, was it
from the same motives as his friends ? We may
doubt it. Their conformity sprang from ignorance.
They knew nothing—neither what they did, nor the
approaching results of their deeds—and accordingly
few of them survived the days shortly to come.
There were probably not many who could have dis-
tinguished between the outward form and the inward
nature of aristocracy : most would have thought
the distinction a dangerous one to make. Sulla's
conformity was not from ignorance but from
indifference. When we have traced to the end the
career he was now about to begin, we shall see
that his respect for forms (and he did respect them)
was intelligent and qualified : he never hesitated
to break through them when he thought fit; and
his conduct in this respect compels us to believe
that he had the power of distinguishing between
the spirit and the letter, though possibly his judg-
ment was not infallible. A man with this power
will never violate forms wantonly, without cause.

At the beginning of his career it is clear enough
that he did not wantonly transgress them. He
drifted with the current so unobtrusively that even
when his career was well advanced, his contem-
poraries did not realise him for what he was. He
seemed so very ordinary a person that they were
inclined perhaps to deprecate his first extraordinaryHIS OPPORTUNISM	39

successes. He was not considered quite a fitting
match for Caecilia Metella, though old Metellus,
who is not likely to have been a bad judge in these
matters, evidently thought otherwise.

To this extent, of course, Sulla was an oppor-
tunist : but his principles forbade him to be other-
wise. The instinctive suspicion, which clung to
Gaius Julius Caesar all his life, that he had some
deep consistent plan in his mind, and some far-
seen objective continually in view—this suspicion
never attached to Sulla. And the reason for this
was that Caesar, by the nature of the case, really
had such a consistent plan, whereas Sulla, on
principle as well as by temperament, had none, for
a man who is intending to initiate a new departure
in policy needs to have that policy very clearly
formulated in his mind, while a man who merely
wishes to renew, reform, and conserve, requires
only to seize favourable moments—he will be a
devotee of Fortune.

And such a devotee Sulla was. He was destined
to go from one incident to another—each a dramatic
surprise and each a stirring episode ; and when he
came to look back, he could see a connection and
coherence that struck his intelligence as being
rational. But when at last he towered immense
and dominating over the Roman world, he had only
one explanation to give his contemporaries and
posterity. Something other than himself had put
him there.

It was Fortune.CHAPTER II

THE ANTECEDENTS OF SULLA'S WORLD

i

SULLA'S world was composed of a very ancient
and highly developed civilisation—known to us
as " Mediterranean "—which after many vicissitudes
had arranged itself round the dominant spirit of
Rome.

The difference between modern and ancient
civilisation has often been described: ancient
civilisation was based upon the City State, while
modern civilisation is based upon the Nation. It
was as difficult for men in that age to think politic-
ally, apart from the city, as it is for us to imagine
away the nation as the unit of political life. The
point of importance about Rome in a political sense
is that she represented the final stage of the City
State, and she formed, in her later ages, the tran-
sitional step from the city to the nation. Her
history has a particular interest for us on this
ground alone, even if we neglect its many other
claims upon our attention. It is worth while to
review the development of Rome, both in order to
illustrate the career of Sulla, and in order to envision
the precise nature of the experiment he made.

II

A fair conception of what a City State was, can
be formed by observing the ancient earthworks

40THE CITY STATE

4i

which still survive on the hills throughout England.
Their purpose at once suggests itself: they were
places of refuge in war time for the primitive tribes
who occupied the district. There is an almost
continuous chain of links between the " British
Camps" and such cities as Athens and Rome.
These fortifications, first stockaded and then walled,
formed centres at which grew up the first activities
of men as they emerged from the purely tribal
bonds of blood-kinship to the condition of political
and economic relationship in which the connection
is one of mutual interest rather than of common
origin. This is what we mean by a " political "
state of any kind: one in which interest, not
blood-relationship, is the nexus between men.

The earliest form of government was tribal,
usually circling round the headship of the Father,
who was King and Priest in one. In Asia he was
frequently more priest than king ; in Europe, rather
more king than priest. Families multiplied and
branched ; tribes joined in alliance for common
purposes : the " father " became a somewhat formal
and official kind of father ; the pressure of business
separated kingship and priesthood ; " tribes " be-
came, by the legal expedients of adoption and
ascription, mere technical expressions. Since there
was adequate protection, the fortified township
naturally became a market, as we see in the Middle
Ages. Some failed in the struggle for existence,
and remained the turfed mounds and ditches, the
mysterious walls we still see ; others succeeded in
unequal degrees. And, as frequently happens,
those which were first in the field were often beaten
by the late-comers. The cities of Mesopotamia
rose early into wealth and influence, with the result42 THE ANTECEDENTS OF SULLA'S WORLD

that they never grew free of a certain primitive
stamp. Their governments remained archaic in
type, while the cities of Greece developed advanced
conceptions of politics which allowed greater social
progress. But still the unit of politics remained
the city. Any government was conceived of as the
government of a city ; a citizen was literally a
citizen—the freeman of a municipality.

hi

But the development of wealth, art and intelli-
gence which was rendered possible by the political
city state, instead of making men permanently
content, revealed to them further potentialities of
still vaster development if the comparatively narrow
scope afforded by the city could be extended by
the creation of larger political units. For very
many centuries the problem of creating such larger
units seemed insoluble to the statesman. When
tentatively created, nothing would make them stable.

The rise of the Greek cities ought to have found
its logical consummation in the empire of Alexander
the Great, but from various causes Greek political
conceptions proved unequal to the task of expanding
the City State to form a larger political unit. Alex-
ander's empire proved to be founded on a political
basis insufficient to sustain it; the organisation was
weak, the discipline immature, and the great empire
broke up again into chaos. It might well have
been wondered then, as it has been wondered since,
" whether the human animal, as he exists at present,
is capable of solving the social problems raised by
his own aggregation."

But those attempts which are enforced on men
by real necessities are not abandoned after oneTHE STATE RATIONALISED	43

failure, nor two. They are repeated, through the
steady pressure of the necessity, until the result is
at last achieved. The fundamental condition re-
quired for success was not mere genius, nor sheer
will, but the creation of a political organism strong
enough to stand the strain of widely extended
government without being disrupted.

Rome evolved a political organism sufficiently
strong for this purpose. She was the first state to
do so.

IV

When Rome first emerges into the dawn of its '
history, the City State was already beginning its
last phase. There was a widespread movement '
throughout the European cities : everywhere the
ancient kingly system of government, older than
Egypt and Babylon, was giving way before a new
conception. The change was at first one of mental *
attitude. The State began to be conceived of, not
as a single authority, issuing its commands without
responsibility, and interpreting an unalterable and
divine law, but as a composite authority whose
commands were arrived at by the negotiation of the
various classes or elements which constituted it.
In the Hellenic cities a series of principles was put
into practice long before they could be defined or
understood. Authority was questioned, and its
nature analysed ; methods of political creation were
investigated. It was not an accident that the Greeks,
as the most enterprising commercialists of the age,
had an interest in the development of free and secure
intercourse. Political and economic speculation
naturally go hand in hand.

The State therefore tended to follow the economic44 THE ANTECEDENTS OF SULLA'S WORLD

interests of men—it went into the market-place,
whither kings had some difficulty in following it.
Government became a public matter. The Romans
had a word for it which we still, with a difference,
retain—respublica. A torrent of political experi-
ment began to flow through the European cities.
Most of it failed—some of it tragically, some of it
brilliantly, but perhaps none of it fruitlessly. There
is no reason to disbelieve the tradition that the
Romans noted, and learnt from the Greek experi-
ence. The soundness and correctness of many of
their measures hint that they were not acting
altogether in the dark. We have here only tq
consider the experiment which finally succeeded—
that of Rome.

v

It was perhaps an advantage to the political
development of Rome that her last kings were
foreigners—Etruscans whose expulsion was as much
a patriotic as a political reaction. The Romans
were no exception to the rule that the City States
which went over to the new form of government
were marked henceforth by a deep, ineffaceable,
most bitter hatred of kings. But the issue had
been so far obscured that the reaction spent itself
on the personal character of the last of the kings,
rather than on the policies they embodied. The
kings left the plebeians an organised power in the
State, capable of negotiating as a solid body with
the patricians who claimed to be the only true and
original Roman citizens. Later ages attributed this
organisation of the plebeians to the last King but
1 one, Servius Tullius. It turned the patricians,
from being the true and only Roman citizens, intoCONTROL MADE RESPONSIBLE	45

a special class of Roman citizens—it made them an
aristocracy.

Throughout the City States influenced by the
new movement, the determining motive was a
desire for greater freedom of action. The aristo-
cracy—always a rigidly conservative force—could
not forgive the king's betrayal of tradition, his
concessions to the plebeians, and felt that they
could fight that battle better alone; while the
plebeians—who were not wrongly described as a
party of innovation—no doubt justly felt that the
abolition of kingship was the irrevocable confirma-
tion of the breach with tradition ; and they trusted
to themselves to hold their ground against the
aristocracy. Hence Rome started not with the
victory of one tendency over the other, but with
both the old tradition and the new aspirations fully
represented in her political life. The change
abolished the king without abolishing his power.
The power was transferred intact to two elected
magistrates who held office for one year. As both
were absolute, each had a complete veto on the
actions of his colleague ; they could act only when
agreed, and they had to answer for their acts when,
at the end of their year of office, they laid down
their government, and divested themselves of the
protection it conferred. They had the power of
nominating a Dictator in times of public emergency/
who held the whole regal power : but his period
of office expired with theirs. It is hardly possible
to combine all the advantages of every system of
government more neatly than by the institution of
annual Consuls. Had Rome remained, from that -
day to this, exactly the same city which elected
the first Consuls, Consuls might be ruling her yet. >46 THE ANTECEDENTS OF SULLA'S WORLD

An institution does not fall or change necessarily
from weakness ; it may simply be outgrown, or
may become inapplicable. Rome did not, and could
not, remain permanently the same city. She fought
the Etruscans ; she formed a new league of Latin
cities to strengthen her position: excited jealousy
and distrust: was sacked and burnt by the Gauls,
while her allies supinely stood by : rebuilt her city,
and for her own protection transformed the Latin
League into a complete system of dependence upon
Rome. It was a question of going forward or
going under ; and no race of men ever clung to
life with more unbending obstinacy than the Roman.
Constant war meant the frequent calling out of the
citizen army ; and the strain fell hardest on the
least rich. Ten years after the abolition of the
kings, the plebeians revolted, and left the city in
a body. This was the famous " Secession to the
Sacred Mount." It had prompt effect. The
aristocracy listened to reason.

The complaints of the plebeians were simple :
they amounted, in sum, to this, that the power of
the consuls was unfairly used to the prejudice of
the plebeians, who were subjected to the main
stress of military service while possessing the least
resources to meet it: while the patricians so domin-
ated the electoral assembly that they could prevent
any plebeian control over the magistrates. The
reforms accordingly arranged were so remarkable
as to deserve attention. The aristocracy did not
compromise on its own main principle—its control
of executive government—but it gave the plebeians
' what amounted to an absolute and unlimited pro-
tection against the abuse of its power. The plebeians
were granted the legal right to elect two inviolableLAW BROUGHT UNDER CONTROL 47

magistrates—tribunes—who had the power of veto-
ing any administrative action of the consuls. They
had no other power of any sort. They had purely
and simply this negative right of an absolute veto
upon the acts of the executive.

The essential nature of the political conflict
between the aristocracy and the plebeians was from
beginning to end of this kind. The aristocracy
aimed at preserving in their own hands the power
of action. The plebeians hardly disputed this
right: they sought to protect themselves against
the abuse of the power of action. Out of this
conflict arose a number of important by-products.

VI

It soon became evident that the power of the
tribunes was not, in itself, sufficient for the purpose
for which it had been designed. A mere right of
veto, while perfectly effective up to a certain point,
left some spheres almost untouched. One of these
was the sphere of law.

The early law of Rome was what we know, in
mediaeval history, as " customary law " : it was
a law of pure tradition, handed down verbally
from father to son among the original Roman
clansmen. Every tribune of the plebs was liable
to be entangled in the endless intricacies of a web
which must often have nullified the effects of his
veto. The plebeians therefore demanded the
definite fixing of this elusive web. After a vigorous
struggle they carried their claim: the law was
investigated by a commission, the Decemvirate,
and its main heads codified and published on twelve
tablets which were fixed up in the Forum for all
men to see.48 THE ANTECEDENTS OF SULLA'S WORLD

But to touch the law was to change the nature
of the struggle.

The plebeians were organised in tribes that were
little more than legal fictions for convenience of
administration. But the patricians were genuine
tribesmen, and their law was tribal law which
governed their own corporate life as well as the
Roman State. To fix, define and codify this law,
even in part, was to set a precedent for the State
to interfere with other significant aspects of it—in
fact, to control the aristocracy. Hitherto the aris-
tocracy had not admitted that the plebeians were
Roman citizens in the full sense : they had dealt
with them as if they were a separate community—
as in fact they were—with which the aristocracy
negotiated as with a foreign nation. The plebeian
had no right to hold a magistracy, and therefore
could not enter the Senate : more, a plebeian could
not contract a legal marriage with a patrician. . . .
The richer plebeians—the financial and mercantile
men—had hitherto stood by their brethren faithfully;
they now obtained their reward.

The impossibility of intermarriage was the first
to go. It became at last possible for the descendants
of a plebeian to enter the patrician circle, and to
inherit the property and privileges of a patrician
parent. The way was thus paved for something
more. In the same year the first proposal was
made to legalise the election of plebeians to the
consulship. It was successfully resisted : but the
aristocracy conceded the election of Military
Tribunes with consular power. That they foresaw
the possibility of plebeian success is proved by the
institution of the Censorship, by which the power
of revising the lists of Senators was removed fromABOLITION OF PRIVILEGE	49

the Consuls and given to elected Censors who must
be patricians. The task of the Censors was to fill
up periodically the vacancies of the Senate, and to
remove from its ranks those who were not qualified
for their position. They became, by degrees,
peculiarly important magistrates, by whose action
the Senate was constantly watched and kept under
the control of the aristocracy.

For nearly fifty years the plebeians never suc-
ceeded in gaining election to the Military Tribunate.
Seventy-nine years passed before they won, after
a determined struggle of ten years, not only the
right of election to the consulship, but the legal
right that one consul should always be a plebeian.
Another sixty years passed, at the end of which
the plebeians were politically on an entire equality
with the patricians. The Consulship, the Dictator-
ship—every magistracy whatever of any political
value—became open to them. By the year 300 B.C. '
the aristocracy had ceased to exist as a political
fact. The equalisation of the orders was complete.

Nor was this all. By degrees the Assembly of
the plebeians, in which the Tribunes were elected,
had become the legislative assembly of the Roman
State. It is almost true to say that the plebeians '
had won not merely political equality but political
supremacy. The aristocracy had become a tradition
—a number of families still united by sympathy
and custom, but no longer politically privileged.
Plebeians were enabled to take magisterial office,
to pass into the Senate, to hold and enjoy any
dignity they thought it worth while to occupy.
On the other hand, the old aristocracy had no
share in the legislative Assembly, which was still
wholly composed of plebeians.

8 .P.	D50 THE ANTECEDENTS OF SULLA'S WORLD

" Several points are to be noticed in this process.
First, it was a steady process which occupied fully
two hundred years. Secondly, it was accomplished
without bloodshed or civil war, by almost purely
peaceful means. The Secession to the Sacred
Mount was the nearest approach to organised
violence that took place, and it was, as far as we
know, utterly bloodless. We can give no higher
praise to any people than to say that such political
changes as these took place without violence.

VII

We have no means of knowing precisely what
private hopes and fears men had of the possible
results of these changes : but whatever they may
have been, the real consequences probably were not
what any one expected : certainly not what we
should expect, if we were ignorant of the results
that actually followed. The plebeians neither over-
turned the State, nor did they enter upon a long
millennium of peaceful industry in which every man
dwelt in content under his own vine and fig-tree.
The old aristocracy neither disappeared, nor lost
its practical power. On the contrary, it proved
that the possession of political privileges is un-
necessary to an aristocracy which knows its busi-
ness : a discovery of the utmost importance. The
magisterial offices continued to be filled by a long
succession of aristocratic candidates : the plebeians
who gained office merged into the old aristocracy,
took its colour, adopted its ways and habits, and
imitated its character. The men who, in the year
300 B.C., may have gone home in despair, anticipating
the early ruin of the State, lived to see Rome no
longer fighting with the enemy at the door, butTHE WAR OF HANNIBAL

mistress of Italy and supreme in dominance. The
very young men who, in that year, may have
rejoiced in the advent of freedom, may have lived
to see, as very old men, what was to Romans
" The Great War," the catastrophe which marks a
dividing line in Roman history.

That war was the Second Punic War—the war
of Hannibal: the grand test to which the Roman
State, the fruit of two hundred years of political
struggle, was now to be submitted. Rome had *
fought down her Italian enemies, planted colonies ;'
of military settlers in their midst, and established
a hegemony over the Italian City States—a system
of alliances of which she was the head. What
she had so far created was not a new form of State,
but a league of States, who all submitted their
external relations to her guidance. The process
brought the Romans into contact with the great
Semitic power of Carthage, then the commercial
centre of the western world, and the mistress of
the seas.

Thus far, then, Rome had done nothing that
Athens had not done ; for the Confederacy of Delos
and the Athenian empire were just such things as this.
But now a trial was to be made, not of the external
aspect of the Roman hegemony, but of its inward
quality. The Spartans had shaken down the
Athenian empire. A greater man than Lysander
now advanced to shake down the Roman.

The Hannibalic war is strangely revealing. We
may be misled as to the detailed facts of the story
of the Roman constitution, and the personalities
who built it up, but we cannot be far wrong as to
the manner of men who fought Hannibal. To the
irresistible force of a man of military genius as

U. OF ILL. LIB.52 THE ANTECEDENTS OF SULLA'S WORLD

great as Alexander or Napoleon, the Romans
opposed the immovable object of unbending resist-
ance. Never, perhaps, before or since, has the
virtue of mere unbendingness been shown on so
huge a scale, or carried to such a degree. For
' ten years the Romans hardly fought a battle they
did not lose. For ten years Hannibal was victorious
whithersoever he went—victorious in a demoralising,
disheartening way, as if he had only to look at a
Roman army in order to beat it. The Roman
defeats included two—Lake Trasimene and Cannae
—which were first-class disasters, either of which
might have been the downfall of any ordinary
State. One of the most brilliant individuals known
to history pitted his power against the moral quality
of a ring of rather commonplace men; but the
commonplace men stood the punishment and lasted
out the war. They kept up their hearts against
the enemy abroad, and they kept their tempers
with one another at home. When the Senators,
after Cannae, solemnly met the surviving consul,
Varro—the man directly responsible for the defeat,
and their political enemy—to thank him " for not
despairing of the State," they carried mere patience
and public spirit to the height of moral heroism.

The formidable men who showed that spirit were
the descendants of those who, through two centuries
of embittered struggle, shaped the Roman State
without a revolution, without civil war, without,
finally, any permanent scar of partisan hatred.

If the Roman State, so composed and reconciled
in its parts, could not be broken by Hannibal,
neither could he disrupt the great league of cities
of which Rome was the head. The political
organisation of Rome remained perfectly intact.RUIN OF THE PEASANTRY

When the Hannibalic war was over, Rome had not
merely survived, she had increased. She had
reduced Carthage to the level of a provincial town,
had acquired Spain and part of Gaul, and was
watching the conduct of the exiled Hannibal in
Asia. She had proved that, whether or not her
political system were as ideal as the Athenian, it
had one virtue that the Athenian did not possess :
it could live.

Rome had invented something as wonderful as
printing or steam, or tool-steel or wireless telephony :
a State that could resist any known force. And
from that time onward the politics of the City
States of the Mediterranean basin, many of them
far older, maturer, and more cultivated than Rome
could claim to be, surrendered to the superior
politics of Rome.

VIII

The Second Punic War was a grand turning-point
in her career. The price she paid for victory
determined her future.

The war fatally damaged the class of small
farmers who hitherto had been the main substance
of the Roman people and their Italian allies. It
had swept them away in hundreds of thousands,
and devastated their lands by fire and sword. Those
who survived were in many cases crippled by debt.
Much land went back permanently into uncultivable
wilderness. The failure of the Roman State to
comprehend the nature of what had happened to it
is the central failure of Roman civilisation—the
grand test which it failed to pass. Those who had
capital bought up the small farms and ran them by
slave-labour, a form of enterprise which grew ever54 THE ANTECEDENTS OF SULLA'S WORLD

more profitable : and through the competition of
the great slave-worked estates, both at home and
in the provinces, the small farmer was still further
damaged. The new land-holders were soon so
L thoroughly established, and so powerful in virtue of
their possessions, that they dominated both the
• political and the economic side of Roman life.

We must not confuse this fact with the quite
different idea that Roman agriculture was decaying.
' Economically, Rome was improving : cultivation
' was better, production greater. The old Rome,
struggling with its constitution and with the Samnite,
had been a poor, ignorant, backward State, not for
a moment to be compared with the Rome into
which poured all the fruits of conquest—the science
and art of the Greeks, the trade of the East, the
cheap and muscular slave-labour of all the lands of
the Mediterranean. What had happened to Rome
was not an economic, but a political disaster. Her
citizens of all classes were diminishing in numbers
under the stress of war, and were being separated
/ from the agriculture which had been the source of
their strength. The rich landowners of the Sena-
torial class, and the rich capitalists of the middle
class, were rapidly becoming richer; at last they
became intoxicated with the wealth that flowed
into their hands. They did not know what to do
with it; but all seemed well to them while the
stream of riches rose like a torrent in spate.

The stage was now set for a new act in the drama
of Roman history. There were weaknesses in the
Roman which had not, so far, betrayed themselves.
Confronted with concrete necessity, the Roman had
acted : hammered in war, he had borne punishment
with unflinching endurance. And now he was toTIBERIUS GRACCHUS

55

be hammered no more ; no concrete necessity was
to spur him to action ; he was to stand, as it were,
in a void, in which he must act upon intelligent
principles of right, without compulsion. . . . And
a kind of prolonged pause fell over the Roman
world. . . . No man acted in a way corresponding
to the purely intellectual necessity that had arisen.
It seemed as if the Roman, the most successful of
men, had shot his bolt, and was incapable of adjust-
ing himself to the new circumstances, or of generating
action out of himself.

IX

The man who at last stepped forward—Tiberius
Sempronius Gracchus—had precisely the combina-
tion of qualities which marks so many earnest
modern reformers. The gens Sempronia was one
of the wealthy and distinguished plebeian houses
which were now mingling on equal terms with
the old patriciate, and forming the oligarchy which
replaced the old aristocratic government. He him-
self was one of the most brilliant young men of his
generation, and among the first Romans to be really
influenced by Greek intellectual culture, as distinct
from the pure old Roman tradition. His supporters
were drawn from both elements in the State. In
the struggle he waged, his principal ally was his
father-in-law, the Appius Claudius of the day. It
would have been impossible to hunt out a name
more securely enshrined in the heart of Roman
aristocracy than the Claudian, which was dis-
tinguished among the aristocratic families by its
tradition of political intelligence and strongly in-
dividual character. An Appius Claudius had been
the chairman of the great commission which codified56 THE ANTECEDENTS OF SULLA'S WORLD

the Roman law. Among the sympathisers of
Tiberius was also Publius Mucius Scaevola, the
Pontifex Maximus—the representative of a great
plebeian house, the most famous lawyer of his day,
a mighty ball-player in his youth, and the father of
a jurist even more famous than himself. It is
necessary to recollect this, and to be quite clear
in our minds respecting the origin of the party he
was destined to found. A great gulf separated
him both from the earlier aristocracy, and from the
later popular leaders of the type of Saturninus.

The plan of Tiberius was to restore the small
agriculturist to the soil by enforcing the neglected
law limiting the amount of Roman State-owned
land which could be legally held by any one person ;
and by distributing the consequent surplus among
those citizens who had no land.

The proposal was the signal for dissensions such
as had hardly torn the Roman State before. It was
successfully, and even enthusiastically passed,
though only after a constitutional crisis. Gaius
Octavius, a fellow-tribune, interposed his veto;
whereupon Tiberius solemnly proposed, carried
and enforced a law deposing any tribune who
should act against the interests of the people.
The reasons he gave for the step were certainly
logical; but it was a Greek rather than a Roman
kind of logic, and the action was, as we should
phrase it, unconstitutional. It showed a spirit of
haste and impatience in disturbing contrast with
the patience with which the claims of the plebeians
had once been enforced. It was, if nothing else,
a distinct breach with political tradition. More
than this, Tiberius, in order to superintend
the practical execution of his plans, illegallyMURDER OF TIBERIUS v	57

stood again for the tribunate in the following
year.

When it was clearly seen that his re-election
was a certainty, partisan fury broke all bounds.
Scaevola, who was consul that year, refused to
intervene, so illegality was answered with illegality.
The Senators themselves, under the leadership of
Publius Scipio Nasica, arming themselves with
broken benches, attacked Tiberius and his sup-
porters. Tiberius was clubbed to death: his
body was cast into the Tiber. The spell was
broken : blood had now been deliberately shed in
a political quarrel: and the blood was that of a
man whose purity of character was without speck
or flaw.

If the oligarchy imagined that it had swept away
the proposals of Tiberius Gracchus, it was singularly
mistaken. It had changed nothing, saved nothing,
avoided nothing. His successor was not long in
arriving, in the person of a man even greater than
he—namely, his younger brother, Gaius Gracchus.

x

When Gaius Gracchus, nine years after his
brother's death, came forward as a candidate for
the tribuneship, it was in a very different spirit.
It was no longer merely in order to pass a particular/ ?
limited scheme of reform, but with the aim of con-v'
ducting a constitutional revolution. He first of all
legalised the possibility of the re-election of a tribune.
He re-enacted the laws of Tiberius, extending them
to include a scheme of active re-colonisation both
in Italy and Africa. He then went further, and
introduced two laws whose influence was never to
die out while the Roman State survived.58 THE ANTECEDENTS OF SULLA'S WORLD

Of these, one was the institution of the Corn
Dole, by which any Roman citizen was entitled to
a supply of corn at a rate fixed below the market
value. He was, in short, to be entitled to a pension
or subsidy. When the first applicants for the Dole
lined up, it was noticed that an elderly noble,
Lucius Calpurnius Piso, had taken his place in the
queue : but whether the motives of Calpurnius
were political or economic, the fashion did not
spread. Gaius Gracchus intended the impoverished
citizen, who was unable to return to agriculture, at
any rate to have maintenance—and to find it near
the polling booths.

The second was a still more far-seeing measure.
Gaius attracted the support of the moneyed middle
class by removing the control of the law courts
from the Senators to the commercial and financial
men—the equites. This was politically a master-
stroke. It based the tribune upon an almost
unassailable foundation. No influence that the
senatorial class could exercise was powerful enough
to overcome a combination between the capitalists
and the reformers.

It may at first sight seem to have been a trifling
concession, hardly calculated to achieve the object
of transferring to the reformers the support of the
moneyed class ; but in the circumstances of Roman
political life the change was revolutionary. Hither-
to, the magistrate against whom complaints were
levelled at the expiry of his term of office had been
indicted and tried before juries composed of mem-
bers of his own class, who shared, generally speak-
ing, his own point of view, which was that of an
Italian landholder legally excluded from trade.
He was in future to be tried before men dominatedGAIUS GRACCHUS

59

by a totally different class of interest—the bankers
and merchants whose main financial commitments
were in the provinces. The disadvantage to the
Senators was considerable. Instead of the indulgent
review of their friends (any of whom might have to
stand a similar trial) they had to face the inspection
of men who cared nothing for their particular diffi-
culties and ideals, and were unaffected by their
especial interests. And, on the other hand, the
advantage to the equites was immense. For the first
time the minority of moneyed men, hitherto able to
influence government only by constitutional means
were given a leverage on the policy of the provincial
governors. He would be a bold man in future
whose conduct as an administrator went against the
moneyed class.

Gaius Gracchus gave the financiers an equally
practical " retainer" for their political support
when he dealt with the reorganisation of the Asiatic
provinces. Asia was to a large extent a peasant
country ; the peasants paid their taxes in kind, in
the form of a percentage on their production.
These taxes were put up to auction at Rome, and
sold to the highest bidder, who could then collect
the produce. . . . The exploitation of these taxes
was a concession of immense value, which could
only be acquired by great Roman financial corpora-
tions. As the moneyed men had now the control
of the courts, it was little likely that the agents of
the corporations could be successfully sued for
extortion or any other form of maladministration.
Asia was practically handed over to the tender
mercies of huge and highly capitalised corporations,
while the power of the legal governor was tied hand
and foot.60 THE ANTECEDENTS OF SULLA'S WORLD

All these measures were blows at the power of
the senatorial oligarchy which had hitherto ruled
Rome and had murdered Tiberius Gracchus. But
some of the less spectacular policies of Gaius gave
rise to even greater searchings of heart.

The great Roman roads hitherto had been purely
military roads. Gaius put in hand plans for the
construction of new roads of a less military type,
which, instead of striking straight from one strategic
centre to another, should connect the towns and
villages of Italy. This was necessary in the interests
of the small landholders, who needed easy means of
communication by which to put their produce upon
the market: for it had been cheaper, up to then,
for the Sicilian and African plantations to ship corn
to Italy by sea, than for the Italian farmer to trans-
port his produce to Rome. The new roads were a
prominent feature of the second tribunate of Gaius
Gracchus. They were pushed forward with all the
energy of an expert administrator. . . . They had
another possibly conceivable object. It became
realised that vague schemes of extending Roman
citizenship to the Italians at large were likely to find
their culmination in a legislative project. The new
roads might be the convenient means by which the
new voters might gain ready access to Rome.

The mere idea spread panic through the ranks
of the oligarchy: and not without reason. The
tribunate of Gaius Gracchus showed every sign of
becoming a perpetual magistracy, which he would
retain indefinitely: he would become a kind of king.
He was rapidly transforming the tribunate into an
administrative office conducted on the most business-
like lines : he was already the centre of a vast net-
work of activity which he carried on with energy andGAIUS A REVOLUTIONARY	61

adequacy. If, in addition to the hold he possessed
over the Roman voter, and the moneyed men, he
were to add myriads of Italians to the electoral roll,
the oligarchy could no longer keep any grip over the
State. Its days would be over: a vast revolution
would have been effected, and Rome would be
governed by a perpetual tribune before whom all
other magistrates were shadows.

The suggestion was far from being the product
of mere partisan enmity. The policy of Gaius did
undoubtedly tend to such an end. He felt that it
was his duty to avenge the death of his brother ;
and the vengeance was to be political. . . . Spurred
to some kind of action, the oligarchy attempted to
break up the bloc which Gaius had formed. The
equites were too closely involved to be effectually
reached, but the Roman voter might be of softer
stuff. Besides, the voter was, in a sense, the
strategic point to attack, for if once Gaius lost his
hold over the electorate, he need no longer be feared.
It was therefore to this consummation that the
oligarchy directed its counter-attack.

The particular wedge which was used to split the
bloc was the reforming enthusiasm of Marcus Livius
Drusus. We know little in detail of his aims and
character, but from that little it is fairly easy to
reconstruct the man. He was a wealthy and even
an enlightened man, firmly convinced of the
advantages of aristocracy, and even of oligarchy,
but keenly anxious to remove the scandals which
hindered its success as a political force. His
friends, who had doubtless often been intolerably
bored by his zeal for reform, pushed him forward as
a rival to Gaius Gracchus.

The schemes of Drusus, who was not a practical62 THE ANTECEDENTS OF SULLA'S WORLD

administrator, far outshone those of Gaius. He
proposed to found twelve new colonies, in which
provision was to be made for the very poor as well
as for the more prosperous class of emigrant: and he
proposed that both his own colonies and those of
Gaius should be exempt from taxation. The Senate
indulgently assented to these measures. Drusus
also brought in specific measures to remove the
grievances of the Italians, many of whom preferred
his programme to the extension (which had its draw-
backs as well as its advantages) of the franchise.
Even among the Italians, public opinion was as yet
far from solid on the question of the franchise, so
that an adequate measure for the practical reform
of abuses had ample effect in the way of detaching
supporters of the Gracchan policy.

The oligarchy secured the election as consul of
a man of type widely different—Lucius Opimius, a
vigorous reactionary of questionable character. The
plans, adroitly laid by some skilful intriguer,
matured. Gaius Gracchus failed to secure re-
election.

The first step taken by his enemies was the repeal
of the law for the founding of the colony of Carthage.
At the meeting of the Assembly Gaius appeared in
the Forum with a strong band of supporters whose
enthusiasm was more certain than their object.
They were, at least, there to defend him. Probably
every one was excited; for a person named Antullius,
an attendant of the consul, spoke words supposed to
be insulting, and made a gesture towards Gaius
imagined to be threatening. Antullius was at once
slain by the loyal enthusiasts. In his anxiety to dis-
claim the action of his followers, Gaius illegally
interrupted the proceedings of the Assembly. TheFORCE EMPLOYED

63

consul had now ample excuse for action. The city
hardly slept that night. A political thunderstorm
was about to break over Rome.

Opimius occupied the Capitol with troops, and
convoked a meeting of the Senate. It declared a
state of emergency, and summoned Gaius, and his
lieutenant Fulvius Flaccus, to answer for their
actions. They prudently declined. Flaccus urged
resistance to what was coming: Gaius had no
ardour for any such course. Flaccus, however,
entrenched himself on the Aventine, whither Gaius,
for safety, accompanied him. Gaius was still
anxious to avoid violence, and negotiations con-
tinued ; he even proposed to accept the terms offered
by Opimius. But on both sides the extremists had
gained the upper hand, and neither Gaius nor the
more enlightened Senators could make their voices
heard. Opimius attacked the Aventine. With the
help of Cretan archers the stronghold of the
Gracchans was successfully stormed ; Flaccus was
hunted down and slain in his hiding-place, while
Gaius, who had taken no part in the civil strife, was
hurried away by two friends. As he went, he is said
to have prayed that the people of Rome, as a punish-
ment for their fickleness, might never be free from
their slavery. . . . His prayer—if he ever made
it—was fulfilled.

He and his personal servant were found dead t
together in the grove Furrina. ... In the pro-
scription which followed, three thousand Gracchans
perished by the hand of the executioner. . . .
Their crime was rebellion ; their status, that of
public enemies outside the pale of the law.64 THE ANTECEDENTS OF SULLA'S WORLD

XI

That year, a splendid summer was followed by a
warm autumn. The vintage in Italy was a wonder ;
the " Opimian wine " became a thing the memory
of which lasted for centuries.

XII

If the death of Tiberius Gracchus had broken a
spell, that of Gaius marked the first political pro-
scription in Rome. Sentimentality and idealism
can be of many kinds. They can attach as easily to
the policies of repression as to the policies of reform.
It is dangerous, in a civilisation governed by public
opinion, to defy that opinion. And the real, though
silent, verdict it passed was singularly definite.
The Gracchi expanded giant-like into a kind of
political apotheosis. Many men paid daily sacrifice
to their images. All they had done, all they stood
for, became suddenly sanctified and irrevocable.
Opimius and Nasica,1 thinking that they had
destroyed the Gracchi, had made them eternal.

The Gracchi were dead. And now their deeds
arose and marched.

1 The fate of both Opimius and Nasica is curious. Nasica,
although Pontifex Maximus, and therefore bound to reside in
Italy, was sent abroad by his friends in the Senate, on some
convenient excuse. He never returned. Opimius (like his
father before him, a bad character) became involved in scandals
over the Jugurthan war, and was obliged to abscond. He died
in poverty in Epirus.CHAPTER III

SULLA'S WORLD
i

SULLA was seventeen years old in the year in
which Gaius Gracchus fell: amply old enough
to have known, and even to have seen, those great
events which marked the beginning of new and
catastrophic days for Rome. The age of seventeen
is an impressionable age, at which a young man is
occupied, not so much in forming opinions, as in
being moulded by impressions which he can neither
govern nor repel.

It is likely enough that Sulla saw the great tribune,
and knew the familiar stories told of him. Gaius
Gracchus had been a new kind of man—almost the
first Roman who administered a whole State as an
alert and competent business man. Sulla had at
any rate the opportunity of seeing, by direct obser-
vation, how a purely civic government could be
conducted. There were, of course, consuls to
watch ; but consuls were mere magistrates, going
through a routine that called for no indispensable
intelligence. Gaius had been a creative ruler. . . .
And ever since Sulla was able to notice anything
at all, he had had before his eyes the spectacle of
embittered political strife—the hint, the threat, of
vast changes—the example of men who swayed
multitudes by that subtle art which prevails upon

65	E66

SULLA'S WORLD

many obstinate individuals to think and act alike.
He had seen the unreliability of popular support,
the easy way in which the voter can be hoodwinked,
diverted from his allegiance, and caused to sacrifice
his real but remote interests to his immediate but
imaginary ones. The fall of Gaius Gracchus can
hardly have failed to produce on the minds of young
men the impression that it was perilous to base
hopes on the electorate. The people are fickle. A
crop of youthful sceptics must have been the natural
result.

But something deeper was shaken in the minds of
young men by the fall of the Gracchi. Hitherto,
' obedience to the law had been a habit, a religion,
even a superstition; men had contested political
issues, but always—as befitted Romans—within the
bound of law. Now this superstition was exploded,
the religion questioned, the habit broken. Murder,
proscription, and the straining of legal right had
become accepted political weapons. . . . This
Nemesis pursued the oligarchy. It had every reason
to dread force, since it was few in number, and its
power based chiefly on moral prestige; yet it had
itself invoked force.

ii

A young man who merely watches the events of
the day is seldom idle, even though he may be
inactive. He has enquiries to make, curiosity to
satisfy ; he has a whole education to go through,
preparatory for the day when he is at last to act.
And here was a whole world in crisis, providing
ample intellectual food for the musings of any
intelligent youth who required explanations.

It was certain, for one thing, that this Rome, inIMPORTANCE OF ROME

67

which Sulla lived, was especially important; for
she governed the world, and was the only political
power capable of moulding and controlling man-
kind. If she broke down, there was nothing to take
her place; nothing else had demonstrated the
possession of sufficient tensile strength to stand the
strain. She was civilisation; but she might be
admitted to be an imperfect civilisation. Every one,
in Sulla's day, was as full as we are now of a general
sense that the condition of the world was unsatis-
factory ; and then, as now, the problem was not
whether the world were perfect, but in what way
it could be improved with any likelihood of
success.

In thinking over such a question, a young man in
Sulla's position had not only reason to go upon but
strong instincts to reckon with. Both converged
upon the conclusion that whatever might be the
right method of improving the world, it would turn
out to be a development and improvement of the
Roman system. The Gracchi themselves had never
doubted this. . . . But were the lines they had
followed the right ones ?

Political reactions are not blind. They have a
rationale as much based upon the facts as the policies
which provoke them. A great deal could be said
against the Gracchi. Some facts were too obvious
to be overlooked. Had either of the Gracchi any
clear conception of the ultimate developments to
which they would be committed ? Their most
express fault was an unwillingness to accept the
logical consequences of their actions. Granting, for
the sake of argument, that they had been right in
their methods and aims, they had nevertheless
shrunk from the task of safeguarding them. There68

SULLA'S WORLD

was serious weakness in this ; and if their hesitation
proceeded from some secret element of doubt in
their own minds, was it not obvious that to bring
about any improvement a more consistent and
defensible policy must be thought out ? The first
necessary step was the adoption of a severer con-
sistency.

In such a search, however casually it might be
undertaken, a young aristocrat who was repelled
from the Gracchan policy would naturally look with
especial interest at the political tradition of his own
class. It might be the repository of principles
which had been forgotten, but which nevertheless
retained their inherent power. Nor was an aristo-
crat committed, by such a fancy, to endorsing the
methods of Opimius and Nasica. They and their
foes the Gracchi, alike, were no more than members
of a mixed oligarchy partly descended from plebeian
families. If one went further back, it was possible
to make important distinctions. The failure of the
Gracchi, it might be contended, was due to an in-
herent weakness in the common people, who pro-
duced politically nothing positive, nothing creative ;
and the negative quality in the oligarchy, typified by
Opimius and Nasica, which merely resisted action
without itself generating it, was in all likelihood
derived similarly from a plebeian mentality. What-
soever was positive seemed to come from the old
aristocracy. This, then, was a clue which might
lead to definite results.

Any one who reviewed the case in the light of such
thoughts could easily criticise the governing class,
and analyse it into component elements of widely
different origin and character. The oligarchy which
ruled Rome in the days of Sulla's youth was by threeTHE ARISTOCRATIC TRADITION	69

great revolutionary epochs removed from the age
when the genuine old Roman aristocracy had been
supreme. The plebs had entered it in virtue of their
wealth and business faculty, bringing with them
qualities and instincts by no means necessarily
identical with those of the old families. They were
a different type of man, bred under different con-
ditions. The essential quality of the old Roman
aristocrat had been a grim, austere, unflinching
devotion to the community. He observed—and
carried sometimes to an almost insane excess—the
awful principles of law and discipline. Individual-
ism had been his abhorrence—the cultivation of
personal will, of independent being, had been to
him as the Great Whore of Babylon to the Puritan.
Nothing existed for him but the State. Nothing
was impossible to him, when that great principle
was invoked. Valour beyond human valour ; firm-
ness beyond the conception of self-indulgent weak-
lings ; the self-immolation of a martyr—the self-
assertion of a confessor : these were the virtues of
the authentic patrician. Such at least was the legend
he had created around himself. The wealthy
plebeians, with their enterprise, their commerce
and commercial adaptability, had introduced a
streak of weakness into the class they joined. They
mimicked, rather than acquired, its characteristics.
The oligarchy might be conceived of as only a
parody of the aristocracy. It was capable of any-
thing except self-sacrifice.

The old aristocracy had hardly valued itself as a
mere aristocracy; it had not, to any great degree,
been conscious of its existence as such. What it
had been acutely aware of was the sacredness of the
charge it held. It opposed the plebs not because it70

SULLA'S WORLD

feared for itself, but because it feared for its charge.
When compelled at last, in the public interest, to
surrender, it had surrendered without bloodshed,
that the sacred charge might be still intact. . . .
The oligarchy could not make this distinction. It
thought itself the sacred charge : it imagined its
own private interests to be the precious thing it had
in custody. But a member of the great Cornelian
house might be excused for some quickness in per-
ceiving that an Opimius or even a Nasica was under
a delusion in such a belief.

This oligarchy, then, was not the old patrician
order. The patrician houses were, of course, parts
of it; but the plebeian element was an increasing
one. The way was always open to wealth. The
older patricians still despised wealth. The younger
men, who grew up with Sulla, took rather a different
view. They were ceasing to feel that it was neces-
sary to reject riches in the interest of moral example
(a state of mind only convenient when one possessed
ample landed estates on which to conduct the
austere life). For one thing, the moral example did
not seem to work ; for another, it was probably
much wiser to set an example of the right use of
riches. We cannot truthfully say that either Sulla
or Caesar was a model to be followed in the right
use of wealth ; but it is certainly true that a change
for the better came about, and that rich men began
to use their money for more beneficial ends. Men
like Augustus and Maecenas, and a whole host of
lesser men during and after their era, if they did not
always accumulate wealth in the best possible way,
were nevertheless much more enlightened in its
expenditure than those of the age of Lucullus. No
man is absolutely disinterested. Their enlighten-THE ROOTS OF ROMAN RULE	71

ment may have been enlightened selfishness, but it
was enlightenment.

hi

The young aristocrat who cast about for political
convictions was thus likely to attribute more import-
ance to the peculiar and unique qualification he
himself possessed, than to the secondary qualification
he might succeed in sharing with rich contractors
and successful freedmen—and yet to appreciate the
function played in all government by the control of
wealth. In the earlier ages of Rome, political power
and economic power had been united in the same
hands. The political power remained clear and
definite in the hands of the public magistrates ; but
economic power was slipping into the hands of
private and irresponsible persons, and the two forces
conflicted. Society was ceasing to have its old
solidity, and was becoming divided into rival
spheres of power. The instinct of the aristocrat
would be to side with the political power.

And for this there were reasons, connected with
the conditions under which the two kinds of power
were acquired. The range of qualities which, in a
highly civilised state, make a man rich, do not
certify him to possess the faculty of government.
They do not, indeed, deny him the great qualities
of an administrator : but we mean something more
than this by government and by politics, and to
illustrate the point, let us consider the inward con-
struction of the power which gave Rome her domin-
ance.

There are two explanations of the spread and the
permanence of Roman rule, or of any rule like it.
One is, that it was a tyranny imposed by brute force72

SULLA'S WORLD

on an innocent world. This explanation is very
unlikely, and it is in any case an explanation that
needs further explaining: for how can that brute
force possibly have been evolved ?—and what was
that innocent world like ? There is a second
explanation which, while somewhat more compli-
cated, is the more credible one.

The first element of human morality, which gives
to the other elements the only value they ever can
have, is the power of social co-operation : not merely
mutual help, though that is a necessary corollary,
but the faculty of unswerving loyalty to a common
aim, the gift for being members of a society or
community which is wholly at one—for putting the
benefit of this society before the individual benefit of
its members—the power of blending many human
personalities into a kind of collective personality.
No rule of ordinary morality has any validity or even
any sense, except in the light of this first great law :
and the absolute and binding nature which these
other rules can and do possess is created by the power
they have of riveting men together into this unity.
The whole idea of the Ten Commandments is, that
if we break them, we break the unity of the society.
And if the society is broken, there are but so many
feeble men wandering helplessly on the earth,
instead of standing in the firm strength of their
unity.

And to the degree to which men possess this gift
of association, to that degree is their strength.

Hence the mystery of Roman dominion is only
the fact that certain men (vaguely denominated the
" Romans ") had to a transcendent degree the gift of
association, and that other men had less of it. No
Romans known to us were bigger men or wiser menTHE GIFT OF ASSOCIATION	73

than those of other nations. They did not exceed—
nor even equal—the Celt or the German in physical
strength, nor the Greek in intellectual acuteness;
their one gift was the gift of mutual loyalty. At the
root of Roman dominion was some unbendable,
unbreakable power against which the Celt, the'
German, the Greek and the Semite hurled them-
selves in vain. It was the power of association.

But who were these " Romans " ? The answer
is, that they were the old Roman aristocracy—the
circle of ancient families which had constituted the
first, original Rome, round which the Rome of later
ages had aggregated a concealing mask of derivatory
classes. It was these men who had first possessed v
it, and from whom it proceeded. These men—the
Fabii, Valerii, Quintii, and others—were legendary ;
their tales are stories of stern, unswerving devotion. >'
They had no gift for explaining their virtues vividly
to an admiring world ; they were only partly con-
scious of those virtues, and what consciousness they
had slipped out, not in the form of rational explana-
tion, but in the form of a fierce pride. Other men
(they seemed to say) were but dogs—" canaille "—
dregs of humanity little above the level of beasts :
they themselves were the men, and the only men.
They bore the Ark of the Covenant, the secret of
all secrets, the holy of all holies—the gift of loyalty.
They were the Optimates—the " Best " : best not
in individual brilliance but in collective power. v

When, therefore, we see woven into the fabric of
Roman life a thin but all-powerful thread of this *
pride, we must recollect that it was not the casual
vanity of a few wealthy speculators recently retired
from successful business. It was riot casual; it
was not vanity ; those who entertained it were often74	SULLA'S WORLD

not wealthy; they were not speculators; their
" business " was that of Scaevola, Cincinnatus and
Camillus. And what they sought to preserve was
the original power out of which everything else in
the Roman State had proceeded.

But the Roman aristocracy was growing thinner
and more attenuated, as every aristocracy does. It
is inherent in the nature of an aristocracy to die
out through the very operation of its own powers.
When Quintus Curtius jumps into the gulf, there
is an end of Quintus Curtius : and hence war,
devotion and self-sacrifice had left the ancient
aristocracy but a leaven in the midst of an oligarchy
of wealthy capitalists striving hard to copy its
virtues, but usually succeeding only in imitating its
vices. . . . But if it could be revived and
strengthened, the State itself would be so far
strengthened.

Here we have a key to Lucius Cornelius Sulla.

iv

We have not exhausted the qualities of the Roman
aristocracy by naming this gift of association. This
indeed came before all else, for without it their
other qualities would have availed little ; but they
had other virtues and powers, which came into
successful operation under its protection.

The Roman aristocratic families were the origin-
ators of even the spirit which resisted them. They
possessed from the first, and never lost, the quite
peculiar and uncommon gift of stamping their own
spiritual impress upon all who were for any length
of time in contact with them : to be near them was
to become like them. How such a gift can be created
we do not know: we only know that certain rareEDUCATIVE EFFECT OF ARISTOCRACY 75

types of men possess it, and that the Roman
patricians did. The political methods invented by
the aristocracy educated the Roman people so
effectively that they acquired the same characteristics
which the aristocracy possessed. Precisely how
deep the likeness went might be a matter of opinion.
A copy is usually capable of being distinguished
from the original. That the likeness existed there
can be no question : the question was only of its
degree. And this Roman spirit went on spreading,
and absorbing alien elements into the fabric of the
Roman world, until the aristocracy was lost out of
sight under the mass of them. But the aristocracy
was still there : still invincibly sure that it was
Rome—the only Rome that really signified.

The expansion of Rome to wide dominion was
thus a perfectly smooth and logical development
of the same process that expanded her from a group
of villages to a united city. The exclusion of
plebeians from government, and the retention of all
political rights in the hands of the patricians, was
in no way a different kind of fact from the exclusion
of Italians and provincials, and the restriction of
citizenship to Romans. Once on a time the
patricians had been the only Romans ; then the
plebeians had gained entrance into the charmed
circle ; the Italians now claimed admission ; and
the turn of the provincials would come next, as in
actual fact it did. The Gracchi, being practical
statesmen, had grasped the logic of the position.
Rome would always be educating her outer ring of
non-citizens up to the standard of citizenship. The
process was inevitable.

But (and this was the difficulty !) the results,
while they would be the same in their effect upon76

SULLA'S WORLD

the minds and interests of men, would not be the
same in their effect upon the system of government.
There may be a great deal of difference between
what is possible, when men live in close neighbour-
hood, each knowing all by familiar daily contact,
and what is necessary when men dwell hundreds
of miles apart, and scarcely see one another at all.
The similarity of men is produced by their constant
association. When they live altogether apart, they
naturally diverge and become different. There must
accordingly be, in every widely extended State, some
artificial point of contact, by which all the parts can
be made to conform to a common trend. Lacking
this, a large State falls to pieces because of the
progressive divergence of its constituent elements.

The consequence was foredoomed. Dimly, in
the minds of the ablest men, the necessity began to
be felt for some new method, by which the Roman
dominion might be given unity. Two solutions
were to hand ; but before we discuss them, a third
possibility must be noticed.

v

A large class of Roman citizens neither knew nor
cared about any such alleged necessity. Their
attitude was perfectly simple. The aim of expan-
sion was, in their eyes, exploitation. They organised
themselves for the express purpose of exploiting the
provinces, without regard for consequences. This
aim, as an entirely unpolitical aim, and one that was
opposed to political control, brought them naturally
into conflict even with the oligarchy. They were,
after all, the very men whose interests and ideals
had first started the search after the Great State,
the large political unit. What index could point outTHE BANKERS AND MERCHANTS 77

to them the stage at which their policy began to
defeat its own ends ? They wished for the advan-
tages of government without its restrictions. Their
proceedings gave rise to the appalling series of slave-
insurrections which were the scandal of this period
of Roman history, and several times imperilled the
State. The possibility always existed that these
men might succeed in actually destroying the
political control of Rome altogether, and in origin-
ating a series of independent economic powers.
Their policy was self-defeating because they could
not maintain even their own position without the
frequent intervention of the State ; and their shrift
in independence would have been short. But their
attempts to dissolve the control of the political State
which upheld them were constant. The policy of
Gaius Gracchus had increased their power. It is
essential to bear in mind the existence and character
of these men, for the problem to which they gave
rise rapidly became the dominating factor in Roman
life.	—

The age of Sulla bore typical resemblances to the v
nineteenth century. Then, as later, there had been
a great expansion of political control over an immense
area of potential wealth ; then, as later, a new class,
often of low birth and little education, had come
forward to exploit it; then, as later, the governing
class, partly from laziness, partly from a sense of its
own private advantage, tolerated proceedings incom-
patible with sound government. Industrial and
financial enterprise, when allowed to run to an
unqualified, unrestrained extreme, are always incom-
patible with sound government. In this case, the
extreme in question was connected with the use of
slave-labour, and the standard it set. Vast planta-78	SULLA'S WORLD

tions were the order of the day ; and we may
sympathise with that much maligned man, Mr.
Legree, when we consider how tenderly, even
sentimentally, compared with the Roman planter,
he treated his human property. The labour was
cheap, and there was plenty of it. It was driven to
the last extremity, scrapped, and replaced. It was
held down by the spy and the torture-chamber.
Every advantage the Roman citizen possessed in the
way of legal privilege was ruthlessly employed to his
own advantage. The influence of the standard so
set up penetrated into every corner of Roman
industrial life. If ever the cry of a wronged,
oppressed, and frustrated humanity rose up to
heaven, it did so in the days of Sulla's youth.
Revolts, however great in scale, could be put down
by the military forces of the government; but who
could prevent the volume of that cry penetrating,
or disturbing, vaguely and worryingly, the deepest
withdrawn mind, as if on some wireless current that
could not be entirely cut out ?

VI

Rome was thus the first civilisation which
developed far enough politically to reach a problem
of popular rights. The Greek civilisation did
attain the stage of democracy ; but the problem
was badly stated and left unsolved when the Hellenic
world broke up. What Rome had reached in the
early days of Sulla was something much more
important. Greece had merely fought over the
problem whether the sheer human right of the
individual citizen, however poor, should place him
politically on an equality with the rich man of
property. This, however important and interesting,POWER OF THE ECONOMIC CONTROL 79

is a narrow problem. Rome faced the more general
question whether a crowd of human beings of all
sorts—slaves, freedmen, poor plebeians, im-
poverished aristocrats, and wealthy men of liberal
tendencies—could somehow sway the State against
the will of the rich owners of property. If so, how
could they do it ? What were the methods ?

The difficulties were very old. For one thing,
the rich man has a vast advantage, owing to the
weakness of human nature, with its liability to be
bought up, to be terrorised, or to be flattered.
The Roman man of wealth was, moreover, a particu-
larly tough person to tackle. He was as hard and
resolute as man can be; and such religion as he
possessed had no tabus on certain forms of human
action. He had no ten commandments. His Lares
and Penates—when he had any—did not threaten
him with eternal damnation if he removed his
neighbour's landmark—nor that the dogs should
lick his blood because of the blood of Naboth.
So he was free to do many things to his personal
advantage if he could—and he often could. He
' could—and did—do many things that the hardest
modern rich man would shrink from doing. The
existence of slavery was a fact which gave the rich
man a tremendous pull over his fellows. He had
control just where the modern rich man has none.
He could—and did—set his gangs oT club men, his
armed gladiators, on the street, and keep a firmer
finger on them than any American boss or German
junker.

Slavery, as an economic fact, worked to a similar
result; but its merely economic consequences were
not so extensive as we are apt to imagine. They
were pretty much the consequences of the unregu-8o

SULLA'S WORLD

lated Factory System—namely, a great waste of
life, great cheapness of production, bullying and
hustling, work that was done without pleasure or con-
scientiousness, a sapping of the moral independence
of those who were under it; and, on the other
hand, the gradual growth of a certain unity among
the victims of the process, a spontaneous league
of interests and sympathies : for where interests
and sympathies lie in one common direction, there
unity will grow in the grain.

But these difficulties had existed in all former
civilisations : what was new were the factors which
stood against them. There was the quality of the
people concerned. The intelligence of the Greek
and the Asiatic, when repressed by subjection,
reappeared in a cunning which their masters recog-
nised, but could not grapple with. Moreover, the
European was then two thousand years nearer his
beginnings, with so much the less modification of his
tremendous aboriginal qualities.

Considered merely as a beast, the European has
not had justice done him. He has been one of the
finest beasts turned out by nature, and when he
came fresh from the forests he was a bigger, hardier,
fiercer, more dangerous beast than the negro, the
Red Indian, or the Polynesian—with notably strong
predeterminations, and immense capacity for toning
down into a philosopher or etherealising into a
saint. It took him, however, some seven hundred
years more to make the mental and nervous re-
arrangements necessary for philosophy or saint-
ship : at the beginning he was essentially a man of
action. The Gaul, the German, the Iberian, the
Illyrian, the Latin, the Samnite were not thinkers
but doers, easily exploded into action. And theseTHE EUROPEAN TYPE

81

were the men who confronted the Roman rich
man.

More than this, the European races vary more,
and more suddenly ; they produce a high human
average, and a still higher quality of " sport."
Every now and then, quite incalculably, they throw
up something gigantic in the way of a man : a
Sulla, a Caesar, a Charlemagne, a Cortes, a Drake,
a Napoleon. This variability, this tendency to
throw up " sports," works against the interests of
the rich, who require, for their advantage, an order
of society stable, settled, and calculable, without
anything out of the common either for or against
them. It is as awkward for them to have Sulla to
defend them as to have Caesar to attack them. In
the wars of the supermen, the merely rich are always
losers. Tranquillity should be their chief aim.

The Egyptian, wise beyond the wisdom of most
men, understood this law : calm was the essence of
his creed—and because he preserved tranquillity in
Egypt, he reigned for millenniums, in great glory
and wealth, until repeated war broke up his power.
But the Roman was himself a European: he too
had the itch for action which prevented him from
this wise calm : his people were not Egyptian, and
neither was he. They could not be levelled out
into Egyptian bondage, nor could he level them,
being the wrong sort of man to do it: so that in all
things, however much it might be against his real
material interests, drama would creep in, and with
drama, of course, excitement and upset, and the
flaming-up of the European temper into general
strife, to the disturbance of all those serene processes
by which money is made and kept in security.
All these conditions being present, and the rich

SJT.	F82

SULLA'S WORLD

being positively unable to refrain from those actions
which exasperate men at large—the problem was to
find a method of fighting the merely rich.

VII

Faced by these intricate problems, for whose
solution only reason, and not experience, was as yet
available, any intelligent young man, reacting from
the Gracchan policy, might well feel that the first
indispensable condition was the firm maintenance
of political control at any cost. And this obviously
meant the maintenance of the aristocratic tradition
around which the whole political scheme was
entwined. The unity which the Roman world
wanted was (this was the first and most obvious
theory probable upon the face of it) dependent upon
the preservation of a circle of like-minded men
whose policy would be constant and whose tem-
perament was uniform, and who would carry to the
provinces during their terms of office one invariable
tone of mind.

The opposing theory—if it can be called a theory
at this early stage, when it was unformulated, and
had scarcely been definitely envisioned—was a
perpetual magistracy, such as Gaius Gracchus had
attempted to develop. Against it, the arguments
were overwhelming. It was directly opposed to
Roman tradition; and it had nothing to show for
itself in the way of pattern or example. What
experience could be called in to aid showed nothing
more fruitful in the way of perpetual magistracies
than oriental despots and Greek tyrants. If a
modern man could at this point have intervened
with the suggestion of a central representative
assembly, the arguments against it would havePOLITICAL CONTROL NECESSARY 83

seemed conclusive alike to Optimates and Populares.
It would not have secured the unity required ;
above all, an assembly can seldom be an active
means of government, save under circumstances,
such as those of earlier Rome or mediaeval Venice,
entirely unlike those in which Rome found herself
at this time.

The idea of a perpetual magistracy, if it ever came
to anything, would need to be evolved in practice
before it could be entertained as a hypothesis.
Hence a new policy, different from that of the
Gracchi, more hopeful as to its possible good results,
could only be an aristocratic policy, and one which
approached the problems of the day in a spirit of
caution, certainly not conceding without necessity
any change which might weaken the main principle
at stake. . . . And this, which has here been
reasoned out, represented the point of view which
Sulla actually did take up, when he came to the age
in which action was possible. At every point, he
acted as though this were the principle he had in
mind.

On no occasion do we find Sulla stickling about
particular measures of legislation. He invariably
accepted accomplished facts, when they were the
fruit of a genuine political opinion. He accepted
the Italian franchise, when it at last became law.
What he sought after was something different—
namely, a particular species of man in government.
Once granted that kind of man, measures were a
question of expediency, to be taken on their own
intrinsic merits. The apparent inconsistency and
cynicism of Sulla are Considerably modified if we
judge him by this test. His cynicism was a man- >
nerism—sometimes a desperate mannerism, most

84

SULLA'S WORLD

decided when he was most pressed, and most in
earnest. It was not any form of insincerity.

JVIII_____

But there was a feature of his character which
, impressed his contemporaries quite as strongly as
v his cynicism, and that was his unexpectedness.
He had a considerable gift for holding his tongue,
and when he spoke or acted, he was liable to take
friends and foes alike by surprise. Yet in this too
he was consistent. He put forward no personal
propaganda, no novel ideas. While he was in a
subordinate position, he accepted orders with com-
plete obedience, and sank himself in his class as
dutifully as any ancient Roman father. Not until
command was legally and rightfully his did he
reveal any views of his own; and then his views
were startling and even, to some, incomprehensible.
But his attitude in this respect was a logical one.
; It was a consistent interpretation of the principle
' of aristocracy. He obeyed, until he was entitled
to command.

And again, that opportunism, that habit of wait-
ing patiently on events, which may have been
partly temperamental in origin, had its roots partly
in the considerations we have been describing.
A reaction from the Gracchi meant a return to the
old aristocratic habit of allowing events to shape
the conduct they provoked. There are obvious
difficulties in the way of positing a necessary scheme
of action, and then applying it to events without
regarding whether it fits them or not. Sulla and
his contemporaries lived in a world which, having
progressed further in some respects than any
preceding period, had no experience exactly adaptedHIS CONDUCT EXPLAINED	85

to its own situation: and Sulla took this into
account.

IX

He was right. Events came in disguise. Two
years after the death of Gaius Gracchus, when Sulla
was nineteen, an obscure officer, one Gaius Marius,
a man of low birth, stood for the tribuneship, and
was elected. And neither Sulla nor any one elsev'
could have imagined that the occasion possessed
importance. No slow music greeted his advent:
yet one of the mighty protagonists.. had stepped
upon the stage. Sulla was still awaiting his cue,
but Gaius Marius had entered.CHAPTER IV

THE RISE OF SULLA TO FORTUNE

i

GAIUS MARIUS was a man very different from
Sulla. He was a man of humble family.
His father, a resident at Arpinum (where the great
Cicero also was born), was entirely obscure—one of
those Roman farmers whose numbers were decreas-
ing year by year, but who had formed the driving
force of the mighty armies which had made Rome
supreme. Young Marius had the peculiar charac-
teristics of the rank from which he sprang. He
was dour, hardy, and of extraordinary determina-
tion—an unbending, immalleable man, once his
mind was made up. But he had to be dealing with
subjects he understood before this quality in him
came clearly forth. He had nothing of Sulla's easy
instinct. Sulla was no beauty—but Marius, like
the Duke of Wellington, erred rather on the side
of a forbidding strength. He had " a damn'd dis-
inheriting countenance " ; and the fact is an index
to the spiritual difficulty he had in adapting himself
to complex or unfamiliar circumstances. All was
clear to Marius when the road was straight; he
pushed on like a bull; ljut he lost himself in any
kind of maze—and then his weakness came out,
and he proved an angry, obstinate, blundering man,
seeking to beat down what he should have gone

86Ifig.L
cPortraif of Sulla

from the coin issued by Quintus
Pompeius Rufus in B.C.51.





cKinq 3$occfius delhJeruiq

oJagarffia fo Sulla,

from the com issued by Faustus
Cornelius Sulla in B.C. 62.

GAIUS MARIUS	87

round. And Marius had a temper which rose before
opposition, as water does behind a dam. When it
broke through, it became a devastating flood.

So much of those characteristics in him which
functioned as faults. His virtues were remarkable.
Even through the cloud of calumny which his
political opponents shed over him, we can perceive
that he was a man of iron courage, who never fled
from any danger through fear; a man sincerely,
though somewhat crudely, desirous of justice ; but
a man above all animated by that thorough sym-
pathy with common people which we have nowa-
days learnt to call" democratic." Marius was quite
happy doing rough work, sharing rough quarters,
and bandying rough words with rough men. Over
and above this he had the indefinable quality of
genius—a capacity for perceiving and carrying out
tasks beyond the competence of mere ability. He
had the Cromwellian touch without the modifying
influence of Cromwell's religion and Cromwell's
subtlety. In such a character as this are the poten-
tialities of great success and of great catastrophe.
He had both, before he ended.

Marius and Sulla present a contrast in another
respect, not uncommon in human life. Sulla,
nominally a holder of old tradition, was in his
private mind a somewhat advanced person, interested
in unconventional ideas and people, and utterly
unfettered by rules. Marius, nominally a revolu-
tionist and an upsetter of established usage, was a
perhaps narrowly conservative man, strict in his
private life, with the decorum and adherence to
convention which professional soldiers are especially
liable to develop. He embodied all the character-
istics of the old-fashioned Roman.88 THE RISE OF SULLA TO FORTUNE

II

Marius spent his early years on his father's small
farm, working vigorously with his hands, and was
a grown man before he ever saw a city. His
entrance into military service was as a soldier in
the ranks, whence he rose on his merits until he
attracted the favourable notice of the great Scipio
Aemilianus. That Scipio thought highly of him is
shown by a curious anecdote. Some one ingrati-
atingly asked Scipio at dinner where they should
find again a general such as he : whereupon he
turned playfully to Marius, who sat next to him,
clapped him on the shoulder, and answered : " Here,
perhaps ! " . . . The prophecy (though true words
are often spoken in jest) was less to the point than
the fact that Marius sat next to the famous man.

The encouragement of Scipio induced Marius to
take the first steps towards the political career
which alone could open to him the higher military
commands. The family of the Metelli had been
friendly to him and his father ; and by the interest
of L. Caecilius Metellus Dalmaticus, who was
standing for the consulship, Marius was elected
' tribune—an office proper to an undistinguished
plebeian. He made a success of the office very
illustrative of his whole political career. He intro-
duced a bill to amend the regulations which governed
the voting in elections ; and since the proposed
measure seemed to weaken the oligarchic interests,
it was opposed by the senior consul Cotta, who
carried the senate with him. Marius was not in
the least intimidated. He promptly threatened the
consul with the exercise of his tribunician authority,
which meant imprisonment for Cotta : and turningMARIUS TRIBUNE 1x9 B.C.	89

to his friend, Metellus, required his support.
Metellus was obliged to explain' that he shared the
views of his colleague: whereupon Marius com-
mitted Metellus into custody. Metellus appealed
to the other tribunes, but they refused to intervene,
and Marius triumphantly carried his bill, to the 1
admiration of the people. But having in this
manner stood up to the rich and powerful, Marius
went on to prove his incapacity as a demagogue
by successfully resisting a proposal for a new Corn
Dole to the electorate. As a small farmer, he hated
the laws which undercut the price of Italian-grown
corn. He ended his year of office respected and v
disliked by both parties.

To achieve a military command, however, he
needed to hold one of the higher magistracies, to
which the tribuneship had been merely an introduc-
tion : and he had endangered his chances. He
was defeated in his candidature for an aedileship. •
Undiscouraged, he lifted his aim higher, entered
for the praetorship, and was successful by a very
narrow margin. It illustrates an inherent weakness
in the Roman political constitution that it had no
better means of getting a great soldier forward
than making him a chief justice !

His unpopularity was sufficient to cause an
attempt to unseat him on a charge of bribery. v
Marius fought his case with determination, and ,
with typical candour. Finally the judges, influenced
by his defence, and still more by his personality,
voted a tie, and the case was dismissed. Had he
lost, he might never have been heard of again:
by such very narrow margins is history made !

Marius passed an uneventful year as praetor.
He probably left all the serious work to his better90 THE RISE OF SULLA TO FORTUNE

instructed subordinates. At the end of it, when the
' provincial commands were distributed among the
retiring magistrates, he obtained Further Spain for
his share. Marius was now launched.

Never very successful as a political intriguer,
he was thoroughly in his element in Spain. His
energy, honesty and strictness gave him precisely
the increased reputation which his political efforts
never gave him. He cleared the province of a
plague of banditti who, as in some Latin countries
of later date, had the respectful sympathy of the
populace ; and his general conduct was rewarded
by a social advance which was to prove of very
great importance to him. He married a daughter of
the great Julian house of Caesar, a sister of the Gaius
Julius Caesar who was to be the father of another
of the same name, the conqueror of Gaul, and the
founder of the empire. To be accepted as a son-
in-law and brother-in-law by one of the great
aristocratic houses was an enormous step for the
son of the poor farmer of Arpinum. It meant that
henceforward nothing need be impossible to him.

_ in

Sulla was waiting; Marius had arrived; and
now the two clouds arose on the horizon which
were the harbingers of the coming storm. Human
history is so much the tale of the unexpected, that
we need not be surprised to see the course of events
not only influenced, but even to some extent created,
by factors which seem external, and almost acci-
dental. In rapid succession Rome had to deal
with two problems of an unforeseen nature.
v" One was the African problem, which rose slowly
into importance through a series of years. ThereTHE TROUBLE IN AFRICA	91

never would have been any African question except /
for Jugurtha. Africa was settled, organised, and
done with; the subject was closed. Jugurtha v
reopened it. He was an illegitimate nephew of old
King Micipsa of Numidia; and, as frequently
happens, the love-child proved an infinitely greater
man than the legitimate heirs, Hiempsal and Adher-
bal, with whom he shared the old man's kingdom.
Jugurtha was a magnificent example of the type of
mind which is that of a great statesman if it be
successful, and of a great criminal if it be un-
successful. In a series of dramatic events he slew
his two cousins and became sole King of Numidia.

His actions, however, involved serious questions
of Roman policy which promptly divided Rome ,
into two camps. Hiempsal and Adherbal had -
been under Roman protection; many Roman
traders had lost their lives when Adherbal fell;
and the question immediately arose, how far Rome
could tolerate the proceedings of Jugurtha. The
oligarchy was against intervention : the Populates
took a contrary view. The controversy aroused in
a fresh form all the party passions that smouldered
unquenched from the Gracchan days : and they
sprang into life now over questions in which domestic
issues were not involved. The Populares freely
charged the oligarchy with being in the pay of
Jugurtha. The Senate, on the other hand, had an
accurate perception of the practical difficulties
involved in any attempt to bring Jugurtha to heel.
Whether they were bribed or not, they were right
in this view. An African war would be an enter-
prise of immense difficulty and doubtful success,
which no body of prudent statesmen would lightly
undertake.92 THE RISE OF SULLA TO FORTUNE

But here entered, as a serious element in the
situation, the domestic distrust which had been the
result of the proceedings against the Gracchi. The
policy of the oligarchy was wise, but it was a policy
of secret diplomacy and private negotiations. It
caused a violent outburst of popular opposition to
the whole political trend of the oligarchy : and
Rome was involved in an African war to which no
definite end could be foreseen.

While the controversy was still proceeding, the
second cloud arose. Roman punitive expeditions
against the half-wild Celtic tribes of the Danube
region had been fairly frequent, and presented little
difficulty. No serious pressure on that frontier was
felt. But in 113 B.C. some unaccountable movement
was visible. The Celts were being attacked from
the unknown north, and through them rolled an
immense invading army which spread right up to
the Alps and the passes into Italy.

The consul Gnaeus Papirius Carbo turned it
back (not without damage) from Aquileia, and the
strangers, whoever they were, disappeared into the
fastnesses. They evidently wandered along the
northern side of the Alps, for two years later they
began to cross the Rhine. They were an immense
body of people, a whole nation migrating—men,
women and children, flocks and herds, moving, as
every European migration moved, with covered
wagons and nightly laager. By degrees they came
south, and at length reached the Roman frontier,
where they asked the authorities for land on which
to settle. It was a somewhat alarming demand,
difficult to satisfy. That a modern government is
never confronted by such a situation is no reason
for us complacently to underrate its seriousness.TROUBLE IN THE NORTH	93

This year was therefore marked by two disturbing
incidents. The Roman expedition in Africa was
completely and disgracefully defeated, and compelled L
to make most humiliating terms with Jugurtha ;
while the consul M. Junius Silanus, endeavouring
to turn the northern invaders back from the Roman
frontier in Gaul, met with catastrophe. The invaders
spread themselves over northern and central Gaul,
reducing the country under their own control.

The whole motive, policy and competence of the
oligarchy were now involved. It must stand or fall
by its ability to grapple with a situation it had done
nothing to create, under a watchful criticism it had
embittered by its treatment of the Gracchi. Steps
were at once taken to put the African war on a
satisfactory basis. The consul Quintus Caecilius
Metellus, a man of accepted probity and ability,
the brother of Marius's old friend, was given the
command. Great sums were voted ; the levy was
put into force ; men of ability were selected to
accompany him ; and with Metellus, as officers of
his staff, sailed Gaius Marius and Publius Rutilius
Rufus.

IV

The competence of Metellus was beyond question.
He reorganised the Roman army in Africa, entered
and occupied Numidia, and defeated Jugurtha. .
But the end of the war was not brought appreciably
nearer: Jugurtha merely disappeared into the •
desert and raised another of those elusive and '
interminable armies which African deserts produce.
The problem was shifted. Something more than
the corruption of an alleged scandalous oligarchy
was clearly involved.94 THE RISE OF SULLA TO FORTUNE

The new problem was nothing less than the
character and efficiency of the Roman army itself.
Marius had flung himself with vigour into his new
duties, and was not only a first-rate commander,
but a man extremely popular with the rank and file.
He shared their food and labours, spoke their
language, was with them and among them con-
stantly, and organised his work with the system
and adequacy which were his own peculiar gifts.
But he could not shut his eyes to obvious facts.
The whole system of army organisation was radically
wrong. However well fitted it may have been to
an earlier stage of Roman civilisation, it no longer
fitted the requirements of the day. The men were
not always suitable; they were selected without a
proper regard for either justice or military value ;
they were citizen soldiers with private interests
at home to worry them, and with a training in-
adequate to draw the best out of them. The officers
were frequently incompetent. And when Metellus
had obtained from Jugurtha the surrender of the
Roman deserters in his hands, the disciplinary
action of the commander-in-chief can hardly have
aroused the enthusiasm of such a man as Marius.
Some had their hands cut off; some were buried
in earth up to their waists, shot at with arrows,
and finally burned to death. To one who knew
and loved and felt with the common man, such deeds
must have seemed both monstrous and unjust. . . .
A breach began between Marius and his commander.

Marius seems to have come to the conclusion
that the whole system of organisation needed
revision, on every ground. He had the vigorous
support of the Roman capitalists settled in Africa.
They may not have realised precisely the militaryMARIUS IN AFRICA	95

reasons for his views ; they themselves, it is probable,
were chiefly concerned with the prospect of an un-1
ending war, dragging on indefinitely ; but whatso-
ever reasons may have had most weight with them,
they supported Marius. Glowing accounts of him
began to circulate in Rome.

The storm broke when an old personal and family
friend of Metellus—T. Turpilius Silanus—allowed
the important station of Vaga to fall into the hands
of Jugurtha. Turpilius himself was sent back in
safety—the only Roman to escape the massacre.
Marius made a stand over the matter. He accused
Turpilius of deliberate treason, and carried his
point so successfully that Metellus was obliged to
bow to public opinion, and to visit his friend with
the military penalty of death. He never forgave
Marius.

The accusation against Turpilius was subse-
quently denied, and said to be disproved; but it
is certain that Marius never altered the opinion he
had formed, and expressed emphatic satisfaction
with his own share in the incident. But it meant
a further breach with the oligarchic party. Marius
had quarrelled successively with two brothers, both
of them important and influential men to whom,
by ordinary worldly standards, he owed a great
deal. They and their friends are hardly likely to
have taken any but a black view of his character
and conduct.

Marius thereupon made the characteristic resolu-
tion of standing for the consulship himself. Un-
likely as success might seem (for men outside a
certain ring of very old or very wealthy families
seldom achieved the chief magistracy), there were
factors in his favour. Metellus did his best, by96 THE RISE OF SULLA TO FORTUNE

ridicule and opposition, to prevent the candidature.
Marius obtained the necessary leave of absence
only twelve days before the elections, and at once
made a dash for home. He reached Utica after
a journey of whirlwind haste; the auguries were
favourable—and so (more important still) was the
wind. He arrived at Rome seven days after he had
left the army, found that his reputation had pre-
ceded him, and was triumphantly elected consul for
the first time.

There must have been much discussion, not only
far away in Africa, round the dinner table of Metellus,
but around the dinner tables nearer at hand in Rome.
The election of Marius meant even more than his
enemies imagined.

v

The schemes which Marius must have been
turning over in his mind, and discussing with his
friends for some time previously, he now began to
develop ; and the oligarchy discovered with horror
and amazement that the most terrifying of all
portents to an oligarchy had appeared upon the
political stage—a man with great ideas. Sulla
began his political career that year, succeeding in
a comparatively humble candidature for the quaestor-
ship, and he was therefore associated from the
beginning with the drafting and execution of the
military reforms which his consul put into operation.

Their substance consisted in the creation of a
regular army, a voluntary army. Hitherto the
Roman armies had been citizen armies, levied upon
the qualified Roman electors and Italian allies on a
property basis. Marius carried through the sweep-
ing revolution of abolishing this old system, andARMY REFORMS OF MARIUS

calling for voluntary recruits who were prepared >
to take up arms as a profession. It is only by
approaching this policy from the political angle
that we can seize the true perspective of it; and
then we can see that, though nominally a military
reform, it was in fact a revolution which followed
logically upon the policy of Gaius Gracchus, and
paved the way for all the constitutional changes
that he had first foreshadowed, and that were to
transform the Rome of Marius into the Rome of
Augustus. . . . Here the obtuseness of Marius
came to his aid. He was not an imaginative man ;
he had no intellectual culture, and it is improbable
that he could or would enter with any sympathy
into deep (and to him, no doubt, remote) constitu-
tional questions. He was concerned solely with
the creation of an adequate military force, and in
this aim he cared for no distinctions of mere political
theory. Yet the objections which might be felt to
his policy on grounds of principle were neither
few nor trifling. He was tearing up the military
arrangements of King Servius Tullius on which
the Roman political constitution rested, and from
which it had originally grown. He was dividing
the soldier from the citizen, and creating an instru-
ment which might easily place the control of the
State into hands not responsible to the constitutional
government. Classical statesmen knew well enough
the means by which military tyrannies were founded.
There must have been many men who, though not
prepared for opposition to valuable practical reforms,
watched intently for opportunity to divert the
possible consequences.

On the other hand, Marius, with the instinct of
the purely practical mind, had grasped a logic that

S.p.	G98 THE RISE OF SULLA TO FORTUNE

was in the situation itself rather than in the ideas
and principles entertained by men. Had he failed
or flinched, a necessary step in the political evolution
of Rome would never have been taken, and the
" large political unit" towards which civilisation
was working would have died before it had
developed to the end. He was doing that thing
which creates more real revolutions than any
idealism does—he was adapting institutions to the
practical necessities of the day.

Such questions of principle were alone enough
to divide the parties sharply ; but Marius, in his
public speeches, showed a candour and a supreme
self-confidence which may have been justified as
to its substance, but was indiscreet. He undertook
to take Jugurtha dead or alive. He told the electors
in his rough way that he had wrested the consulship
as spoil of war from the incompetent hands of the
rich : and that he gloried in the wounds he had
received in the cause of Rome as much as some
men gloried in the images of their famous ancestors
—this latter an allusion to a sacred aristocratic
custom which must have offended its devotees as
deeply as a somewhat similar allusion would offend
a modern Catholic. And he asked whether those
famous ancestors would not have preferred a
descendant such as himself, to the fools who wor-
shipped them. . . . These things were first-rate
electioneering, and were enormously popular ; but
they were not forgotten. . . . What Sulla thought
of them we are not informed.

VI

At the close of his year of office, Marius refused
the offer of the Gallic campaign, and insisted onSULLA IN AFRICA

99

superseding Metellus. The new army, being
destined for Africa, was therefore of no benefit to
his colleague, L. Cassius Longinus, who, under-
taking the operations in Gaul, was lured into an
ambush in which he himself fell. The Gallic
question must wait. Marius transported his army
to Africa. Sulla was detained in Italy by the
special work of raising and equipping a large cavalry
force. He may, therefore, have seen the return of
Metellus, who was accorded by his friends a welcome
not free from the suspicion of being a political
demonstration against Marius and the Populares.
The Senate granted a formal triumph, in which
Metellus anticipated any hopes of Marius by securing
to himself the honorary title of " Numidicus." It
is not likely that Sulla, on the point of leaving
for Africa, was neglected by the great men of his
own party.

We do not possess any contemporary narrative
of the African campaigns of Marius written from
a sympathetic standpoint. Sallust, who was a
political sympathiser, wrote much later, and his
record may, for all we know, have been insensibly
coloured by the accounts of hostile authorities.
The whole subject rapidly became involved in
party animus. The enemies of Marius declared
(apparently with some truth) that he had under-
taken a task which he was unable successfully to
finish. It seems certain that Marius carried out
some wonderful military operations, beyond the
capacities of Metellus ; but it is equally certain
that they brought the war no nearer its end. There
was, in fact, only one way of ending it, and that was
by the capture of Jugurtha.

Marius had the kind of intelligence which, whileTHE RISE OF SULLA TO FORTUNE

comparatively narrow in its scope, is extraordinarily
deep and efficient. His movements were secret to
the last—so secret that sometimes the secret has
failed to survive—swift, and very long. He drove
Jugurtha out of his strongholds, struck at and took
Capsa far in the south, and when Sulla at length
arrived with his cavalry, was in the far west of
Numidia, on the borders of Mauretania, five hundred
miles from his base. Thither Sulla proceeded, and
joined his commander.

Marius was not enthusiastic. The quaestor was
his chief of staff, the next man in rank and authority
to himself: and Marius had no taste whatever for
a dissipated young scion'of an impoverished aristo-
cratic house, who added to his vices the doubtful
. virtues of Greek culture. But Sulla did not prove
to be the kind of person anticipated. He was
soon popular ; his manners were easy and simple ;
he was ready to do a good turn wherever he could ;
and even Marius thawed before proof of the only
quality he was prepared to acknowledge as accept-
able—the virtue of military efficiency. Sulla
brought with him something else, not so obvious :
namely, a thorough acquaintance with the point of
view of the Optimates concerning the African war.

Sulla was singularly fortunate in beginning his
career under the command of the man who was
before all others the greatest general of his age.
Bluff and rough as he was, Marius was a great
organiser—a man who worked, and saw that others
also worked. The quaestor must have had much
r to learn; and to judge from his subsequent career
he learnt it well. The tone of Marius's army was
y something worth acquiring. It may have been
there that the young aristocrat picked up the artKING BOCCHUS

IOI

of an unbending familiarity with the common man : ■
that subtle mingling of human equality and personal
authority of which Marius was the chief exponent.
Sulla had to learn—and did learn—to stand upon
his own feet, relying not upon any social rank or
artificial support, but on his own power of manag- /
ing men. For this his earlier life had prepared
him. A devotion to the drama may not be useless
to an intelligent man. Sulla had the faculty of
making the most of a situation, of seeing it from
the spectators' point of view, of giving a certain
artistic turn to occasions which increased their
value. . . . And here he was, on the spot, to see
for himself the results of the military reforms of
Marius, and the true inwardness of the political
controversy over the African war.

VII

Marius had come to the Mauretanian frontier to
overawe King Bocchus, and to prevent a junction
of forces between him and Jugurtha. The expedi- ,
tion was one of those which give rise to acute
differences of opinion. Marius reduced the frontier
fortresses, disregarding the claims of Bocchus that
he was trespassing on Mauretanian territory. He
was conducting a war a large part of the results of
which could only be moral. What counted was
the state of mind he could create. He certainly
created considerable apprehension in the mind of
Bocchus. It gave the king much to think of to see
a Roman army penetrate successfully to his frontiers,
and there carry on military operations : but it was
not a case in which solid fighting and definite
results could be looked for.

When the time came for retirement, and Mariusxo2 THE RISE OF SULLA TO FORTUNE

started on the long march back to his base, it was
the signal for a cloud of Mauretanian horsemen to
emerge from the frontier. Jugurthahad been busy.
He had proposed to Bocchus to cede one-third of
Numidia to the king in exchange for his help ;
the bargain to be effective if the Romans were
driven out of Africa, or if a treaty were made
with them which left Numidia intact in Jugurtha's
hands. Bocchus agreed. Marius had impressed
him with the long military reach of Rome ; it
might be well now in any case to impress Marius
in turn. If the importance of Bocchus could be
suitably made clear to the Romans, the king would
be in a better position to negotiate with them in the
event of Jugurtha's failure.

The march of Marius was uninterrupted until he
was near home. Then the blow fell; and the
rest of the journey became a nightmare of desperate
fighting Three times the Romans fought a pitched
battle ; they were unceasingly on guard. Through-
' out the march, Sulla was the right-hand man of
-Marius, and on two occasions his rapidity and
discernment had much to do with the safety of
the army. The losses of the Moors and Numidians
were heavy. In close fighting they were no match
for Roman troops.

With the safe return of the Roman expedition,
a change took place in the whole situation. It
became clear to Bocchus that the Romans could
not be driven out of Africa, and that he could
expect little from Jugurtha. Five days later his
envoys arrived to sound Marius : and now Marius,
who had hitherto been grimly bent on prosecuting
the war to a bitter end, unexpectedly lent a friendly
ear. How far Sulla's private conversation wasSULLA SENT TO BOCCHUS

responsible for the alteration in the opinions of
Marius it is impossible to guess ; the military
situation alone might well carry conviction to a
soldier. The threatening situation in Gaul had
also to be reckoned with. However the facts
might stand, Sulla was one of the two representa-
tives whom Marius despatched to conduct conver-
sations with Bocchus. On the way, he talked his
colleague over to his own point of view, and it was
agreed that Sulla should conduct the negotiations.

VIII

Sulla was aware of many facts which it is not
absolutely certain that Marius knew : or, if Marius
knew, appreciated. Before vacating the African
command, Metellus had been in touch with Bocchus,
and had gained from the king what amounted to
a cautious assent to the idea of a friendly relation
with Rome. Metellus was in no way obliged to
report his proceedings to Marius, with whom, in
any case, he was not on friendly terms : and the
strong probability is that Marius was ignorant of
the correspondence. It would be to the Senate
that Metellus would report, or, even more probably,
to his private and political friends. In this case,
Sulla might very well know far more than Marius,
who, when approached, shortly after his arrival,
by Bocchus, had dismissed with scepticism the
king's advances, which he imagined to be diplomatic
trickery. On their present renewal, for the third
time, Sulla realised (as he naturally would, if his
knowledge were complete) that the king had been
repeatedly making advances which had not been
received with ardour. It was now time to show a
certain amount of enthusiasm.104 THE RISE OF SULLA TO FORTUNE

Without waiting for the king to broach the
subject, Sulla spoke of the pleasure which he and his
friends felt that Bocchus had recognised that peace
was preferable to war. He assured the King that
Rome had at all times sought friends rather than
subjects, and valued the loyalty which was volun-
tarily given far higher than that which was extorted
by compulsion. The friendship of Rome was an
advantage, not a burden, to a man in the position
of Bocchus. His remoteness would render un-
likely any conflict of interests ; but no man was
too remote to be reached by the gratitude of
Rome.

Finding that, far from having to humiliate himself,
he was accepted with joy, Bocchus expanded under
the cordiality of Sulla. He explained that he had
not been actuated by any hostile feeling against
Rome: he had fought to protect his country ;
and he repeated his statement that the border-lands
in which Marius had operated were not in Jugurtha's
territory, but in his own. He also recalled, as
evidence of his own good will, an embassy he had
formerly sent to Rome, several years previously,
which the Senate had refused to receive. He would
like to send another embassy. . . . The envoys,
subject to the consent of Marius, agreed. . . .
These were the official transactions. . . . Bocchus
was well aware that a Roman commander had no
plenary authority, and that any binding agreement
must be made with the Senate. Sulla knew that
the Senate, anxious to terminate the war, would
lend a more favourable ear than a general of the
Populates, if approached in the right manner.

As soon as Sulla and his colleague had left,
Bocchus received the representatives of Jugurtha,THE MAURETANIAN ENVOYS	105

who made a determined attempt to prevent the
defection of the Mauretanian king. His careful
consideration of Jugurtha's claims did not prevent
the proposed embassy from setting out. It included
five of his oldest and most trustworthy friends,
on whom he could thoroughly rely. . . . The
embassy, having fallen into the hands of hostile
tribesmen, arrived penniless, disreputable, and with-
out their credentials, at the Roman head-quarters,
expecting to be treated as tramps and impostors,
and to be turned away from the door.

Marius, luckily, was away, and Sulla in command.
He received them with dignified and lavish hospit-
ality, on their mere word as to who they were,
supplied them with a fresh outfit, and showed all
that charm which came so easily to him when he
would. He entertained them, instructed them care-
fully in what to say, and in how to say it, and
explained to them the official formulas, mystifying
to the literal mind, which must be employed in the
negotiation. On the return of Marius a council
was summoned; the envoys were introduced, and the
question was debated. Strong opposition was raised ;
but Sulla had prepared the ground and was success-
ful in obtaining an armistice for Bocchus, and leave
for the envoys to proceed to Rome. He had coached
them well. They made the correct expression of
humble penitence on behalf of their master, and
prayed for the friendship of the Roman people.
The resolution uf the Senate expressed, in the
recognised form, its acceptance of his repentance,
and its willingness to grant a treaty and the name
of friend to Bocchus, when he had proved that he
deserved the grant.

If in any way Bocchus had come to an under-io6 THE RISE OF SULLA TO FORTUNE

standing as to how he was to " deserve the grant,"
few hints of it have survived. Yet as soon as the
official answer of the Senate was communicated to
him he wrote to Marius asking that Sulla should be
sent to discuss with him some matters of common
interest to himself and Rome. Sulla, with his
commander's approval, at once set out.

IX

Sulla's mission was of crucial importance, and
as dangerous a mission as any man ever undertook.
If the " matter of common interest " could lay his
hands on Sulla, it was improbable that he would
hesitate. A cohort of Italian troops, together with
auxiliaries lightly equipped for rapid travel, accom-
panied the quaestor. On the fifth day of their
journey, an apparently immense body of cavalry
was seen ahead. They were wild horsemen of the
desert. On their approach, they proved to be an
escort under the command of Volux, the son of
Bocchus, sent to meet Sulla and conduct him safely
to the king. For two more days Sulla journeyed
in company with Volux. On the evening of the
second day the scouts brought in word that Jugurtha
was near.

Volux begged Sulla to leave the camp with him,
under cover of night. Sulla refused ; he would
not desert his men. Volux suggested a night march,
to which Sulla consented. At daybreak, weary
with marching and want of sleep, they found
Jugurtha two miles in advance of their position.
First a panic, then something like a mutiny broke
out in the Roman force, and Sulla, himself suspicious,
had to intervene to prevent his men from attacking
Volux. He calmed their fears, and then, callingSULLA'S SECOND MISSION	107

Heaven to witness the treachery of Bocchus, sternly
ordered Volux to leave the Roman camp.

Volux assured him, with tears, that no treachery
was intended. Jugurtha, he said, had discovered
their road, but he assured Sulla that Jugurtha
could, or would, do no harm, and dared not use
violence while he, Volux, was present to bear
witness to it. He urged Sulla to march straight
through Jugurtha's camp. He offered himself as
hostage for his good faith. He would leave his
men behind, or send them forward, and accompany
Sulla alone.

It required much less intelligence than Sulla
possessed—perhaps much less than Volux possessed
—to see that the situation was much more dangerous
than the prince admitted. As a hostage, Volux
was of little practical value. If Jugurtha could
make away with Sulla, Bocchus would never be
able to clear himself in Roman eyes, and would be
hopelessly committed to Jugurtha. If Sulla killed
his hostage, it would prevent nothing, avenge
nothing, but only part Bocchus more finally from
the Romans. The case was one in which Jugurtha
stood to win everything, without involving himself
in a single additional liability. . . . But Volux was
right. Bluff, bold and unhesitating, was the only
safe course. Sulla made up his mind.

Accompanied by Volux, he rode straight through
Jugurtha's camp. No movement was made : no
weapon was lifted. He rode on, and a few days
later reached the presence of Bocchus. If ever
Fortune befriended Sulla, she had befriended him
then. Nor can the wildest guess tell us why Jugur-
tha, with every crime on his soul and his foe at his
sword's point, did not strike. . . . The answer108 THE RISE OF SULLA TO FORTUNE

of Sulla would be easy. It was Fortune. What
else ?

One danger was over; the second began.

King Bocchus had every reason for concealing
his intentions, but he concealed them so well that
even Sulla could not be sure of them. The agents
of Jugurtha were active at the court. Sulla had
come to negotiate for the surrender of Jugurtha.
What if Jugurtha were successful in negotiating
for the surrender of Sulla ? The quaestor took no
risks. He assumed that the danger existed, and he
took steps to deal with it.

Bocchus sent to Sulla to assure him that all was
well. He invited Sulla to name a day for their
conference. The understanding between them was
(he said) unaltered ; but Sulla must not mind the
presence of Jugurtha's envoys, who were permitted
for reasons of prudence. Sulla was non-committal.
He accepted the official conference, but told the
king that the real business was for his private ear
alone.

The official conference accordingly took place.
Sulla informed the king that he had come to enquire
whether he had decided on peace, or intended to
continue the war. It was agreed that the king
should deliver his reply in ten days' time ; and
Sulla retired from the official conference. Late
that night Bocchus sent for him, and the secret
conference took place. Even then Bocchus spoke
with curious guardedness. He was grateful and
cordial to Sulla personally. He repeated his old
assertions—that he had never been animated by
hostility to Rome, but had merely sought to protect
his own frontiers. He now suggested that the
Senate would be satisfied with his complete with-THE SECRET CONFERENCE	109

drawal from all alliance with Jugurtha, and with the
cession of the disputed frontier territory ; but if
Sulla had any other specific demand to urge, he
would give it his best consideration.

Whatever the king had determined to do, he had
evidently determined to do it only under some show
of compulsion. Sulla accepted the condition with-
out knowing whether it were genuine or diplomatic.
After returning proper thanks for the personal
references, he warned the king plainly that Rome
was too great a power in the world to trouble about
trifles ; what Rome wanted was something different,
namely, the surrender of Jugurtha, which was
within his power to compass. This, indeed, would
be an act worthy of the friendship of Rome. . . .
And the reward would be the treaty he wanted,
and the transfer of a portion of Numidia. . . .
Bocchus continued to hesitate. . . . Kinship, the
law of hospitality, public opinion : all these troubled
him. Sulla pressed his point, and at last the king
gave way. He would do all that Sulla wanted ;
but, if it were to be done, there must be a pretence
of making Jugurtha a party to the official treaty,
or the bird would fly away before it could be caught.
Sulla consented to this.

Sulla probably never met a more dexterous
intriguer than Bocchus. How well the king realised
some elements in the case which were hidden from
Sulla can be seen from the reply of Jugurtha when
he was asked for his views on the contemplated
treaty with Rome. He replied that he would consent
to any terms, but he pointed out that the action of
Roman generals was sometimes repudiated by the
Senate, and he suggested a guarantee. Let Bocchus
hand Sulla over to him, and they would have ano THE RISE OF SULLA TO FORTUNE

guarantee which the Senate would not lightly dis-
regard. . . . This communication no doubt gave
great pleasure to Bocchus. Jugurtha knew much,
but not all. Jugurtha was a crafty diplomatist;
but Sulla was a craftier diplomatist than he; and
the craftiest diplomatist of all was Bocchus, King
of Mauretania. Bocchus agreed to Jugurtha's sug-
gestion ; and even then Sulla could not be certain
where the diplomacy ended and the reality began,
nor which was which. But he never wavered.

The conference was arranged. Bocchus, Sulla
and Jugurtha were to meet. Bocchus kept every
one in doubt to the very last moment. If his
indecision was imaginary, it was at least magnificently
acted. He spent much time in brooding alone.
But on the night before the meeting he sent for
Sulla. The last details were settled, and early the
next morning the two kings and the quaestor met
together. . . . Jugurtha's escort was cut down to
the last man, and he himself was delivered into the
hands of Sulla.

The war was at an end.J CMM MAP OF THE *SSfo ^
& ^ - *---^.^r	1 CIMBR1AN WAR,. r|

^tpprqximah fcale

too SO 0	100 7C

Miles LlUUUUl	I

M.ti or	%L^rrhiYx^ \ v'XCHAPTER V

THE TRIUMPH OF MARIUS
i

SO far, so good. From the party point of view
the controversy was a drawn battle. If For-
tune had stayed her hand at this point, there might
be no more tale to tell; but when does Fortune
stay her hand ? Men might have settled down to a
prolonged dispute concerning the merits of the case,
the virtues of the respective policies, and the amount
of credit to be apportioned to Marius and to Sulla :
but before the African war was completely wound
up, it was suddenly revealed as merely the train-
ing ground on which Rome had found her men and
prepared for the real contest. For now Jugurtha
sank into insignificance before the terror of the
north.

The invaders of Gaul had lain beyond the official
Roman frontiers, an ominous, unremoved threat.
Information about them began to filter through.
There were two principal nations among them (they
were far too vast to be called tribes), the Cimbri and
the Teutones, besides a certain number of Celts who
had joined them. They were not themselves Celts,
but came from the far north. Ptolemy the
geographer marks them as from Jutland and
Schleswig-Holstein, neighbours of the Angles and
the Langobardi: and two small tribes of the same

s.r.	113	H114 THE triumph of marius

name certainly existed there in later years. The
Cimbri and Teutones were not only more numerous,
but had a discipline and order, an equipment,
leadership and general sense of organisation, which
speak of a much higher social level than had been
reached by the poor and backward frontier tribes of
Germans along the Rhine. And it is fairly certain
that the scanty social achievements of the latter were
a very misleading index to the degree of civilisation
reached by the Baltic peoples to whom the Cimbri
and Teutones belonged.

v The Cimbri and Teutones spent two years in
'prospecting Gaul, and were either dissatisfied with
the result or gathered intelligence which led them to
think that they could do better for themselves. The
difference of language, and the utter strangeness of
each party to the other, probably made the informa-
tion they managed to obtain about the Romans as
vague and scanty as the information which the
Romans acquired about them. But towards the end
' of the year 105 B.C., the king of the Cimbri, Boiorix,
set his great hosts in motion again, and their move-
ments made it clear that their destination was
Italy.

In the meantime, the course of political events in
Rome was indirectly affecting the military prospect
in Gaul. Marius had owed his consulship, two
years before, largely to the good impression he had
made upon the great Roman financiers and mer-
chants. Through Marius, therefore, the old
coalition between the equites and the Populates was
revived : a truly alarming outlook for the oligarchy,
which made every effort to gain the consular elec-
tions for 106 B.C.—and succeeded in doing so. As
soon as Marius was safely in Africa, pursuing thePARTY POSITION IN ROME	115

elusive Jugurtha, the new consuls, G. Atilius
Serranus and Quintus Servilius Caepio, set to work
to punish the renegades. The lex Servilia of Caepio
took away from the equites the control of the judicial
courts which Gaius Gracchus had given them, and
restored it to the senatorial order. The great
financiers did not take this meekly. They had
the power of striking back; and they used the
power.

Caepio took his proconsular year in Gaul: this
very year when the Cimbri and Teutones began
their new movement against Italy. He did not have
the free hand and untrammelled governorship he
may have hoped for. So serious was the situation
considered, that the consul for the year, Gnaeus
Mallius Maximus, was sent to take up the command
in chief. Caepio was relegated to the position of
commander of the second Roman army—very much,
it would appear, to his disappointment.

What followed was a scandal which far surpassed v
in magnitude anything that had gone before. A
detached corps under M. Aurelius Scaurus was first
defeated, and he himself captured and executed.
The consul at once sent word to Caepio to join him
with the second Roman army. Caepio was in a
thoroughly perverse mood. When engaged, some
little time before, in punitive measures against those
suspected of too great tolerance for the Cimbri, he v
had plundered a wealthy temple at Tolosa. The <
treasure subsequently disappeared in a somewhat
unsatisfactory way ; it was alleged to have been
stolen by Ligurian bandits, but was thought to have
found a final resting-place nearer Caepio's strong-
room than he admitted. This treasure became
notorious. Caepio was believed to lie under a curse. x'n6	THE TRIUMPH OF MARIUS

He certainly acted in a very strange manner. He
joined Maximus as ordered, but refused to occupy
the same camp or to act in unison. . . . Maximus,
in these difficult circumstances, prudently negotiated
with the Cimbri. Caepio, by this time quite crazy,
at once hurled his army upon them, because—it was
said—he thought Maximus wanted to keep all the
credit in his own hands. . . . The defeat which
ensued was the most tremendous military disaster
the Romans had suffered since Cannae, one hundred
and eleven years before. The enraged Cimbri
annihilated the army of Caepio, and then, pressing
on in the heat of victory, overthrew the army of
Maximus and wiped it out. The Romans fought
with the Rhone in their rear. There was no room
for retreat; practically none even for flight. Eighty
thousand soldiers and forty thousand camp-followers
fell. The famous Quintus Sertorius, wounded, and
having had his horse killed under him, only escaped
by the athletic feat of swimming the Rhone in full
armour, shield and all.

The frontier was broken through. Panic spread
through Italy. The news which arrived was terrify-
ing enough to justify it. It became known at last
that the numbers of the Cimbri and Teutones sur-
passed even the first reports ; they could put into the
field three hundred thousand fighting men alone—
and fighting men of the most formidable description,
who stopped at nothing. Every Italian-born person
capable of bearing arms was sworn in to remain in
Italy during the crisis. So great was the terror in
Rome that the name of Caepio became a byword.

The political reactions of the great defeat at
Arausio were tremendous. As an election cry, the
scandal could not have been bettered; and theTHE CRIME OF CAEPIO	1x7

equites had interests at stake which ensured that their
influence should be thrown whole-heartedly into the
scale in favour of the Populates. The general outcry *
found voice in the demand for Marius. He was the '
man wanted. No oligarchic candidate stood the
slightest chance against him. With enthusiastic
defiance of the law and of constitutional custom,
Marius, absent in Africa, was nominated and elected. >
The Populares secured both consulships, together
with a long list of other successes.

The scandal of the wretched Caepio's conduct in
Gaul was an excuse for the ferocity with which he
was hounded, rather than a cause of it. The cause
lay in the lex Servilia. He was made the scapegoat
of the political party he represented. He was—
illegally and unconstitutionally—deprived of his
proconsular rank, and his property confiscated by
decree of the Assembly of the People. During the
year that followed he was expelled from the Senate
by a second and equally illegal decree. Not content
with this, the Populates, headed by the tribune Gaius
Norbanus and L. Appuleius Saturninus the quaestor,
obtained an extraordinary commission of enquiry.
Caepio was arrested ; he and Maximus, with others,
were condemned. Caepio saved his life only by
breaking prison and escaping to Smyrna, whence he
never returned. . . . His judges were jurymen of
the equites ; for C. Servilius Glaucia had drafted and
passed the necessary law to remove the control of the
courts once more from the Senators to the equites.
... Caepio may have deserved his fate. But the
fate of Caepio was only that of an owl nailed to a
barn-door as a warning and a threat. . . . Ten
years later, his party attempted to rehabilitate—or at
least to avenge him. They did not succeed.n8	THE TRIUMPH OF MARIUS

II

Marius was elected consul two months after the
battle of Arausio ; and he was, as we have seen, at
this very moment free to return. He lost no time,
but shipped his armies back to Rome at the beginning
' of January, 104 B.C. His arrival was the occasion of
wild enthusiasm. The news that met him was, as far
as it went, reassuring. For some reason that has
v never been discovered, the Cimbri and Teutones had
' changed their plans, given up their march upon Italy,
and taken the Pyrenaean passes for Spain. There
- was breathing time.

Before taking in hand the urgent measures of
defence called for by the situation, Marius first cele-
brated in state his official triumph for the African
campaigns. Jugurtha was led in chains through the
crowded streets of Rome, and when the processions
and the sacrifices were over, he was pushed into the
dreaded Tullianum, the ancient Well-house of the
Capitol, and there he was left to die. ... As far as
any human being ever deserves such a fate, he
deserved it. There were few crimes he had not
committed, and we know of no good deed he had
ever performed.

Political feeling, instead of being allayed, was
embittered. On the very verge of making good its
repute the oligarchy was discredited afresh. No-
thing overt could be done against the rough darling
of the people ; but there are more ways than one of
conducting hostilities. The Optimates were full of
the deplorable incident which attended the triumph
of Marius : he had walked into the Senate in his
triumphal robes—and his critics were divided as to
whether this were the ignorant blunder of a low-bredMARIUS CONSUL II 104 B.C.	119

clown, or the offensive pride of an ambitious upstart.
Sulla, drifting pleasantly back to the dinner parties
and aristocratic clubs of Rome, found himself
famous. It was generally agreed that to him, and not
to Marius, was due the successful ending of the
African war. Sulla had not the least objection to
receiving the full credit of his exploit. He had no
false modesty ; he knew as well as any one could
tell him that he had succeeded in precisely those
ways, and exactly those matters, in which Marius was
least successful—in cool dealing with infinitely com-
plicated situations, in urbane persuasion of difficultj
and undecided people. He enjoyed his new popu-
larity, and commemorated it by having a ring made,
which he constantly wore, with a little design of
Bocchus delivering Jugurtha into his hands.1

These things were repeated to Marius, who,
naturally enough, was not particularly pleased. He
recognised the enmity that was embodied in the
applause given to Sulla. It is only by means of a
powerful religious discipline (which no Roman of
that age possessed) that any man can rise above the
normal human prides and jealousies. Marius knew
that, without him, Sulla would never have been in
a position to achieve the capture of Jugurtha: yet
with the sensitiveness that so often goes with external
roughness of character, he was vexed that men whom
he considered corrupt and worthless should be
eager to give the credit elsewhere. He had nothing

1 It is suggested with great probability that the design on
Sulla's ring is reproduced on the coin issued by Faustus Cornelius
Sulla in 62 B.C. (illustrated on Plate II, facing p. 86), and that
the design of the gold plaque (see post, p. 157) was identical.
Grueber : Coins of the Roman Republic in the British Museum,
Vol. I, p. 471.izo	THE TRIUMPH OF MARIUS

against Sulla personally, to whom, as an able officer,
he offered employment in the coming campaigns.
Sulla accepted.

hi

It was now the task of every patriotic man to raise
and train an adequate army against the Cimbri and
Teutones. Throughout the year the work went on.
When Marius had left again for Africa, after his
first consulship, his old colleague on the staff of
Metellus—Publius Rutilius Rufus—had taken in
hand and developed the general indications Marius
had transmitted for the training of the new army.
Rutilius had arranged a complete scheme of drill
based on the methods of the gladiatorial gymnasiums :
on which scheme the whole of the new forces now
recruited were trained. Hitherto, Roman armies
had possessed no particular advantages over others,
save those implied by superiority of moral. Rutilius
' invented—or developed—a mode of fighting which
brought the advantages of moral and discipline to
their full fruition. He shortened the Roman sword,
and turned it into an exclusively stabbing instru-
ment,1 utterly different from the long double-edged
sword of the Celts and Germans, which descended,
only slightly modified, to the mediaeval knight.
This step was nearly as great a revolution as was
created by the supersession of the muzzle-loading
musket by the breech-loading rifle in modern times.
It is important to realise that Sulla was from the first
connected with all these changes, and was trained in
the new military school of Marius.
/ The popularity of Marius with the army continued

1 Marius may have picked up the idea in Spain. See Livy,
xxii, 46.DOUBTS OF MARIUS	xai

to increase. His competence, his perfect under-
standing of the ordinary man, his grim justice and
stern familiarity, made him the most trusted general
in the Roman world. He was re-elected consul for
the ensuing year without difficulty, in the teeth of
the oligarchy. The election was as unconstitutional
as the last, but it was impossible to prevent it. In the
meantime, the Cimbri and Teutones, disappointed
with Spain, came pouring back over the Pyrenees,
and reoccupied Gaul. Marius moved his main
forces up into Gaul, to watch them. He was in no
hurry ; time was on his side. Every month made
the military machine a better instrument, more per-
fectly under his control. He was laying the founda-
tion of a new reputation for the Roman army—that
reputation for discipline, organisation, hard work
and engineering skill which afterwards distinguished
it, and by which we best know it.

The Cimbri and Teutones, up in the north, were
evolving fresh plans. Before they moved, the third
consulship of Marius expired. Leaving a deputy in
command, he returned to Rome to consult his
friends. He seems to have had some feeling that
his unconstitutional consulships were perhaps not
altogether desirable ; but his respect for conventions
was overruled. The wire-pullers of the Populares ■
were not only convinced of his importance as a
political weapon against the oligarchy, but clear as
to his necessity as a commander. The tribune
Saturninus told Marius publicly that he would be a
traitor to refuse the supreme command at such a
juncture, and Marius, obediently giving way, was v
elected to a fourth consulship with Quintus Lutatius
Catulus as colleague, a man who was acceptable to
both political parties.122	THE TRIUMPH OF MARIUS

Sulla's quaestorship had, of course, long expired.
* During all these years he held no magisterial office,
but worked as a military legate, a soldier pure and
simple. It was clear to him that he could not hope
for much more from Marius, who looked upon him
with some suspicion, limited his opportunities, and
gave him no great scope to repeat such dangerous
exploits as the capture of Jugurtha. His political
affiliations made it much wiser to seek a post under
'' some other commander. Even if political sym-
pathies had played no part in the matter, there were
temperamental divergencies which made such a
course expedient. It is hardly likely that the subtle,
cultured and loose-living Sulla could see eye to eye
with the almost illiterate, puritanical man of the
V people. Catulus was the obvious resource, and the
right one. Catulus was on all grounds delighted to
- welcome Sulla. A wise, yet a lazy man, he was only
>" too ready to turn over all his important work to his
(new assistant, and Sulla settled down with energy in
''the post of what we should now call Quartermaster-
General to the second consul. He was therefore in
Italy during the Gallic campaign of Marius, carrying
out the reduction of the wild Alpine tribes, and
watching the north-eastern passes. Some miscalcu-
lation over the question of supplies having brought
about a shortage, Sulla took over the problem, and
not only organised an adequate service for Catulus,
but for Marius too. With his cynical acuteness, he
realised very well that this method of heaping coals
of fire on the head of Marius was his pleasantest
method of revenge. It irritated Marius profoundly
that he, the greatest of organisers, should be caught
napping by his old subordinate.BATTLE OF AQUAE SEXTIAE

IV

The Cimbri and Teutones divided their forces.
The storm was now at hand. Starting from their
new base in northern Gaul, near modern Rouen, the
Cimbri re-crossed the Rhine and aimed at the
eastern passes of the Alps, while the Teutones
marched south for the western entrance to Italy.
Marius occupied a strong position on their route,
and dug himself in.

The Teutones arrived, a terrifying sight to the
Roman troops. Their immense numbers, their
impressive appearance and strange language were
intimidating. Marius remained in his encamp-
ments, and strictly forbade any sort of forwardness.
A few days rather changed the feelings of the troops,
as they grew accustomed to the sight of the enemy ;
but Marius sustained his prohibition. A three-days
assault on the Roman camp was repulsed ; and being
unable either to force the entrenchments or to per-
suade Marius to a battle in the open, the Teutones
resolved to leave him in their rear. They were six
days in defiling their enormous host past the Roman
camp ; whereupon Marius followed, never losing
sight of them, but digging in every night. He fol-
lowed them to Aquae Sextiae, where there was a
difficulty about water. The Romans drove the
Teutones from the only available water supply.
The skirmish developed into a partial action. The
Teutones were finally forced over the river with
heavy loss, and pursued as far as their laager, whence
the Romans were repelled, and withdrew.

They spent an anxious night, greatly impressed by
the strange wailing and lamentations from the laager ;
and even the iron Marius was apprehensive of a124	THE TRIUMPH OF MARIUS

night attack. Nothing, however, happened; and
throughout the next day the Teutones remained
immobile, changing their dispositions and re-
arranging their battle line. Marius seized the oppor-
tunity to detach a flanking force which took up a
concealed position on the hills. After another
night's rest he was ready for the general action,
convinced that no better opening would arrive.

It was an easy matter to draw the Teutones, who
wished for nothing better than to come to hand-
strokes. They charged up-hill with fury. Marius
ordered the ranks to be locked, and reliance to be
placed on the new sword. He himself took a
position in the ranks, where he had once begun his
career. The assault was with difficulty stopped ;
the Teutones were thrown back and forced down the
hill before a wall of swordsmen. At the very
moment when they paused to recover themselves
they were in turn attacked by the flanking force.
It was the critical moment. The moral prestige of
the enemy, their repute and their numbers, their
unbroken success hitherto in shattering the firmest
array, had all along been exercising a nervous
terrorism over the Roman troops. Now, as if a
spring had been touched, the process was reversed.
The Teutones fell into confusion ; their very num-
bers made recovery impossible ; they could scarcely
-■ even flee.1 A hundred thousand were either slain

1 The short sword allowed a greater number of troops to be
brought into action on any given front. A Celtic or German
fighting man, then as later, needed a good deal of room around
himself. He would find two, three, or more short swordsmen
facing him. Once the Teutones were jammed, they could no
longer use their weapons, whereas the short sword was the ideal
instrument for use in a very crowded fight. . . . We shallGATULUS IN RETREAT

"5

on the field or captured there : and the sack of the
laager, which followed, put into the hands of the
delighted legionaries an immense booty, the fruit of
years of successful plundering.

It is said that the Massiliots built fences of the
huge bones of those who fell that day, and that there
were never such crops as those that afterwards grew
on the fertilised fields of Aquae Sextiae.

v

The danger was not yet over. Marius was offer-
ing the sacrifices of thanksgiving on the field of ,
battle, when the official news reached him of his fifth i
election as consul; and shortly afterwards he re-
ceived the military despatches which explained it.
The Cimbri had been more successful than their
allies. They had forced the passes of the Alps in '
a way which illustrates the moral terrorism they
exercised. They were magnificent athletes, after a
fashion wholly unlike the gymnasium training of the
southern races. They outflanked the Roman out-
posts by daring feats of crag-climbing, toboganning
down the snow slopes on their broad round shields.
The troops of Catulus were pushed back, lost their
heads, and were soon on the run, in one of those
unreasoning panics which are so difficult to stop.
Catulus 1 did his best, but was obliged to go with
them. He succeeded in reorganising a corps to hold

find the Cimbri at Vercellae partly anticipating these considera-
tions, by throwing out wings; and Marius anticipating their
anticipation by immediately striking at those wings.

1 Here we should probably read " Sulla." The story, that
Catulus, unable to lead his men against the enemy, led the
retreat rather than not lead them at all, is not especially like
Catulus, but is very much like Sulla.126	THE TRIUMPH OF MARIUS

the Adige; but the Cimbri built a great causeway
across the river, and outflanked him ; his retreat was
^ followed by the spread of the Cimbri over the plain
of the Po. The corps which Catulus had left to
defend the Adige fell into their hands after a
stern struggle. The Cimbri appreciated the quality
of the defence ; and generously dismissed the sur-
vivors after swearing them not to take up arms
again.

Precisely what share Sulla had in these events
we do not know: but it is not unreasonable to
surmise that there was depression of spirits at
the general head-quarters of Catulus, and a corres-
ponding sense of critical satisfaction at those of
Marius.

Marius returned to Rome to take up office. He
refused any formal triumph for his victory at Aquae
Sextiae, realising that it was too soon to rejoice.
The Cimbri, however, made no organised advance,
spending the winter in recuperating after their long
march from Gaul. It is probable also that they were
waiting word from the Teutones—messages that
now would never come.

After making all the necessary arrangements,
Marius in spring left Rome to join Catulus, while his
own troops took the road from Gaul. The forces
which confronted the Cimbri were composed of
practically the whole of the new armies which Marius
had raised and trained. The negotiations with the
Cimbri were interesting. They demanded land for
themselves and their brethren. Asked who these
brethren were, they answered, the Teutones. When
told that these brethren " already had lands which
they should possess for ever" their resentment
showed that they had some suspicion of a truth whichTHE CIMBRI

\VJ

they were very unwilling to acknowledge. They
threatened that the Teutones should answer for
themselves when they came. Marius retorted by
producing the captive kings of the Teutones, in
chains. The Cimbri were in no two minds about '
fighting.

The indispensable necessity was to find some
means of stopping the onslaught of those formidable
storm-troops, and giving the short sword oppor-
tunity for its deadly work. Hitherto, the Roman
javelin had been of a pattern fairly common to all
nations, the head fixed to the shaft by two metal
pins. Marius had one of the metal pins withdrawn,
and replaced by a wooden peg. The object of this
was that the wooden peg should snap with the shock
as the javelin entered the shield of an opponent,
when, pivoting on the iron pin, the shaft would
form a drag hopelessly encumbering, even enforcing
the abandonment of the shield altogether. It is
true that this expedient could only be used at
the first contact of the lines of battle; but this
was the only time when its use was called for.
The repulse of the first charge was the crucial
necessity.

One of the principal authorities for what followed
is Sulla himself, who was present throughout.

Boiorix, the Cimbrian king, invited Marius to s
name the time and place of battle. Marius answered
that Romans never consulted their enemies when to
fight: but he named the plain near Vercellae, and
the time, three days hence : an arrangement which
was strictly observed. Marius must have had some '
ground for confidence as to the result.

Catulus commanded the centre of the RomanN
army, over twenty thousand strong. Marius placed '128	THE TRIUMPH OF MARIUS

his own men—thirty-two thousand altogether—on
the wings, expecting that the real struggle would
take place there.1

The Celtic horsemen of the Cimbri, helmed and
crested like mediaeval knights, opened the battle by
deploying their ranks with the object of enveloping
the Roman forces—a movement which their superior
numbers made a feasible plan. The idea was to
drive the whole mass of the Romans upon the
Cimbrian infantry in the centre. Had the operation
succeeded, it would have prevented the new Roman
tactical system from establishing any superiority to
that of the enemy, would have caused the battle to
be fought upon much more level terms, and might
have ended by catching the army of Marius in a trap
from which there was no escape. It took a little
time, however, and while the Celts were galloping
into their new positions, Marius charged. The
onslaught of the cavalry was therefore never really
made at all; caught at pause, and in some disarray,
they were hurled back on the rear of their own
infantry. The flight of a great body of cavalry can
be nearly as destructive as its charge. In dense
clouds of dust, through which the soldiers of Marius
came on in pursuit, they burst in upon the Cimbrian

1 It is to this time, not to the Gallic campaign of the previous
year, that we may best attribute the exploit of Quintus Sertorius,
who, after learning some of the language, entered the enemy's
camp disguised as a Celt, and gathered much important informa-
tion. The dispositions of Marius indicate that he expected
certain tactical manoeuvres on the part of the Cimbri: and
these were probably connected with the extension of the cavalry
wings to envelop the Roman flanks. This fits in very well
with the mission of Sertorius, and is consistent with Sulla's
own statement that Marius expected the armies to make contact
on the wings. (Plutarch : Marius, xxv; Sertorius, iii.)BATTLE OF VERCELLAE

129

infantry : and at the same time Catulus, in the centre,
launched his attack.

It was August: and it was Italy. A burning sun
was pouring its rays through the dust clouds, full in
the faces of the Cimbrians. They were big men,
but they were of the Baltic stock, built for cold and
snow, not for sun and dust. Choked, blinded,
running with sweat, outflanked, their rear broken,
they met the attack of the short sword wielded by
men trained to a nicety, and native to the climate.
Sulla records with pride that not one of his men was
distressed ; and we may grant a proper credence to
the man who, probably, was the staff-officer respon-
sible for their condition. . . . Marius, in the dust,
missed contact with his objective, and was groping
about to find where the Cimbrian centre lay; so
that it was the men of Catulus, guided by the astute
brain of Sulla, who burst the locked ranks and set
the flight going. What followed was memorable,
and its horror still reaches us effectively through the
pages of Plutarch, copying Sulla, who saw it.

The Cimbrian centre, the flower of their fighting
men—the front ranks chained belt to belt—was
slaughtered until the rear could loosen the pack by
its flight. As the legionaries emerged into the
clearer ground, they saw the laager, and the despair-
ing women, dressed in mourning, slaying those who
fled, and themselves and their children also. One
hanged herself in their sight from the pole of a
wagon, with her children tied dangling at her heels.
They stampeded the draught oxen, and threw them-
selves under their feet. Yet, despite those who took
their own lives, above sixty thousand prisoners fell
into the hands of the Romans, and more than that
number lay on the field.

8.F.	-	JTHE TRIUMPH OF MARIUS

The troops of Marius were the men who stormed
the laager, and the booty fell to them ; but Catulus
and his men claimed the true spoils of war. An
angry dispute arose even on the field of battle. The
Parmanese, who were present, were called in as
witnesses. The men of Catulus led them among the
slain, showing them the official marks on the javelins.
Thirty ensigns, and numbers of trumpets and similar
spoil were piled in the camp of Catulus.

VI

Sulla was always unfair to Marius. His account
of the battle slurs over the crucial achievement at the
beginning, which decided the fate of the day. But
Sulla had taken the utmost pains to restore the moral
of his army, and he was intensely anxious that it
should do well; he could not resist the temptation
to belittle the part played by Marius, and to magnify
the quite sufficiently important and honourable part
played by his own men. He is not to be blamed for
his ambition; but popular opinion, in giving the
whole praise to Marius, was not far off the mark.
The command in chief was his ; the responsibility,
the methods, the organisation were all his ; and the
, battle of Vercellae could never have been fought at

all save for the previous victory of Aquae Sextiae.
' Marius was now at the supreme height of his fame,
hailed as the third founder of Rome, his name
coupled with those of the gods in religious offerings
and libations. He took it well. Had he been
deprived of any jot of his due fame, he might have
been as unfair and as bitter as any man; that once
fully granted, he could be not only fair but generous.
Disregarding the wishes of his partisans, he associated
Catulus in his triumph.SULLA'S POSITION

But Sulla, at least, must have known that whoever
said " Catulus " really said " Sulla." It was his
turn to miss the honours he deserved. So Catulus,
that lazy versifier and art-collector, acquired one
treasure that must have been the last he ever expected
to collect—a Triumphal Car. It ought by rights to
have been inscribed: " A present from Lucius
Cornelius Sulla."V

¥

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PLAN OF THE

FORUM ROMANUM.



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132CHAPTER VI

THE POLITICAL STRUGGLE
i

THE end of the war brought forward a number of
problems familiar to the modern statesman.
There was the question of the demobilisation of the
army ; and this was a matter which raised issues for
which the Roman politician was totally unprepared.
Marius and his officers had probably foreseen and
discussed the event. The Roman soldier of the old
type, after a war, returned to his farm or his business
—what was left of it. The whole weakness of that
old system lay in the fact that very often little was left
of it: the negligence of the oligarchy to guarantee
or secure the property of the small farmer was a main
reason for the decay of the class from which the
armies of Rome were chiefly drawn. Still, the farm
or business had been there in the majority of cases.
. . . The new army, raised on military grounds v
alone, was composed of men of whom many (per- v
haps the overwhelming majority) were in the strict
sense proletarians—men without property. What y
was to be done with the legionaries who had over- '
come Jugurtha and defeated the Cimbrian terror ?

The oligarchy, of course, intended to do nothing
at all; but the matter was not to be dismissed so
lightly, for a variety of reasons. Marius was not the
man to ignore the claims of those whom he had

133134	THE POLITIGAL STRUGGLE

organised and led. And then, too, the Populates
were in a position different far from that of the
Gracchan days. Their clients were not the mob
which had cheered Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus,
and deserted them when the pull came, but men
trained and hardened to war, knitted together by
common memories and a common craftsmanship in
the new military art. . . . Peremptorily to send
such an army back to its street corners was a dan-
gerous proposition. An army has a way of becoming
a society or fraternity, which can act in peace time as
well as in war. These men were the men who had
saved the State. The oligarchs now held their
property in virtue of the protection which the army
had extended to it. What was more to the benefit
of the State than that these men should be settled
on the land, and the destruction of the small-farmer
class stayed ?

More than this, the Populates, as a party, were by
this time systematically organised. The nemesis
which attends proscription and repression had
arrived : the Populates had slowly grown again, but
not to the Gracchan model. The new popular
leaders, thrown up to the control by the natural
working of the party machine, were men whose
closest parallel is the less reputable type of American
party-boss. They were fierce demagogues, sur-
rounded by their bodyguards of bruisers and
" slugs," living and basing their power on the Corn
Dole. The oligarch who let loose his gladiators on
the street would find it already occupied by men
native to it.

The theory that systems do not matter, and that
any system will work well in the hands of good men
is true only in a somewhat limited and qualifiedELECTORAL CAMPAIGN 101 B.C. 135

sense. There are some systems which naturally take
the control out of the hands of good men. There
are even some which necessarily put it into the hands
of bad ones. The system which had grown up in
Rome since the days of Tiberius Gracchus had a good
deal of this quality about it. No one could work it
in a completely honest manner. In the days of
Marius, practically no one tried to do so—save,
possibly, Marius. The embarrassing factor for the v
Populates was that Marius was essentially an honest c
man. It remained to be seen how far such a man
could survive in the world of Roman party-politics.

11

Only when driven through by the solid phalanx
of these popular leaders had the demands of Marius
the slightest chance of success. The clubs of the
oligarchy were already in a ferment of activity. The
issues at stake for them were immense, and united
in one camp men who took divergent views of politi-
cal questions. Gaius Gracchus had threatened the
State with a perpetual magistracy. Gaius Marius
threatened it with a military tyranny ; at any rate,
with the end of the system of legal, constitutional
government which was the whole difference between
civilisation and barbarism. There were men per-
fectly serious in this conviction ; there were others
who, in the heat of political agitation, believed that
they believed it; there were undoubtedly some who
entertained a good deal of scepticism about the
points at immediate issue, but had their own hand to
play for results not immediately in question, among
whom it is fairly certain that Sulla must be
numbered.

Sulla (as will be obvious enough at a later stage of136	THE POLITICAL STRUGGLE

this story, when we get the details in fuller measure)
had no especial objection to the military policy repre-
sented by Marius. He was perfectly ready to take
over the methods of Marius when it suited his own
policy. We need not imagine, therefore, that Sulla
was seriously alarmed over the mere programme
which the Populares put forward ; his concern would
be with considerations still remote from practical
politics. But he would be ready enough, for good
reasons, to throw his whole energy into the task of
preventing Marius himself and his allies, as persons,
from securing political supremacy in the State.

He had more important reasons for opposing
Marius than mere dislike. They can be illustrated
by evidence which is in all probability his own. The
criticisms which have come down to us respecting the
way in which Marius conducted this electoral cam-
paign fall into two classes. One is a criticism of his
external conduct. It consists in the allegation that
Marius spent vast sums in bribery ; and this rests
upon the testimony of Publius Rutilius Rufus, an
austere and upright man who also disliked Marius.
We may well believe that Marius spent lavishly on
his campaign. The customs of Roman electioneer-
ing (whatever the law might be) were not as austere
as Rutilius ; and the Populates were little likely to
split hairs over the use of the funds provided by their
powerful ally. But the second class of criticism
touches, not so much upon what Marius did, as upon
what he was. It consists of an acute analysis of
Marius's character by a somewhat cynical observer
who had a gift for psychology. This observer was
almost certainly Sulla himself. The analysis so
closely accords with the kind of " third degree " to
which Marius was consistently subjected during theSULLA'S VIEW OF MARIUS	137

election and after it, that it may well be a memoran-
dum by the man who superintended the process. It
explains both the methods by which Marius was
successfully sidetracked, and the reasons why the
observer should be opposed to him.

Marius (says Sulla) lowered the dignity of the
consulship by treating it as a favour bestowed by the
people—instead, that is, of an office to which they
raised a man for his qualities 1 : and he falsified his
own character by trying to be amiable and popular,
for which nature had never designed him. He was
so anxious to be appreciated that it made him
politically a weakling; he could not preserve his
balance before a public audience as he could before
the enemy in the field : he was easily upset by the
most ordinary praise or criticism. He was essentially *
a soldier, who had no faculty for pushing his own
interests in the surroundings of civil life. He had no
political principle (Sulla thought)—he accepted
whatsoever ideas were approved by the people, and
imagined that they must therefore be right. . . .
Sulla's final caustic judgment was that Marius con-
sidered anything politically right if it redounded to
his own praise and fame.

There is bias in this; but it is a bias without
malevolence. The picture is convincing in its por-
trait of the stern but sensitive old disciplinarian, who
was lost without the support of the army regulations,
and who made himself absurd by a bonhomie un-
natural to him. There is even a suggestion that
Sulla saw the pathos of it. If he did, he ruled it out

1 Sulla may have been thinking of Aemilius Paulus, who,
when elected consul, instead of returning thanks, simply remarked
that he supposed they considered him the best man for the
post. This was the principle Sulla had in mind.138	THE POLITICAL STRUGGLE

of his mind as a feeling which it was not permissible
to entertain.

Throughout the fierce contest which was waged
Sulla was conspicuous by his absence. His friends
and allies crowded the stage; he alone does not
appear in the limelight. But that he took a very
important, if unobtrusive, part in the proceedings
there can be little doubt. Almost the first person to
be pushed to the front was that elegant and polished
figure-head, Catulus. He was deposited before the
political footlights as the true saviour of his country,
the real victor of Vercellae, the decisive battle (it
was alleged) of the war. The speakers of the
Optimates were put up to push Catulus and his men
for all they were worth. . . . Even Catulus him-
self, in the excitement of the moment, began to
entertain the pleasing but improbable hypothesis
that he was perhaps a second Camillus, whose
justifiable laurels were being stolen from him by the
wicked Marius.

The acerbity, violence, and depth of feeling evoked
is a testimony to the discernment of the astute
psychologist who now began to play off the foibles of
Marius against their possessor. That the man was
Sulla it is impossible to doubt. His qualification as
election-agent for the Optimates was that he had
already been responsible for the tactical triumph of
having split the new army as a political force before
it could bring its weight to bear. The dispute on the
field of Vercellae was no meaningless wrangle. It
meant that the new armies were not to be a bloc
solid for Marius. Catulus was never anything more
than a decorative military and political dummy
carried about by the enterprising Sulla.

The candidate put forward by the Optimates toMARIUS AS A POLITICIAN

stand against Marius for the consulship was no less
a person than Metellus Numidicus himself. Metellus
was well chosen; he had a personal quarrel with
Marius, and, moreover, he had that particular sort of
probity and intelligence which is not imaginative nor
profound, nor especially wide in scope ; he would
work with sincere belief in the transcendent import-
ance of the stake at issue ; his very strength was
based on the seriousness with which he took trifles.
He was the precise man who would have been the
choice of a more subtle, more sceptical mind which
saw more truly the relative values of things and men.
Whether Sulla could have made himself very angry
over the programme of the Populates is doubtful;
but it was certain that Metellus would take it very
gravely indeed.

Such a man as Metellus was in addition the precise
sort of man who would wither within him the heart
of such a man as Marius. He had all the dry, formal
virtues which are horrible in the eyes of an illiterate
man of strong natural genius.

Marius was rapidly goaded to fury between the
propaganda on behalf of Catulus, and the pro-
pinquity of the obnoxious Metellus—a fury strangled
and frustrated by his constant sense that he was not at
home in these city surroundings. Although he could
talk to the man in the street, and turn a fierce and
memorable phrase, he could not present a coherent
and rational case to the educated portion of the elec-
torate, the bankers and capitalists whose votes would
be the determining factor in the contest. He was (as
Sulla had perceived) sensitive to praise and criticism i
to an extent ridiculous by comparison with his secure
fame and powerful character. There was some fatal
flaw in his composition. He was capable of facingTHE POLITICAL STRUGGLE

the Cimbri and Teutones, and of wresting victory
whence no other man could wrest it; but he could
^ not learn confidence in himself, nor acquire the
intellectual skill on which such confidence is securely
founded in civil life.

hi

From the point of view of the Populates, this was
by-play. Pushed on by their united forces, Marius
was rushed into his sixth consulship. L. Valerius
Flaccus, a nonentity, secured the second place:
Metellus was defeated. L. Appuleius Saturninus
obtained a tribuneship; his principal ally, G.
Servilius Glaucia, the praetorship; so that the
*' party was well equipped with office. It entered upon
its year of power pursued still by an intelligence bent
upon its downfall.

It fell accordingly to Saturninus to introduce the
programme of legislation into the Assembly of the
People. His programme was bold—the most com-
plete and carefully-thought-out scheme since Gaius
Gracchus. Saturninus was what we should call an
abler parliamentary hand. He constructed his series
of proposals in a way far more dexterous than that of
his predecessor.

Taking advantage of the fact that Marius had
enrolled his armies not only without troubling about
questions of property qualification, but without
particular heed to domicile—having included both
Roman and Italian citizens indiscriminately—he
proposed to settle the discharged soldiers upon land
first in Africa, and then in the other provinces out-
side Italy : by which he could reckon upon a first
practical step towards placing the ordinary Italian
upon a level with the Roman citizen. The armyDIFFICULTIES OF MARIUS

service itself was to qualify the applicant for the
grant—not the citizenship. It is usual to describe
these proposals as " revolutionary " : they were
assuredly extensive : but that Saturninus approached
the problem as a statesman, not merely as a party
politician, is clear from the subsequent course of
events. His scheme might have saved Italy from
two disastrous civil wars which ended in even greater
concessions than he proposed to make.

Marius was to superintend the settlement.

Saturninus included in his legislation several other
measures dictated by political necessities. He con-
ciliated the equites by extending their juridical powers
still further, and he increased the Corn Dole. Thus
all the electors who had voted for the Populates got v
something.

The position of the party, impregnable as it
seemed, was from this point onwards slowly under-
mined. The attack was against the nerves of v
Marius, its weakest point. Marius found the task •
of leading the Senate much more arduous than that
of addressing the man in the street. He suffered
just what a sensitive and uneducated man would
suffer at the hands of a hostile audience of higher
social standing, intent upon paralysing the action of
his natural intelligence. In the task of reconciling
the oligarchy to the new proposals he offended both
parties and was suspected by each of insincerity. >
His soldiers came up to the polling in their thousands.
Saturninus and Glaucia were thoroughly in their
element in shepherding their own supporters to the
poll. The legislation was pushed through with v
success in the teeth of resistance. The culminating
point arrived when it left the Forum and was carried
up to the Senate House.142	THE POLITICAL STRUGGLE

Saturninus was aware of one of the difficulties
that would await him. The contention that the
entire series of consulships which Marius had held
since his return from Africa—the second to the
sixth—was illegal, and therefore void, was not to
be disregarded. He had provided against it by
attaching to his legislative measures one further
provision—that the senators should individually
take an oath to accept and observe the new laws :
in effect, an act of oblivion and indemnity to cover
any illegality in the past. The senators had no
power to reject the new laws; but they had the
power to declare them invalid; and they still had
the power to refuse to take the oath. It was over
this mental tangle that Marius finally lost his footing
and fell.

There were violent differences of opinion. Some
of the senators were utterly against taking the oath.
Marius, unable to formulate in a convincing shape
the arguments in favour of taking it, was apologetic.
He agreed that if the laws were invalid, the Senate
ought not to swear to observe them ; while if they
were valid, it was perhaps insulting to ask the Senate
to swear to obey the law. Some hand—probably
Sulla's own—has described the impression created
by Marius in his attempt to be reasonable and con-
ciliatory. Metellus Numidicus, in holy horror and
righteous indignation, vowed that he would refuse to
take the oath, and Marius was understood to endorse
his views. When the time came, however, Marius
did take the oath, " in so far as the laws were valid "
—a ridiculous qualification which may well have
stupefied Saturninus. The other senators followed
the lead of the consul. Metellus, however, stood by
his refusal, and after solemn and dramatic scenesTHE CATONIG POSE

143

was placed under interdict and went into exile with
copy-book maxims upon his righteous lips—a perfect
picture of the Roman prig—amid excited accusations
that the episode was a sinister plot on the part of the
Machiavellian Marius. Sulla, in the background,
must have enjoyed this little political comedy. The
views of Saturninus have not come down to us.
They were, we may imagine, very strong.

The contempt which Marius—who did not repeat
copy-book maxims, but created them—felt for
Metellus might well change to bitterness when he
saw how admirably the episode went down with the
Roman public. The Catonic pose was as sound a
resort in Roman politics as the appeal to the Noncon-
formist Conscience is in British. Other influences
added their weight. It had been shown by figures
in the Senate that the proposals of Saturninus
respecting the Corn Dole were more than the
treasury could bear. Worse than this, there were
distinct signs of a reconciliation between the Senate
and the equites. The bankers and capitalists began
to lose confidence in Marius : and no bait could be '
thought of by which to hold their interest. Their
control of the courts could hardly be extended
further. It grew clearer and clearer that the
Optimates were awaiting a swing of the pendulum
which would place in their hands the power to
invalidate the laws of Saturninus, and to call him to
account.

The leaders of the Populates decided that Marius
must go. He was not only useless but dangerous as
an ally. Their only chance lay in regaining office
for the following year. It was arranged that
Glaucia should stand for the consulship, and
Saturninus for re-election as tribune. Glaucia wasTHE POLITICAL STRUGGLE

not legally eligible for the office for another two
years, but something had to be risked. There was
always the possibility of another act of indemnity.
With the courts in the hands of the equites, and the
equites hostile, the leaders of the Populares were
facing the alternatives of exile or death after a
political supremacy of five years. The moral tem-
perature of Rome rose to fever heat as the fateful
elections approached. One of the candidates for
the Optimates was Gaius Memmius. If Memmius
could be put out of the way on the eve of the polling,
it might be difficult for them to replace him at short
notice. Glaucia saw to the job. The excitement
now burst all bounds. The street skirmishes of the
bruisers and slugs on both sides developed into a
" pitched battle in the Forum. The Populares, beaten
by the defection of the equites, retreated upon the
Senate House, and entrenched themselves there.
They were pursued ; the roof was torn off, and
•Saturninus himself was killed by a tile.

Marius was still consul. Called upon by both
sides, he intervened with such military force as he
could muster. His attempt to act fairly and im-
partially was once more his undoing. He compelled
the surrender of those in the Senate House by
cutting off the water supply, but he undertook to
protect their lives. When they did surrender, they
were torn out of his hands and slain. Glaucia was
unofficially executed two days later.

If ever man were discredited, Marius was now that
man. Nobody wanted him ; nobody respected him;
and if Marius were still Marius he must have been
agonisingly conscious of his fall. The laws of
Saturninus were invalidated ; Metellus was recalled,
and the land settlements that had already beenTRIUMPH OF THE OLIGARCHY 145

founded were allowed to peter out as they would.
The triumph of the Optimates seemed complete.

And so it was, but for one factor. The astute
psychologist, having played steadily and successfully
for his own hand, stopped short at that point. He
had no further interest in the struggle. The
victory remained wholly negative. The non-Roman '
element in the army was convinced that it confronted
a hostile government, willing to use Italians to save
its property, but unwilling to give them in return
either the rights of citizens or the land-pensions they
had earned by their deeds. The discontent of the
Italians was the stray thread which the oligarchy •
neglected to catch and enclose in the otherwise *
unbroken circle of its success, and this proved to be
the deadly negligence which rendered the success
vain: for the feeling of the Italians was to count
presently, when opportunity came.

One more point must be observed. The method
by which the success had been won had thrown
power, not so much back into the hands of the •
oligarchy, as into those of the men whose immediate
action had brought it about—the great bankers and *
capitalists. Not only Marius, but the astute psycho-
logist himself had—for the time being, at least—
fallen into the pit he had dug.

IV

Marius did not care to remain in Rome after his
failure as consul. He was still too powerful for his
life to be touched; it was not forgotten that after
all he was the man who had saved the State ; and
the astute psychologist was perhaps convinced that
he was thoroughly harmless as a politician. To
witness the triumphant return of the virtuous

«.F.	K146	THE POLITICAL STRUGGLE

Metellus (doubtless repeating some more copy-
book maxims) was intolerable to the old man. He
had had enough. He had not the self-confidence
to stand for the one remaining office open to him—
the censorship—grimly remarking that he did not
want to show what he thought of his fellow-citizens.
He left for a prolonged tour in the east, on the
excuse that he had vowed a pilgrimage to Cybele.

He had probably intended from the first to make
this tour, though he may reasonably have expected
to do so with a proconsular command : for as the
most famous, and in many respects the greatest
soldier of his age, he had a particular interest in it.
He wanted to examine on the spot the military
condition of the eastern provinces of Rome.

It is impossible now to trace the information on
which he acted; but it cannot be doubted that a
good deal of relevant news, and perhaps more than
mere news, had come to the capital, especially when
we consider the events which followed a few years
later. The wave of unrest which had upset Africa
and Italy was likely enough to trouble other parts of
the Roman dominion. Marius, as the professional
watchdog of the State, was on the alert. He held
personal conferences with Mithradates, the King of
Pontus. We, realising who and what Mithradates
was, can see the proceedings of Marius to have been
useful and significant. He was ahead of all his
contemporaries in appreciating the possibilities of
Mithradates. But Marius was too much feared for
the oligarchy to allow him any further opportunities
of displaying his military genius. The storm was
allowed to gather—to burst, a few years afterwards,
as an appalling cataclysm.

When Marius returned, he seems to have beenTHE ITALIANS	147

full of a new project—a command in the east. He
must have realised only too well that if he got it, it
would not come from the oligarchy. The Optimates
made that fatal mistake which is so natural to timid
men: they dared not take the bold course of con-
ciliating him by the gift of the command, and they
forced him back among their enemies. Sulla might
have enlightened them, but he was silent. Marius
took a house near the Forum, where he could keep in
touch with public affairs ; and he complained bitterly
because very few people came to see him. The
astute psychologist, who was watching with interest,
has explained to us why : namely, that apart from
his military genius, Marius was not a particularly
interesting man.

Other considerations entered into the matter. An
eastern war was not like an African or a Cimbrian
war : it was not all kicks and no halfpence. It had
possibilities which afterwards made Lucius Lucullus
more famous as a millionaire than as a general, and
yet Lucullus was a great general. Accordingly the
question stood over.

v

During the next three uneventful years, the
agitation which afterwards bore fruit in the Italian
demand for the franchise must have penetrated
throughout Italy. There was a variety of means by
which it could be carried on. The old framework
of leagues and alliances between the cities which had
once been independent City States still subsisted,
long divested of political meaning, but maintained
as more or less social and religious institutions. It
was not difficult for the Italians to use the machinery
as a method of secret political propaganda. The148	THE POLITICAL STRUGGLE

Optimates were aware of the agitation, but could do
nothing to stop it. They might have dissolved the
leagues ; but it is of very little use to pronounce the
public dissolution of bodies which could easily con-
tinue their operations privately, in a way making them
even harder to trace ; and equally, it is waste of time
to trouble about the methods of an agitation which,
when hunted out of one, will always turn to others.
The oligarchy took a stronger course. Quintus
Mucius Scaevola, the famous jurist, held the con-
sulship in 95 B.C. with Lucius Crassus, the almost
equally famous orator. Through Scaevola, the
oligarchy made an attempt to close the constitution
- on the franchise agitation. The Licinian-Mucian
' law prohibited non-Romans from laying claim to the
Roman franchise. But the Roman constitution,
having grown by the accumulation of statute law,
was a difficult one to close. Whatever could be
made illegal could as easily be made legal, and the
growing public opinion of non-Roman Italy was not
diverted.

It was round Quintus Scaevola, one of the truly
great men of his time, that the first omens of the
coming trouble centred themselves. Concurrently
" with the Italian franchise agitation, a second serious
agitation was going on in Rome itself. The con-
viction was growing—at least, among a certain group
—that the equestrian courts 1 used their judicial
powers for the purpose of determining the policy of
provincial governors, who were of the senatorial

1 In this year, Gaius Norbanus was brought to trial for his
action against Caepio in 104 B.C. If this trial were part of a
demonstration against the equestrian courts, and an effort to
rehabilitate the author of the lex Servilia of 106 B.C., the case
is more comprehensible than if it were merely an attempt toTHE EQUESTRIAN COURTS AGAIN 149

order. The charge can be brutally formulated in
this shape, that the local governor whose policy
played into the hands of the Roman bankers and
merchants was secure after his term of office, while
he who took a more impartial view of his duties was
practically certain to be accused of some offence
cognisable by the equestrian courts, and as certain
to be condemned: a process which practically meant
the control of provincial government in the interests''
of the Roman capitalists, who had no responsibility J
to either Senate or people.

It is extremely probable that the charge was true.
It affected the views of the more intelligent of the
Optimates in several ways. The threat in the east
might pass off without war—or, at any rate, without
a dangerous war—if the eastern provinces could be
kept contented and happy. The real danger from
Mithradates lay in that Asia was rapidly becoming
a hotbed of discontent which might at any time
culminate by welcoming any invader, any change of
master, as a refuge from the oppression of the great
Roman corporations to whom Gaius Gracchus had
handed over the collection of the taxes. The '
struggle against Mithradates thus began in Rome
itself. If it failed, if Asia fell into the hands of
Mithradates, then there might once more be no
■ alternative but resort to Marius. Hence a real effort
was needed to recover control of the courts.

But this involved important political questions.
The equites swayed the political balance in Rome. ""

whitewash the man responsible for the defeat of Arausio. Caepio
was not to be forgiven so easily, and Norbanus was acquitted,
though his action in 104 B.C. had been at least of very doubtful
legality. Lucius Crassus (significantly enough) had been one
of Caepio's prime helpers in passing the lex Servilia.ISO	THE POLITICAL STRUGGLE

, We have seen that their alliance with the oligarchy

. had overthrown Saturninus and Glaucia. The
prosecution of such an effort as far as the necessary
legislative action would mean some fresh change in
the situation. The oligarchy was not anxious to
invoke any such change. To share the spoil by
compromising with the moneyed interest, in return
for political security, seemed to the majority the
safest course. In this they were, of course, wrong.
To compromise in this manner was no more than to
stave off the consequences without averting them.
The oligarchy was confronting one of those problems
so complicated that nothing but honesty, that last
bitter resort of man, can solve them. To com-
promise with the moneyed men might keep it in
power; but then it had to fear the awful results of
misgovernment and oppression, for the information
that came to Rome was the complaint of angry and
desperate men.

To the group who took up the question of the
equestrian courts belonged several of the most
eminent men of the day : Scaevola, Publius Rutilius
Rufus, Marcus Livius Drusus, Marcus Aemilius
Scaurus,1 who was in some respects the most
influential of all; and Sulla himself.

After the year of office which saw his attempt to
close the constitution on the franchise agitation,
Scaevola took the bold course of accepting Asia as
his proconsular province. With him went Publius

1 Scaurus, though by his name an Aemilius, and therefore
a high aristocrat, was a self-made man whose father had been
a charcoal-burner. He rose to wealth and power by his own
efforts, and became the leading man of the oligarchy. His
youthful poverty may explain his chief weakness, namely, that
he could never refuse money.SCAEVOLA IN ASIA

Rutilius Rufus. With the support of Scaevola,
Rutilius took a strong line against the agents of the
financial corporations. Abuses were rigorously re-
pressed ; justice was done with severest impartiality.
Instead of men privately in league with their
oppressors, the Asiatics found above them men who
could be relied on to carry out the law without fear
or favour. If Scaevola could have been followed by a ;
succession of governors as wise and courageous as
himself, Asia might have been rescued from the
trough into which it was slipping. His year over, he
and Rutilius returned to fight their battle on the real
field of war—the judicial courts of Rome.

Sulla—the least wealthy or important member of
the group—was all this time struggling to get into
a position to help its operations. He put up for
election as praetor, but he was defeated. He gives •
the semi-humorous explanation that the electors,
knowing his friendship with King Bocchus, wanted
him to be aedile instead, and have control of the wild-
beast shows. The next year, however, he got in, and
was praetor during the impeachment and trial of
Rutilius, in which office he was no doubt able to
exert his influence to assist his ally. All the legal
knowledge of Scagyolar was at his disposal. No
praetor can ever have had a better adviser; for
Scaevola was the greatest jurist of his age, and the
founder of scientific jurisprudence. When, in after
years, as Dictator, Sulla put forward a number of
epoch-making ideas concerning the reorganisation
of the judicial system and the division of legal
procedure, which could never have occurred to a
mere soldier or a mere man of fashion, we may bear
in mind that he held a great judicial office during his
praetorship, in close friendly association with a man ■'152	THE POLITICAL STRUGGLE

whose private conversation must have been a foun-
tain of ideas on such subjects.

All the knowledge and influence that could be
brought to bear in favour of Rutilius—legal or
political:—was of no avail. After a long struggle he
was condemned for malversation and sent into exile.
Scaevola was too powerful to be touched. The
"Senate passed a resolution approving of the actions
of Scaevola, and ordering his methods and principles
to be regarded as a guide for the conduct of future
' governors.

! Of these " future governors " the first was Sulla,
"/ who obtained Cilicia as a pro-praetorian governor-
ship. He may possibly have travelled in company
with Rutilius, who retired first to Mitylene and then
to Smyrna, where he settled down to write historical
works, and an autobiography which we would give
much to possess. That Rutilius should pass the rest
of his life honoured and admired in the province he
was alleged to have misgoverned is sufficient answer
to the court which condemned him. He never
returned to Rome. Sulla, in later years, sent to
recall him; but he would not come.

VI

Sulla's praetorship marks an important stage in his
progress. From this point onwards he steadily rose,
and never looked back. When he embarked for
Cilicia, he was still under the shadow of Marius.
Neither he nor any other Roman of his time had as
yet broken away from the ascendency of the old
man's genius. They all of them still followed where
he went. They might wreck his work, disappoint
his hopes, steal his credit, and adopt his plans ; but
it was still his work, his hopes, his credit and hisCONDITION OF ASIA

iS3

plans that formed the main staple of Roman im-
perial policy. But Sulla was growing. He was not
the kind of man who merely frustrates without
creating. He was entering upon a path whose
direction reveals his intentions. To use all he had v
learnt from Marius for the purpose of strengthening /•'
and restoring aristocracy was the plan he had in
mind. Without possessing the peculiar form of
genius Marius possessed, he had the range of
faculties which enabled him to employ its results for
his own purposes. He had studied the new military ■
system, and learnt to work it; he had used his *
praetorship to equip himself with a knowledge, not v
perhaps of law, but of the way in which law should be
administered in the public interest; his task now >
was to lay hold of some experience of governing a k'
civilised State and, incidentally, to measure the new
danger that was growing up on the eastern frontier. y
. . . When we smile at the oddity of the various
posts a Roman had to fill during his career upward,
it is well to remember that they formed, taken all
together, an ideal education for the rare hundredth
man who could gather the benefit of all the ex-
perience they afforded. Sulla was this hundredth
man.

If Fortune liked Sulla, it was possibly because
Sulla made the most of Fortune, who, like a woman,
loves to be appreciated.

It was part of Sulla's good fortune to arrive in his <
eastern province at a particularly interesting time.y
The Hellenisation of Asia by Alexander and his /
successors had slowly faded ; the submerged native >
powers were beginning to revive ; and when Sulla
took up office, the first stage of the reaction was
already in progress.THE POLITICAL STRUGGLE

Asia Minor has been very little altered by thirty
centuries of history. The modern " Turk," who is
supposed, and alleged by anthropologists, to be of
comparatively recent Central Asiatic origin, differs
little, if at all, from the aboriginal breed.
Mithradates VI, King of Pontus, the source of the
trouble threatening the Asiatic provinces of Rome,
was a man of the familiar type which has its parallels
to-day. He was the incarnation of the Asiatic
revival: a romantic figure, whose personal qualities
(he was a big, handsome, strong and clever man)
were still further magnified by an adventurous youth.
Like the finest type of Turk, he had wonderful gifts
as an individual, and entirely lacked moral respon-
sibility, the sense of the State, the sense of duty to
God and man. His idea of government was to have
more and more people to govern. That government
had a purpose ; that it was an art and a science were
conceptions beyond his horizon. The familiar result
was foredoomed. With his energy and ability he
began to lay the foundations of an immense king-
dom ; foundations based chiefly on ruthless crime.
The City State was dying in Asia as it was dying in
Europe ; but in Asia what replaced it was this ivy-
like growth, inferior in nature even to the primitive
governments of earlier times—a parasitic, destructive
growth of politics grown wild, doomed to destroy
what it fed on, and then to die itself. . . . Sulla,
regarding it, could have but one thought: this
military tyranny was the kind of government to
which the policy of Marius led : this was government
by the hired soldier.

It is hardly likely that the condemnation of
Rutilius had passed unnoticed by Mithradates. He
knew that he had nothing to fear: the easternPOLICY OF SULLA	155

provinces of Rome, ripe for revolt under the hand
of the financial corporations, would in due course
fall willingly into his hands. He interfered with
Cappadocia and Paphlagonia, claiming the latter as
his own in virtue of an alleged testamentary grant
made in favour of his father ; and after murdering
Ariarethes, the King of Cappadocia, and his young
son, he governed the country through a local tool
named Gordius. Ariarethes was a brother-in-law of
Mithradates, but this was perhaps unimportant to a
man who either murdered or kept in captivity his
mother, three sons, three daughters, and a brother.

Sulla was very much in the position of some of the
earlier British governors in India. He had no
Roman army with which to enforce any policy ; he
had no money, save the ordinary revenues of his
province. He knew, of course, what problems he
had to face, and what he was authorised to achieve :
but he had yet to find out how and by what means
he could achieve it. It was therefore in the most
advantageous circumstances possible that he began
his career as an independent commander. To
practise the art of creating his own means and
methods was a valuable addition to his education.
Fortunately, he had been prepared in a good school—
that of Gaius Marius.

The Asiatic were the richest of the Roman pro-
vinces. Sulla organised the local resources in men
and money, and after a vigorous campaign drove
Gordius out of Cappadocia, saw that a native king
(one Ariobarzanes) was duly chosen and set up, and
compelled Mithradates to acknowledge the indepen-
dence of Paphlagonia. He did more than this. He
got into personal touch with the powerful new forces
of which Mithradates was but one example. Pene-156	THE POLITICAL STRUGGLE

trating as far as the Euphrates, he met in conference
the king of Greater Armenia, and the Parthian
ambassador. A great power, of which the Romans
were destined to know more, was growing up in
Parthia. Sulla was the first Roman official to
establish contact with it.

This conference was famous. Sulla had much to
conceal. The comparative unimportance of his
office, and the somewhat dubious nature of his
military resources, had to be glossed over by a good
deal of vigorous bluff. Fortunately, again, Sulla
was admirably trained for such a necessity. He
^showed all the self-confidence of the aristocrat, and
all the sense of dramatic appropriateness which
/belongs to a good actor ; and he bluffed with an
/easy and insolent hauteur which was much criticised
and admired at home. When the chairs were set for
the conference, Sulla promptly took the middle one,
as the most important person present: and it is said
that this cost the Parthian ambassador his life on his
return to his master.

His countrymen were not the only persons who
criticised and admired. One of the Chaldaeans in
the Parthian's retinue studied Sulla intently, and
remarked that it was impossible that he should not
become the greatest of men ; the marvel was that he
should not yet have proved it.

It is certain that, if nothing else were attained,
Sulla's vigorous measures, following upon the wise
administration of Scaevola, kept Mithradates in
check until other methods, and the state of politics in
Rome, made war too tempting to be resisted. For
; now Sulla himself in turn had to return home to
' answer for the crime of having maintained the credit
of Roman government. His friends prepared theTHE GOLD PLAQUE	157

way for him. King Bocchus was communicated)
with, and undertook to celebrate the occasion by
dedicating in the temple of Capitoline Jupiter a gold
plaque decorated with a relief of himself handing
Jugurtha over to Sulla. The wrath of Marius was
great. He attempted to have the invidious plaque
removed ; but the Optimates with one accord came
to Sulla's rescue. This famous plaque was intended
to remind the Roman public—as usual, at Marius's
expense—that Sulla deserved well of his country.
The expected impeachment was handed in by
Gaius Marcius Censorinus,1 one of the leaders of
the equites.

Sulla would probably have put up an even more
vigorous fight than Rutilius, but it was not called
for. The impeachment was first suspended, and
then dropped ; for a redoubtable protagonist had
stepped upon the scene, and the curtain went up for
one of the main acts of the drama.

VII

Marcus Livius Drusus, the son of the man who
had been chiefly instrumental in destroying the hold
of Gaius Gracchus upon the electorate, was very
wealthy, highly cultivated, and of that lofty, almost
insolent courage8 which great wealth and high

1	Sulla's enemies treated him with respect. Censorinus was
no common person, but a highly respectable member of a very
old family, ^umbering among his ancestors the first plebeian
censor, the first plebeian dictator, and the only man who ever held
the censorship twice. He was among the prisoners massacred
after the battle by the Colline Gate. See Ch. XI, p. 257.

2	Some anecdotes of the foibles of Drusus have survived.
His famous reference to " Our Commonwealth " seems to have
tickled his contemporaries : while when the Senate requested
his presence he replied : " Let it come to me ! "—and it did !158	THE POLITICAL STRUGGLE

culture are apt to breed in those who are not
destroyed by them. Since the oligarchy paltered
and hesitated, and no one else seemed' in a position
to take up the case of the equestrian courts at the
source—the Assembly—he came forward as a candi-
date for the tribuneship on the eve of Sulla's return
from Asia, and was elected. Some one had to " bell
the cat," and Drusus proposed to do it.

He had the support of those of the group who were
available in Rome—notably of Lucius Crassus,
whose power as a speaker would be invaluable, and of
Marcus Scaurus, the most influential of the senators.
Scaevola is not mentioned ; he could perhaps not
overtly support the course Drusus proposed to take,
in view of the Licinian-Mucian law, though Crassus
had no such scruples: Sulla was absent, and
Rutilius in exile.

The oligarchy was lukewarm. Various considera-
tions distracted it. It dared not endorse the action
of Drusus too cordially, lest the great financial
interests should again go over to the Populates.
Drusus was prepared to make the compromises
necessary in order to form a bloc of electors in favour
of his proposals. He undertook to increase the
Corn Dole, to provide land-settlements in Italy, and
to grant Italians the franchise. . . . He was, in
fact, mobilising the whole mass of other interests
against the equites.

It is one of the most engaging ironies of history
that now, after all that had happened, a programme
such as this should come from the heart of the
oligarchy itself. The spot of strategic weakness in
the scheme was that Drusus rather outran public
opinion in his proposal to grant the franchise to the
Italians; and he was bound to come into collisionDRUSUS	159

with the Licinian-Mucian law. Moreover, owing
to considerations of political tactics, he could not
prudently stress the principal object of his legislation,
so that his contemporaries were left in some doubt as
to which of the various items in the scheme was the
chief one. Was Drusus making more or less in-
sincere concessions to other sections in order to
pass his law regarding the equestrian courts ?—or
was the attack on the equites itself a concession
designed to gain over the oligarchy for some other
purpose ?

Drusus was successful in passing all the items of
his programme, with the exception of that concerning
the franchise, which he kept back for the present.
When the courts were safely out of the hands of
the equites, he would run a much better chance of
escaping impeachment under the provisions of
the Licinian-Mucian law. The equites, now fighting
for their privileges, exerted all their power. The
Consul Lucius Philippus led the opposition, and
though Drusus used his tribunician power to im-
prison Philippus, the latter called upon the Senate
to reject the proposals. It refused ; and Philippus
warned it that he might seek another Senate.
Confronted with this monstrous threat of revolu-
tion, the Senate wavered. Then Lucius Crassus
died suddenly, in ominous circumstances, and
hesitation grew into apprehension. Finally, the
proposals of Drusus respecting the Italian franchise
became known. So great was the outcry, so
thoroughly were even his supporters intimidated,
that the Senate gave way, and declared the laws of
Drusus to be void. Drusus himself was struck down
by an assassin shortly afterwards: the slayer
escaped ; the crime was not investigated too closely ;160	THE POLITICAL STRUGGLE

and the moneyed men remained masters of the
situation.

VIII

Thus ended the great attempt to keep the power of
oney under political control. Had it succeeded, it
might have changed the course of history : but it had
failed.

The equites may only have intended to destroy the
schemes of Drusus as far as they themselves were
affected ; but if so, they worked more wildly than
they knew, for now the first thunderbolt fell, the
first of a series which was not to end until Sulla
stood the supreme master of Rome.

Revolt broke out at Asculum, where all the
Roman citizens were murdered. It spread rapidly
throughout Italy: the Marsians and the Samnites
rose, and Rome was in a death grapple, not now with
Carthaginians or Cimbri, but with the very men who
had defeated the Carthaginians and Cimbri.1 The
Samnites were the most dangerous of all. They
were the people who, beyond all others, had once
been the real rivals of the Romans, and had shown
precisely the same powers and qualities. With the
Samnites in the field it was diamond cut diamond ;
and in this emergency all Rome rose, with equal
unanimity, for the defence.

1 " No Triumph," said the proverb, " without Marsians or
against Marsians." (Appian : B.C. I, vi, 46.)

THE SOCIAL WAR.
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SO £80



KEBXXX

162CHAPTER VII

THE MILITARY STRUGGLE IN ITALY

HE insurgents sent to Rome, notifying that

they would lay down their arms if the
franchise were granted them. The Senate, unable
to grasp the real causes or the real magnitude of
the catastrophe, could only answer instinctively
with a refusal. It was the first maxim of Roman
policy that Rome never negotiated with enemies
who bore arms. Thought, reflection, understand-
ing must come later, as the truth penetrated into
men's minds. Those who had favoured the grant'
of the franchise, those who had opposed it, and
those who had been neutral, all alike prepared for
resistance.

The Italian army was a typical revolutionary
army—that is to say, it was a patchwork of elements
with the same interests and ideals, but different
concrete objects to attain. The Samnite was out to
smash Rome ; the men of Marius's army to avenge
their lost pensions ; others—the most part—de-
manded the protective privileges given by Roman
citizenship—equality before the law. From yet
another aspect, the war was a revolt of the small
farmer of central and southern Italy against the
landlordism which had already reduced northern
Italy to serfdom, and against the moneyed men who

i

163164 THE MILITARY STRUGGLE IN ITALY

held the financial strings, and had overthrown and
murdered Drusus. The Roman army, deprived of
the flower of the allies, was perhaps the worst which
the Romans had ever put into the field—a mixture
' of sound old soldiers with the rabble of the slums,
Cis-Alpine Gauls who were all but foreigners,
slightly touched as yet with Roman tradition;
Numidian cavalry, and Greek seamen. This fact
reveals, suddenly and clearly, that Rome herself was
undergoing a change of character. She was no
longer the definite, independent City State ; she
was, in fact if not in name, the capital of Italy ; the
war was, in fact if not in name, the revolt of nationals
against a national government. There were then
no names for these things. Theory lagged so far
behind fact that the Roman still conceived the war
to be a foreign war of the Roman State against its
allies. He had not yet grasped the idea that the
walls of Rome were the coasts of Italy.

The principle really involved was illustrated by the
proceedings of the Italians. They did not act merely
as independent City States allied against an indepen-
dent City State. They chose Corfinium as a capital,
named it " Italia," and organised a general govern-
ment. That they planned it exactly on the Roman
model is not a matter for surprise. No better was
known. The essential point is that they did realise
the conception of the political union of Italy, Rome
or no Rome. The Italians had discovered the nation,
as distinct from the City State.

Hence, on the Roman side the war was fought
partly by men who had no policy at all except to
maintain certain privileges ; partly by sincere men
who were still applying obsolete theories to a world
of facts that had changed. As soon as these latterTHE VARIAN COMMISSION	165

realised their position, there was certain to be
dissension.

11

The equites, having plunged Rome into this war,
endeavoured to justify themselves by carrying it
through. For a while a reign of terror prevailed.
At the instance of Quintus Varius Hybrida a special
commission was appointed to investigate the alleged
treasonable relation between Drusus and the Italians.
As a result of its sittings, a considerable number of
important persons were exiled. Marcus Aemilius
Scaurus—safe, if any man were safe—needed all
his influence to avoid being numbered among them.
Sulla, who—either through his absence, or through
prudence, or, like Scaevola, on principle—had not
been connected with the actions of Drusus, escaped
the enquiries of the commission. The old group
was practically broken up. Only Scaevola and Sulla
remained—one in the secluded but influential back-
ground of the seniors, the other, in the prime of his
energies and abilities, in the field.1

War raged in Italy for two years. Two Roman
armies were organised: one, under the consul
Publius Rutilius Lupus in central Italy; the other,
under the consul Lucius Julius Caesar, in Campania.
Sulla took a command under Caesar. The war

1 The Commission took evidence to prove that Drusus was
the head of a vast secret organisation of Italians. The allegation
is utterly improbable. That Drusus was in touch with the heads
of the Italian organisation is probable. Sulla, for the reasons
given on p. 82 ante, may not have shared the views of
Drusus on the franchise, but have been interested chiefly in the
attempt of the group to wrest the judicial courts from the equites
and to preserve the control of the political government over the
provinces. No court could proceed against him on account of
such views.166 THE MILITARY STRUGGLE IN ITALY

opened disastrously. Caesar sent on an advanced
corps into Samnium, followed with his main force,
and was repulsed with heavy loss. Aesernia, the
chief Roman stronghold in Samnium, was in conse-
quence isolated. Sulla distinguished himself by
throwing help into the besieged town, but it was
forced to surrender. The Samnites, under Papius
Mutilus, entered Campania, and effected a junction
with the army which had expelled the Romans from
Lucania. With the exception of the city of Nuceria,
all Italy south of Vesuvius was lost to the Romans,
who held little more than the coast and military road
from Rome to Naples. A second defeat drove
Caesar right back upon Teanum. He reorganised
and advanced afresh to Acerrae, which was his
furthest south.

While the southern army was faring thus badly,
the campaign in central Italy, on which Caesar's
lines of communication entirely depended, barely
held its own, and there only owing to the presence
of a hated figure. The consul Lupus had Marius
as one of his corps-commanders. Detaching
Gnaeus Pompeius Strabo to operate in Picenum, and
bar the road north, Lupus proposed to advance on
Italia. Marius cautioned him that the army needed
much more training before it was capable of serious
military operations ; but his advice was rejected
with contempt. The result proved that Marius still
knew his business. A corps under Perpenna came
badly to grief. Lupus removed Perpenna, and
incorporated the remnant of the defeated troops
with the corps of Marius. Proceeding with his
plan, he was himself taken by surprise crossing a
river, and fell with eight thousand men. Marius
effected a crossing elsewhere, extricated the army,SUCCESS OF MARIUS

167

and forced the enemy to withdraw. The Italians
gained no more successes while he controlled
operations.

The Senate, however, could not allow the old
man to remain sole commander. Quintus Caepio
was sent, for political reasons, to act as colleague.
Caepio did not last long. He fell into an ambush,
and was slain with most of the force he led. Marius
once more took over the command, and once more
the tale of enemy successes abruptly stopped. He
knew how to handle the brittle and treacherous stuff
he commanded.1 He proceeded with great caution,
relying on entrenchments and defensive tactics. It
was during these slow operations that he uttered one
of his best sayings. " If you are a great general,
Marius," called out the Marsian commander,
Quintus Silo, " come out and fight a battle." . . .
" If you are one," returned Marius, briefly, " make
me do it." When at last Silo succeeded in making
him do it, Marius destroyed his army. The occasion
was characteristic of the time. The commander
of the southern army nearest at hand was requested
to co-operate, and that commander was Sulla.
Marius drove Silo's troops upon Sulla, and Sulla
intercepted them, and promptly took the credit.
Marius and Sulla were the only two generals on the
Roman side who emerged from the first year of the
war with honour.

hi

Under the stress of disaster, a shifting of opinion
was taking place in Rome. The landholding

1 In " dressing down " these troops after a disgraceful episode
in which both sides had run away, Marius said : " I do not
know which are the worst—you, who could not face their backs,
or they, who could not face yours."168 THE MILITARY STRUGGLE IN ITALY

senatorial class was suffering more than the men of
money, for Italy was being devastated, and all work
on the land was at a standstill, while the provinces
were unaffected. The corn dole was greatly re-
duced, ostensibly as a measure of economy, but
partly, no doubt, to drive the idle class of loafers
into the ranks. There was a general suffering in
which the moneyed men came off by far the
best.

The danger to their power lay in the alliance
between certain elements of the Optimates and the
Populares which Drusus had created. That bloc still
subsisted, and in the critical state of public affairs
it began to regain its influence. To many men it
became clear that the war was the kind of war in
which every one loses and no one wins—a brutal,
bruising, bungling, destructive war, which might go
on as long as there was a Roman left to pound a
Samnite, and a Samnite to pound a Roman. After
all, why not give the Italians the franchise ?

The opposition to the extension of the franchise
was a coalition of all kinds of men with all kinds of
motives. The able-bodied loafers of the Forum
and the wealthy bankers were standing frankly for
their private interests ; the typical oligarch was, of
course, on principle opposed to change. But there
was a considerable residuum of all parties who had a
more reasonable basis for opposition. The extension
of the franchise meant a fundamental revolution in
the character of the State, without any clear prospect
of a new form of State to justify it. Rome owed
its political value to its solidity and coherence.
Where was the sense—where even was the sanity—
of dissipating this coherence without adequate cause
among a million men ? All men knew what a CityCHANGE OF OPINION

169

State was. But what was this monstrosity which
would result from an extension of the franchise ?

It was the change in the feelings of this residuum
that decided the future. They saw the whole struc-
ture of the Roman State, which had successfully
resisted Hannibal, being shaken down by intestine
strife. The will to survive was powerful in the
Roman. Better anything than this destruction.
The change of feeling spread. Rome refused to go
down fighting ; rather than go down at all she would
compromise, and make this amazing leap in the dark.
The same faith which had once made the triumph of
the plebeians possible now made the triumph of the
Italians possible.

It may have been no more than a coincidence that
it was Sulla's commander-in-chief, the consul Lucius
Caesar, who, returning to Rome late in the year, took
the first bold step by initiating a law to give the
franchise to all Italians who had remained loyal.
The Varian commission was dissolved, and a new
commission appointed, in which all classes were
represented. It acted with vigour. The leaders of
the equites were at once involved. Quintus Varius,
the author of the original commission, was now
openly charged with responsibility for the murder
of Drusus, and himself sent into exile. It became
obvious, however, that the Julian law was insufficient
to meet the emergency. A fresh law was soon
brought forward by two tribunes, granting the
franchise to all Italians who surrendered within
sixty days.

How easily a policy of concession might have
avoided the whole trouble is clear from the results
of even these halting and imperfect compromises.
The new law had serious restrictions in it, affecting170 THE MILITARY STRUGGLE IN ITALY

the electoral influence of the new voters—as we
should say, it " gerrymandered the constituencies."
Yet it so weakened the Italians that the second year
of the war was marked by an increasing tale of
effective Roman successes.

If the agency of Lucius Caesar, Sulla's commander-
in-chief, be a mere coincidence, there can be no
doubt as to certain arrangements which were made
fat the same time. A general re-shuffle of the com-
mands took place. Marius, who had held the main
ground for Rome during the disastrous early days of
the war, was superseded on the ground of age and
health. To prove them wrong, the angry and dis-
appointed old man at once set to work, appearing
regularly in the Campus Martius at the athletic
exercises : at which, though he had put on weight,
he was still expert. Lucius Porcius Cato was
given the consulship and the command which
Marius had vacated, while his colleague, Gnaeus
Pompeius Strabo, remained in Picenum. Sulla was
sent south to take over Caesar's Campanian army.
Fortune was playing steadily into his hands.

These arrangements, made simultaneously, were
obviously parts of a connected design. Campania
was not only strategically and politically important,
it also was the favourite and fashionable resort of the
most influential families of the oligarchy, who would
not have sent thither any man save one in whom they
had confidence. It was practically a promise of the
consulship. It was also on the main road to
Brundusium, the port of departure for the east.
The government was fully aware of the danger of the
situation in Asia, where the corporations, set free
from all interference during the supremacy of the
equites, had rapidly created a condition of affairsCHANGES IN COMMAND	171

leading straight to war. Taken in connection with
the recall of Marius, the appointment meant that
Sulla could expect, if he made good, the highest
promotion, and a command in Asia.

If politics be a child's game, in which the apple
must be shared with scrupulous equality among the
players, then Marius had been badly treated. But
all the good reasons favoured the appointment of
Sulla. The east needed not merely a soldier, but a
statesman. Sulla was already acquainted with Asia ;
his views were in harmony with those prevailing in the
bloc ; it would probably be necessary to send a man
who bore the highest credentials ; and Sulla had the
necessary familiarity with the Greek language and >
with Greek culture. The difficulty about Marius
was not only the political one, but his ignorance of
Greek and his incapacity as a statesman. He per-
haps did not know enough even to realise the nature
of the objections.

IV

The Italians opened the second year of the war by
attempting to carry the struggle north into Etruria.
For a while the stress centred round Strabo, who, in
a great battle—one of the greatest of the war—held
his ground. Cato rapidly followed his predecessors
in that command which hitherto no one but Marius
had succeeded in surviving. He fell in battle,
whereupon Strabo took over his army and proved '
himself competent to control the entire field of war;
in central Italy.

Sulla was thus set free to act. He first operated •
in southern Campania, recovering the small towns
of the Sorrentine peninsula—Stabiae, Herculaneum, '
and Pompeii. The siege of Pompeii absorbed some172 THE MILITARY STRUGGLE IN ITALY

time, and the Samnites undertook its relief. Two
serious efforts were made to raise the siege. They
were resisted ; and in the second battle the Samnite
general, Lucius Cluentius, himself fell.

Sulla, like Marius, had had trouble with his army.
A section of it had mutinied and beaten their com-
mander, a man of praetorian rank, to death. Sulla's
attitude to the episode rather shocked his contem-
poraries. He took no punitive action, but hoped,
in return, that his troops would fight the better
by way of apology for this breach of discipline.
The astute psychologist obtained his hope. The
army appreciated him. On the fall of Cluentius
the troops paid their commander the compliment of
presenting him with the grass wreath which was
the mark of honour bestowed on a soldier who had
distinguished himself in securing the safety of his
comrades. Sulla received many distinctions during
his lifetime, but none that did him more credit as
a man and a soldier.

It was particularly urgent for Sulla to get his
army into fighting shape. Any severity or leniency
that helped to this end seemed to justify itself
by expedience. He was playing for enormous
stakes. The whole future of Rome, the whole
future of civilisation, toppling to irremediable down-
fall, rested to some considerable extent upon him,
his intelligence, his tact—above all, his Fortune.
He emerged from this war with his faith in Fortune
confirmed. To this was due the inconsistency which
his critics saw in him—the incalculable mingling of
the lenient and the severe. He was too prudent to
strain at the very tenuous thread of discipline. The
example of Strabo was before him. Strabo had
licked his own army into order, but remained as oneSULLA'S RAID INTO SAMNIUM	173

of the most hated men in Roman history. This
was of no use to Sulla, who needed to be not only
obeyed, but admired and loved.

The fall of Cluentius at Pompeii was the signal for
a change in the conduct of the war. The Samnites
had been attracted in force into southern Campania,
and the defeat inflicted on them would detain them
with reorganisation. Sulla's army was in a good
mood. He marched past the cities of Campania
which were still in the possession of the enemy, and
struck right into the heart of Samnium itself.

The raid was successful. He got astride of the ■/
great highway, the Via Appia, that ran to
Brundusium, took Aeclanum, the principal town on
that portion of the route, and received the submission
of the Hirpinian lands around it. Pushing north, he
met Papius Mutilus, beat him in a pitched battle,
and penetrated to Bovianum itself, the Samnite
capital, which surrendered to him. At the end of the
season, when operations had to be suspended, the
struggle had been transformed. Strabo was busy
in reducing the whole of Central Italy ; the praetor
Cosconius, by the reduction of Apulia, was further
opening up the way to Brundusium. The war was
going definitely against the Italians.

Their defeat, now certain, did not alter the political
results for which they had begun their revolt. If, in
a military sense, Rome was once more to be victor,
and if her political supremacy was still to be main-
tained, none the less the franchise had been granted :
no matter in how grudging and imperfect a shape.
Once the principle was established, it could only be
a matter of time before its terms were enlarged and
liberalised. Such was the upshot of the Social War

The most vast events come secretly. Neither the174 THE MILITARY STRUGGLE IN ITALY

Italian nor the Roman, those who had fought for the
franchise, nor those who had opposed it, knew that
one of the transcendent revolutions of history had
been accomplished. The City State was dead ; the
Nation was born. It took long to get the corpse of
the old form of State removed and buried ; longer to
get the new form to walk and talk of itself; but the
change had been made.

v

Calamity was heaped upon calamity in those
disastrous days, for into this cauldron of trouble
dropped an appalling catastrophe. Mithradates had
acted as soon as the Social War began; his allies
were inspired to place themselves afresh upon the
thrones of Bithynia and Cappadocia, and drive out
the Roman nominees. A commission was sent from
Rome to see the matter put right. The commis-
sion, appointed under the regime of the equites, acted
with a recklessness almost beyond belief. King
Nicomedes of Bithynia was urged by it to make war
upon Mithradates, being promised Roman support
in the task ; and as he had promised the commis-
sioners a large recognition for his restoration, and, in
addition, owed money to Roman financiers who were
pressing him for repayment, he was obliged to fall in
with their wishes. Mithradates conducted his own
side of the case with admirable skill; he was to play
the part of the injured innocent person, wickedly set-
upon, and turning at last to bay in desperate self-
defence. His envoys were carefully instructed in
their part, which they carried out well, while he him-
self completed the most elaborate preparations for
war. That his designs were far-reaching might be
guessed from the fleet he assembled: over threeMITHRADATES	175

hundred ships, for the command of which he had at
last to send to Phoenicia and Egypt to find officers.
His diplomacy reached in every direction. Syria,
Egypt and Armenia were approached to secure their
friendly neutrality. The commission (perhaps
encouraged by the injured innocence of the plea)
refused him satisfaction for the hostile acts of
Nicomedes.

This was what Mithradates wanted. He promptly
seized Cappadocia afresh, and addressed a further
protest to the commissioners, demanding satisfac-
tion, and appealing to Rome ; but his tone was
now stronger. The commission, considering his
message " insolent," once more expelled him from
Cappadocia and dismissed his ambassador.

They at once, without communicating with Rome,
prepared for war, and assembled their forces along
the frontiers. They had a small Roman force, and
the same sort of local levy that Sulla had employed,
besides the Bithynian army of King Nicomedes, and
a fleet which held the straits of Byzantium. The
army which Mithradates set in motion was over a
quarter of a million strong. Its first operations
resulted in a disastrous defeat of Nicomedes;
Manius Aquilius, the chief commissioner, was forced
to flee to Pergamus ; the fleet at Byzantium, when
it heard the news, scattered ; the whole of Asia
Minor fell into the hands of Mithradates with *
scarcely a serious battle. Only Rhodes held out.

The cities received Mithradates with an
enthusiasm that was remembered against them.
The Roman government—whatever it might have
done had it been consulted before—had now no
choice, so declared war. The financial case was
desperate. It was necessary to sell the sites on and176 THE MILITARY STRUGGLE IN ITALY

near the Capitol, which had never been built on since
the foundation of Rome. This expedient raised
nine thousand pounds of bullion gold for the
treasury. Hardly had these decisions been taken,
when news followed only to be compared in moral
effect with the news of the Indian Mutiny. Mith-
radates had issued secret orders for a general
massacre of every person of Italian birth throughout
Asia. On the disastrous day, the most frightful
scenes were witnessed. Men and women were torn
from the sacred sanctuaries of the gods and
butchered. At Tralles, the citizens, afraid to do the
work themselves, hired a Paphlagonian ruffian
named Theophilus, who herded his victims (with,
let us hope, unconscious irony) into the temple of
Concord, and there murdered them all, chopping off
the hands of those who clung to the sacred images
and refused to let go. The utmost care was taken
to render the massacre complete. Rewards were
offered for information leading to the apprehension
of any Italian-born person; strict penalties were
fixed against those who should conceal the living or
bury the dead. Freedom was offered to slaves who
betrayed their masters ; and to debtors who slew an
Italian creditor, discharge of one-half of their debt.
The number of those who were slain is variously
estimated. From eighty thousand to a hundred and
fifty thousand Italians of all classes are asserted to
have been massacred. Against everything, Rhodes
still flew a defiant flag, strong in its great walls and
fighting fleet.

Asia thus lost, Greece itself threatened—such was
the news which fell upon a prostrate Italy and a
Rome in chaos.ITALY SERIOUSLY DAMAGED	177

VI

The Social War, like all such wars, was as damag-
ing as it was scandalous. It produced a general
slackening of moral throughout Italy, a widespread
injury to all the peaceful pursuits by which the
prosperity of men is secured. How far civilisation
really does depend on mere law and order we only
realise in times of anarchy. The whole civilisation
of the Italian peninsula emerged from the Social
War much the worse for wear. Acute distress was
widespread ; and the loudest cry of all was against
the moneyed class which had caused the war.
Borrowing had been a universal necessity. The
creditors now, in many cases, foreclosed on debtors
who rushed to the praetor to apply for time to realise
their assets. The praetor, acting on the strict letter
of the law, remitted the cases to the courts to be
dealt with under the old obsolete acts governing
interest. He was murdered by the infuriated
creditors, headed by a public officer, the tribune
Lucius Cassius. A general agitation began for the
cancelling of all debts.

The equites, alarmed by these ominous signs, made
a bid for safety by driving a wedge between the
Optimates and the Populares. The tribune P.
Sulpicius Rufus 1 brought forward three proposals.
The first was that all senators who were in debt above
£82 should be removed from the Senate. The

1 Publius Sulpicius Rufus was a much admired orator and a
man of ability. He took a leading part in impeaching Gaius
Norbanus in 95 B.C. for his action against Caepio nine years earlier.
(See f.n. p. 148 ante.) It is, therefore, to be deduced that
Sulpicius was of the Optimates. Now, Sulpicius was 6,000,000
sesterces in debt when he died. He certainly did not owe this
sum to men who themselves were borrowing; he owed it to

8.F.	M178 THE MILITARY STRUGGLE IN ITALY

second was the recall of all the exiles banished by
the Varian commission. The third was the equality
of Italians and Romans in respect of the franchise.

This clever and sinister triad of proposals showed
signs of succeeding in its object. The third measure
conciliated the Populates and the Italians ; the first,
they regarded with complacent indifference ; while
the second might possibly neutralise those of the
Optimates who had belonged to Sulla's group. The
first would, however, destroy the Senate as then
constituted, for there can have been few large land-
lords who had not borrowed during the war. The
Senate was, in fact, the strategic point to assail.1

Sulpicius was furnished with a first-class gang of
armed volunteers to protect him, and to carry out the
propaganda for his measures. He called it by the
humorous but significant name of his Anti-Senate.

The Senate answered by securing the election of
Sulla and Quintus Pompeius Rufus as consuls for
the year. Sulla was the one man they felt they could
rely upon in emergency, and when he walked into the
Senate House, with his blue eyes, purple complexion,
and shock of golden hair, they must have felt nearer
safety. Sulla had, by his work, deserved his
reward. No other man emerged from the Social

men who were lending, and who had lent it probably later than

95 B.C.

The idea that Sulpicius was bought by Marius is unlikely.
Mommsen spends three pages (Vol. Ill, pp. 531 ff.) in
speculating over the motives of Sulpicius. His own account
proves that Sulpicius was commissioned by the equites to hold
the street and smash the Senate in their interests.

1 The great bankers were themselves heavily involved in the
financial consequences of the troubles in Asia. To hold their
own, they needed all their assets ; and to retain their political
power, they needed to cripple the Senate,SULLA CONSUL I 88 B.C.	179

War with a reputation equal to his. His friends
thought him the greatest of commanders. His foes
(who knew no commander greater than Marius)
admitted that he was certainly the most fortunate.
Sulla welcomed the admission, played with it, and
turned it into something between a jest and a faith.
It is in the Social War that we first hear in earnest of
his Fortune. How far it may have begun as a jest,
we do not know ; but it rapidly became something
more serious. What power had brought him upon
the scene at this critical juncture ? Not calculation.
No human foresight could have worked out the
reckoning.

And now his prudence and foresight were justified.
He left his army intact in Campania, and returned to
Rome.

More than the consulship awaited him. He was
brought forward into the front rank of his party.
He was quite ready. He dissolved his marriage with
his wife Coelia, on the ground of her barrenness.
There was nothing remarkable in that. But when,
shortly afterwards—too shortly afterwards, some
people thought—it appeared that a fresh marriage
had been arranged for him, with Caecilia Metella,
daughter of Metellus Dalmaticus, then the Sulpicians
sneered, and even some of his own party disapproved.
It gave opportunity for lampoons and verses—a
chance not missed. Sulla is not likely to have failed
to hear of them : and if any of them contained any
reference to his personal appearance, he is not likely
to have forgotten them.

Practically no information has survived about
Metella, but Sulla evidently had a regard for her
which was much more than the respect a man pays to
the partner of a political alliance. There was some180 THE MILITARY STRUGGLE IN ITALY

factor which seems to have made him protectively
jealous on her behalf, and almost grateful to her.
There is only one thing which, at a guess, would
explain both attitudes on his part. It is his appear-
ance. Metella was a high-born woman. She may
have been the one person who never betrayed that
she noticed anything unusual about Sulla : and to a
sensitive man this would have' deserved any silent
acknowledgment he could give.

In all that follows, it must be borne in mind that
the question at issue was not that of a popular revolt
against an oppressive oligarchy, but that of rescuing
the State from an attempt on the part of the equites to
regain power. Sulla had no intention of repudiating
the policy of his party. He had come to the rescue
of the bloc which had supported Drusus.

He at once challenged Sulpicius by the first and
most obvious " call " he had at his disposal. He and
Pompeius Rufus officially suspended all assemblies on
the legal ground of Religious Observances. Sul-
picius, quite ready, replied by letting loose his slugs.
Pompeius Rufus bolted, but Sulla held his ground.
It was afterwards asserted that Sulla took refuge from
an indignant People in the house of Marius, who
nobly protected him against their wrath. Sulla
emphatically denied this account. According to his
own much more probable version, he was seized by
the slugs and forcibly carried to Marius's house near
by, where an ultimatum was presented to him. He
was to raise the embargo, or take the consequences.
Sulla had plenty of other cards to play ; it was not
yet necessary to die a martyr's death. He took the ex-
pedient course of raising the embargo. He left Rome
and returned to his army, prepared for business.

Why he had not been killed is a curious question.THE EASTERN COMMAND	181

He was not yet at the height of his fame, and they
may not have realised his importance : or they may
have feared to go too far. A consul still retained a
prestige comparable with the sacredness of the royal
rank. It may be true that Marius intervened.
Possibly it was Fortune.

Sulpicius saw the necessity of yet bolder measures.
To gain a stronger backing against a military consul,
he offered Marius the command in the east. The
old man jumped eagerly at the bait; the fish was
hooked ; and the equites had plunged Rome afresh
into a war worse even than the Social War.

VII

Two tribunes were despatched to Sulla's camp at
Nola to demand that the army should be handed over
to them. Sulla declined. He had not done all
that he had done merely to surrender meekly at the
first demand. Right was upon his side ; and more,
might, he suspected, was there also. He was never
a great orator, but now he addressed his troops with
the first public speech we find recorded of him.
They were enthusiastically in his favour, willing to go
wheresoever he went: they broke out into mutiny
at the idea of leaving him, and killed the tribunes.
This was war in earnest: for a tribune's life was
sacred with awful and irrevocable sacredness. Re-
prisals were at once made against Sulla's friends in
Rome, and the first turmoil of the coming civil
war distracted the city : the parties sorted themselves
out, some men fleeing to Sulla, some away from him.
The Senate, terrified by its own champion, sent
messengers of praetorian rank to stop him. The
troops wished to kill these, too. Sulla intervened,
and got the envoys off with torn clothes and damaged18a THE MILITARY STRUGGLE IN ITALY

dignity. The agitation in Rome now became
frantic. ' Sulla was at hand !

Six complete legions, numbering thirty-five
thousand men, moved out of camp at Nola and
began a forced march upon Rome. Sulla was still
undecided in his own mind, not sure what he was
actually going to do. To introduce armed force into
Rome was an almost unheard-of thing. Exactly how
far was his action bluff ? No one knew ; he did not
know himself. But one night he had a dream, in
which he thought the Earth-Mother put thunder-
bolts into his hands and bade him smite his enemies,
who all disappeared when he did so. He arose
refreshed and convinced. He now knew what he
had to do, and he intended to do it.

At Pictae he was met by a deputation begging for
delay, and assuring him that the Senate would take
up his cause. Sulla halted, and sent out to measure
ground for a camp, saying that he would do as they
wished. The deputation hurried joyfully back, and
Sulla resumed his march. He sent on an advanced
guard under Lucius Basilus and Gaius Mummius,
to secure the gate and walls on the Esquiline Hill
side of the city, where the street led straight down
by the shortest way to the Forum and the heart of
the city ; and followed rapidly on their heels.

Basilus seized the gate ; but street-fighting in a
classical city was complicated by the flat roofs of the
houses, and he was forced back, when he sought to
advance, by a bombardment of tiles. Sulla was not
far behind ; and on his arrival he instantly gave the
word to fire the houses. He himself led the opera-
tion, torch in hand, while the archers shot fire-darts
upon the roofs. Everything now had to give way to
the military necessity; and friends and foes alikeSULLA'S MARCH ON ROME	183

saw their property involved in the flame and smoke
which drove the tile-fighters off the roofs. Panic
became general. Marius had called upon all the
help he could muster, but he had missed his moment.
An offer of freedom to all the slaves who joined him
produced, it is said, three recruits.1 Before long it
was every man for himself. Sulpicius fled one way,
Marius another ; and the adventures of Marius are a
whole romance in themselves. He was too much
beloved to be caught; but Sulpicius was betrayed
by a slave, whom Sulla first made free, in accordance
with the reward offered, and then threw over the
Tarpeian Rock on general principles, to discourage
the practice of betraying one's master. Twelve of
the allies of Sulpicius were proscribed with him.
The head of Sulpicius was set up publicly in the
Forum. Sulla was master of Rome.	^

VIII

Sulla's armed entry into Rome is one of the most
astonishing deeds in history in its promptitude, its
vigour, and its unexpectedness. It was unpre-
meditated in the sense that it was not part of a plan,
but arose naturally out of a chain of events. The
manner of it was especially startling. If Sulla had
not personally committed himself by taking the
initiative, even the most war-hardened troops might
have wavered at the astounding order to fire Rome
itself! Historians have not sufficiently underlined
the magnitude of the audacity, nor its probable
moral effect. He had committed the first of those
actions which revealed to the world that he was a

1 This sounds like one of Sulla's own jokes. He was fond
of understating figures.184 THE MILITARY STRUGGLE IN ITALY

man who would blench at nothing—not even at
shocking its moral susceptibilities.

But although he had come in a fashion such as not
even Marius had dreamed of adopting, he did not
come as a revolutionary, a despot, or a militarist.
He, the legal consul, had been assaulted and in-
timidated ; the son of Quintus Pompeius Rufus,
who had married his daughter, had been killed by
the men of Sulpicius. An attempt had been made
to use constitutional forms, backed by illegal vio-
lence, in a way fatal to the State. Here, if ever, was
an occasion when men must choose between mere
adherence to convention and bold initiative. Sulla
did not intend the equites to return to power by the
bludgeon. He replied to the " slug" and the
bludgeon by the soldier and the sword.

Unlike some men, he knew precisely what he was
going to do. After his term of office as consul, he
was going to take up the proconsular command
against Mithradates. The first thing, therefore, was
to settle affairs in Rome, permanently if possible, but
at any rate temporarily ; and matters could then
await his return.

Sulla's measures were unexpected in their nature
and in their realistic adaptation to the circumstances
of the day. No consul for many a year previous had
shown the originality and the turn for political action
which he suddenly revealed. His measures may be
divided into three classes, levelled impartially at the
three classes of the State. Against the Senate, he
filled its numbers with three hundred new men who
might possibly have a little more brains and courage
than their predecessors. Against the bankers and
capitalists he cut down the amount of interest they
could legally enforce. Against the electors who hadMEASURES OF PACIFICATION	185

swallowed the bait of Sulpicius so easily, he altered
their voting arrangements back to the ancient Servian
methods, giving a preponderant vote to the higher
qualifications. On the other hand, legislative pro-
posals were first to be laid before, and passed by the
Senate, before they could be submitted to the
Assembly for adoption. Sulla did not think it
worth while to raise fresh trouble by attacking the
equestrian courts. He left that problem alone.
Finally, he made arrangements for land-colonisation.
Every class lost something and each gained some-
thing in this remarkable programme, so neatly dove-
tailing the conservative and the radical.

No one was particularly pleased. When the
elections came round, the people rejected the
candidates who stood for office with his support,
and carefully elected the candidates least acceptable
to him. Sulla expressed his pleasure. He loved to
see the People in dignified exercise of its inherent
sovereignty. At least, he assured them that these
were his feelings ; whereupon he and they bowed
themselves out of further discussion.

With respect to the ordinary administration of the
State, he had not been idle. The Samnites had made
a great effort to recover their hold over Samnium.
They recaptured Bovianum, but were defeated with
heavy loss by Sulla's lieutenant, Marcus Aemilius
Scaurus the younger. Quintus Metellus Pius, the
able son of Metellus Numidicus, had cleared the
road to Brundusium by the recapture of the great
fortress of Venusia. In central Italy, Strabo was
putting out the last embers of revolt. As soon as
the Campanian cities were reduced, the war would
be extinguished. Sulla thought matters sufficiently
advanced for him to leave Italy.186 THE MILITARY STRUGGLE IN ITALY

One of his last actions was to cause both the
new consuls, Lucius Cornelius Cinna and Gnaeus
Octavius,to take a solemn oath to maintain the new
arrangements. Cinna—another Cornelius—was an
able officer, but otherwise little known. Octavius
4 was interested in spiritualism and prophetic mediums.
The story—which takes dramatic interest in view of
later events—is that Cinna ascended the Capitoline
Hill, carrying a stone in his hand and, casting the
stone, swore solemnly that he should be cast out of the
city as that stone if he proved false. . . . This was
the best that Sulla could do. He removed Strabo
from the command in central Italy, and gave it to his
kinsman Quintus Pompeius Rufus : and was ready
to leave for the east.

Every one was waiting with polite impatience till
he should be gone.

PLAN OF THE
BATTLE OF CHAERONEA.

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188CHAPTER VIII

SULLA IN GREECE
i

SULLA landed at Dyrrachium in the spring of the '
year 87 B.C. How little he anticipated what >
was to occur at home we can see by the fact that he
left Metella and her children, the twins Faustus and
Fausta, behind him. He put aside all thought save
for the matter in hand. He was preparing to grapple
with a gigantic task, in which all his abilities would
be needed, and much help from his friend Fortune.
He left nothing to Fortune that he could do himself,
and Fortune played up nobly.

His chief staff officer, Lucius Licinius Lucullus,
who had been his right-hand man during the Social
War, had preceded him to report on the situation.
Lucullus found that a very able commander,
Bruttius Sura, lieutenant to the governor of Mace-
donia, had taken up the defence of Greece. Asia was
entirely in the hands of Mithradates, whose armies,
under his trusted general Archelaus, had already
begun the occupation of European soil. Archelaus \
had complete command of the sea, as well as posses- >
sion of all the Ionic islands. Making Athens his
base, he had set up there an adherent of the king, a
certain Aristion, as ruler, had secured the alliance of
the Achaean cities, and of the Lacedaemonians, and
was pouring troops through this open gateway. v

189iqo	SULLA IN GREECE

Euboea was in the hands of Metrophanes. In Mace-
donia and Thessaly Ariarethes, a son of Mithra-
dates, was reducing the country with a powerful
army. Hitherto the operations of Archelaus had
been confined to the coastal districts. Sura had
successfully held the roads that led from Athens
over the mountains into the heart of Thessaly.

Lucullus seems to have been very pleased with
Bruttius Sura, and to have reported in high com-
mendation of his actions ; but he pointed out that
the legal commander was now in the field, whereupon
Sura handed over the command and returned to
Macedonia. Sulla advanced southward and east-
ward, picking up such supplies and reinforcements
as he could on the way. He meant to do something
much more than merely hold his own ; he meant to
strike direct at Athens, the enemy base.

There can seldom have been a general as great as
Sulla, who had for his chief of staff another general
as great as Lucullus. It says much for both men that
from beginning to end their official relations and
personal friendship were unclouded and unbroken.
They had much in common, both socially and in
personal tastes, though Lucullus shunned politics.
Both men were connected with the family of the
Metelli. The mother of Lucullus had been a sister
of Metellus Dalmaticus and Metellus Numidicus.
Lucullus was perhaps the finer gentleman, but the
dominating intelligence was Sulla's. It was Lucullus
to whom he afterwards dedicated his memoirs, and
whom he made the guardian of his children. To
have by him, during all these difficult days, a second
brain, as acute and courageous as his own, and
absolutely loyal, was one of those strokes of Fortune
which Sulla thoroughly appreciated.SIEGE OF ATHENS

191

II

On his arrival at Chaeronea, Sulla received the
delegates of all the cities of Greece, save Athens.
He severely visited those which had shown dis-
affection. Having made it clear that there was no
slackening of Roman control over the provinces, he
advanced into Attica and began the siege.

The port of Piraeus was the first objective. Once
that fell, it would be impossible to reprovision the
city, isolated from the sea. Camps were established
at Eleusis and Megara, the cordon was drawn, and
in this perilous position Sulla tested Fortune as he
had not tested her yet.

The operations were vast; the expense great.
Ten thousand mules were at daily work about the
trenches. Engines were built, saps driven; labourers
had to be maintained, money found. When timber
ran out, Sulla ruthlessly cut down the sacred groves,
and the trees of the Lyceum and the Academy. -■
He was not going to be stopped now by any con- v
sideration whatever. To apply to the government at
home for money would have been merely absurd.
For one thing, it had none ; for another, it would not
have granted any had it possessed it. Sulla sent to
all the rich temples of Greece, which were as wealthy
with devotional offerings as the greatest of mediaeval
cathedrals. Epidaurus and Olympia had to dis-
gorge their treasures. He wrote in person to the ■
Amphictyons at Delphi, the richest of all. The v
more serious he was, the more sardonic his words
grew. He invited them to let him take care of their
wealth, as he would look after it better than they
could ; and if he needed to use any, he would replace
it. The Amphictyons were embarrassed. It was192	SULLA IN GREECE

perfectly reasonable that Greece should pay for her
defence from an Asiatic king much more likely to
plunder her temples without return than any Roman;
but that the curators of a world-famous temple,
themselves no more than trustees for posterity,
should strip their altars is a proposal to be reflected
over.

Caphis, a Phocian, was the apologetic messenger
who carried the letter to Delphi, and was com-
missioned to receive the treasure by weight. He
sympathised with the committee of Amphictyons,
and was full of excuses for himself. The committee
tentatively suggested that they had heard the sound
of a harp in the inner sanctuary. Caphis promptly
sent an express messenger back to Sulla with this
grave news. Sulla as promptly sent back another
express, to say that he was surprised that Caphis did
not know that music was a sign of joy, not of sorrow ;
he was to go forward, and gratefully accept what the
god so graciously offered !

After this there was no alternative. The temple
was stripped of treasures that went back to the
earliest and most famous days of Greece. The great
silver tun was too large to go on any carriage, so
was cut up for transport. Lucius Lucullus super-
intended the coining of the precious metals in
Peloponnesus ; and his money long remained current
on account of its excellence. Sulla triumphantly
demanded whether Fortune was not unmistakably
with the man for whom even the gods emptied their
treasuries.

The siege went on, however, without sen-
sational success. Piraeus, which was defended by
Archelaus in person, seemed impregnable. Sulla,
on the other hand, defeated every counter-moveILL NEWS FROM ROME	193

aimed against him. Mithradates threw in by sea a
fresh army, which made a desperate sally. It was
so successfully repressed, in the nick of time, that
Archelaus himself was shut out, and had to be drawn
up the walls by means of ropes. Sulla steadily pre-
vented the re-provisioning of Athens. Every known
resource of engineering was employed. A fresh
Pontic army, under Mithradates' son Arcathias,
entered Macedonia, cut Sulla's communications and
advanced southward. Fortune intervened. Arca-
thias died at Tisaeus, and for the time being the
army came no further. Still Piraeus could not be
forced by Sulla, nor relieved by Mithradates. The
siege dragged on, after all, into a blockade.

Sulla turned his attention to Athens itself.
Aristion, in spite of the sufferings of the beleaguered
city, which did not touch either his heart or his
intelligence, grew more and more confident as time
went on. He took a daily constitutional upon the
wall, during which he was mad enough to make
jocular remarks about Sulla, and still worse, about
Metella. The whole of Sulla's strength was con-
centrated on the siege ; it only needed this to con-
centrate the whole of his weaknesses too. He did
not respond to Aristion's jests ; he waited savagely,
biding the time.

News began to come in thick and fast from Rome ;
news so disturbing that it must have given him
many moments of secret irresolution and per-
plexity. His camp began to fill with refugees of the/
Optimates, with whom came Metella herself, with
the news that his houses had been burned and his
property seized. Still he held on. Though all
assaults on Piraeus had failed so far, the Athenians
were starving. Corn was at famine prices ; people

8.t.	N194	SULLA IN GREECE

were stewing feverfew and boiling down old shoes
and oil-bags for food. The most influential men in
the city were in favour of surrender. After much
difficulty, they induced Aristion to make overtures.

Sulla received the delegates, but on finding that
instead of seriously entertaining his terms, they only
made antiquarian speeches about the ancient might
and glory of Athens, he abruptly dismissed them
with: " My good fellows, put up your speeches
and be gone. I was sent to Athens, not to take
lessons, but to reduce rebels to obedience." And
they went.

Fortune had given Sulla many inducements to
doubt her ; but he had remained steady, and she
now returned smiling upon him. One of his spies
reported that some elderly men, talking together in
the Ceramicus, had criticised Aristion for not pro-
perly securing the approaches at the Heptachalcum.
Sulla seized the hint. He himself went by night to
examine the place, and finding it accessible, as the
old men had declared, lost not a moment. Work
was instantly put in hand : saps were driven, and
the wall mined, while troops were moved up in
readiness.

Nine hundred feet of the wall were brought down
between the Sacred and the Piraeic Gates, on the
south-west side of the city. The fall was brought
about at night; the ground was cleared and levelled
sufficiently for access ; and at midnight, with torches
flaring and trumpets and horns blowing, the storming
detachments entered the breach, and Athens was
given over to the appalling horrors of a midnight
sack.

The storming of Athens was historic. This was
Sulla's answer to Aristion ; and he had much the bestATHENS TAKEN BY ASSAULT	195

of the exchanges. The blood that was shed in the
market-place is said to have flowed down through the
Ceramicus, past the gate, till it entered the suburbs
beyond the wall. Many killed themselves under the
terror of that nightmare. It was only when two of
his Greek friends, Midias and Calliphon, absolutely
knelt at his feet, and all the Roman senators pre-
sent added their entreaties, that he consented to
call off his war-dogs. Then he relaxed. Perhaps
his sense of the dramatic was satisfied. Recollecting
what city this was, and who had once been its
citizens, he said : "I forgive the few for the many,
the living for the dead." The emperor Nero must
often have regretted that he had neither the oppor-
tunity nor the ability to take Athens.

Aristion had taken refuge in the Acropolis, where
he held out until forced to surrender by want of
water. Having received the full force of Sulla's
retort, he had now to suffer an even more stinging
repartee from Sulla's friend Fortune : for at the
very moment when he walked down from his
impregnable refuge to the hands of the Roman officer
who received him, the rain came, and the Acropolis
was plentifully replenished with water.

in

The fall of Athens came none too soon. The
relief force was at hand. Sulla broke camp at the.
earliest moment. He kept his word to the Athenians.
He restored the full freedom of the city, and all its
possessions, for the sake of those mighty dead who
yet made it a sacred spot, and still make it so to-day.

It was imperatively necessary to move. He made
a last determined attack on Piraeus, so prolonged
and hard pressed that Archelaus abandoned the196	SULLA IN GREECE

walls and retired to the citadel, against which, having
no ships, Sulla could do nothing. Sulla had already
despatched Lucius Lucullus to raise a naval force
by some means or other. It was impossible to
maintain an army longer in Attica, as long as the
Piraeus was closed. The army of Arcathias, now
under Taxiles, a hundred thousand strong, was on
the march from Thessaly. Sulla had to meet it, and
he had also to effect a junction with Hortensius, who
was bringing reinforcements from Macedonia. For
these reasons he was anxious to be away. The
problem was solved by Archelaus himself, who
voluntarily evacuated Piraeus, and went north to
join Taxiles and take command of the united forces.
Sulla burned Piraeus, including the magnificent
arsenal with its marble columns, and the shipyards.
Since he could not yet occupy it, the only course was
to make it useless to Archelaus. He then followed
northwards, where he was within reach of supplies,
though in ground more favourable for the enemy
cavalry.

Meanwhile Lucullus, with three small Greek ships
and three Rhodian galleys, was on his way south
through seas scoured both by the warships of
Mithradates and by corsairs. He touched at Crete,
where he gained the authorities over to Sulla's side,
and then he successfully ran the blockade to Cyrene
on the African shore. He was always popular,
wherever he went. Opinion was divided in Cyrene :
but Lucullus persevered until he induced the
principal citizens to take a more favourable view.
He lost most of his vessels to a pirate fleet, but
gained Alexandria, where he made a stately entry.

King Ptolemy was full of cordiality and compli-
ments. Lucullus was received in state by the royalJOURNEY OF LUGULLUS	197

fleet, invited to the palace as a personal guest, and
loaded with presents such as were usually given to
men of much higher rank. He refused these gifts,
and accepted nothing but necessary supplies. He
likewise declined invitations to visit the archaeological
wonders of Egypt, on the ground that these things
were for men of leisure and curiosity, not for one who
had left his commander in the trenches. But in spite
of his cordiality, the king would not lend any ships.
The situation was too delicate, and the future much
too uncertain, for him to side frankly with either
party. He nevertheless saw the little squadron of
Lucullus convoyed as far as Cyprus by the Egyptian
war-fleet, and on parting pressed upon Lucullus a
magnificent cameo portrait Of himself, cut in emerald.
Lucullus did not see his way to refuse so personal a
gift without giving offence.

Either the king's emerald was lucky, or Sulla's
Fortune began to carry across the sea ; for from this
moment onwards Lucullus was successful in finding
ships. A general reaction against the government
of Mithradates and his deputies was everywhere in
progress. Lucullus, with his charming person and
persuasive speech, was welcomed in a score of
places, with greater or less publicity, as a deliverer.
Mithradates, with the lordly indifference of the
Asiatic despot, had adopted what he understood to
be a democratic policy, which would engage the
people in his favour. Slaves were freed, land dis-
tributed to the poor, and a general moratorium
announced : of which the chief result was frantic
agitation amongst the commercial classes of Greek
Asia and the islands. The appearance of Lucullus
with the Sullan programme, and reassurances, at once
engaged the influence of these men in his favour.

/198	SULLA IN GREECE

It is probable that he gathered a good deal of useful
information which in due time he reported to Sulla.
He can hardly have failed to become a much wiser
man regarding the inner causes of political revolu-
tions, and the means by which they can be avoided.

IV

While Lucullus was away on his mission, the
crucial battles had been fought. Sulla's advance
into Boeotia brought him into a position from which
he could comfortably watch the roads leading from
Thessaly. There were not many points to guard.
The march of a great army would come by Thermo-
pylae and Elatea ; and Taxiles had no particular
object in taking a less convenient route merely in
order to avoid the same Roman army he was anxious
to fight and to wipe off the face of the earth. Sulla
/ effected his junction with Hortensius, who was
guided over the mountains by Greeks perfectly
acquainted with the paths, and the united forces
occupied a hill called Philoboetus, a spur of Mount
Parnassus commanding the Elatean plain and the
valley of the Cephisus, where supplies were secure,
and wood and water in abundance. Sulla admired
the advantages of the position. The army of
Taxiles must come down from the north through
the defile, and turn at an angle along the main
valley where it narrowed, towards Chaeronea and
Orchomenos.

When it came, it would cut off all retreat, and
bottle him securely into southern Greece, with no
escape but by fighting.

It came at last: an impressive sight. It seemed
overwhelming in numbers, and its array was rich
with all those gorgeous military equipments whichSULLA IN BOEOTIA	199

overawe simple souls, but not a cynical and experi-
enced man of the world, like Sulla. It encamped
down in the valley, whence its commanders could
take a general view of the Roman army. Its forage
parties were soon spread far and wide, looting and
burning on a generous scale, while the troops of
Sulla kept to their positions on the hill. Sulla
by no means relished an inactivity so damaging to
the country, and so bitter a reflection upon his
ability to protect it; but he had no alternative.
The neighbouring temples came in for a full share
of enemy interest. During the next few days the
most encouraging declarations of prospective success
poured in upon Sulla from the oracles of all the
gods of the country-side. The oracle of Lebadea,
which received a particularly attentive visit from
the enemy, was emphatic in its assurances that
Sulla should be victorious. Other interesting pre-
dictions and indications were related afterwards.
Sulla received them all with satisfaction, and was
sufficiently appreciative of divine help to see that
all such communications were made public.

With the forces which Archelaus had brought
up by sea to join Taxiles, the united host far out-
numbered the Roman army, which was less than
seventeen thousand strong : and even if the Mace- \
donian and Greek allies were included, the disparity
was still over three to one. Archelaus had wished
to pursue a policy of attrition—the wisest course ;
but Taxiles brought positive orders to fight. In
the circumstances Archelaus hardly ventured to
press his own view too far. A battle was determined
upon.

Sulla was perfectly willing, in his own time,,
and at his own place. His confidence in himself200

SULLA IN GREECE

and Fortune was not affected by the disparity of
v numbers. But the army saw the prospect in a
different light. The oracles notwithstanding, to
give battle to an enemy five times the Roman
numbers, and more than three times that of the
whole army, seemed hopeless and beyond reason.
Sulla, accepting public opinion, patiently waited,
and turned the screws of discipline a little tighter.
If the men would not fight, what more profitable
than a little digging ? So the army was set to
work to dig itself in for safety, and since the task
1 was urgent, if they were to stand still and await
attack, it was pressed on, and slackness was severely
visited. After three days of digging trenches the
army made angry representations to its commander
when he came to inspect the work. Sulla acidly
told them that their new desire to fight was merely
a dislike of work, but if their martial ardour was
so great, they might go and occupy the hill of
Parapotamii. They consented.

The ancient city of Parapotamii, long a ruin,
lay at the very point of the angle where the host
must begin to wheel eastward, and commanded
the fords on the road to Chaeronea and Thebes.
Archelaus had already marked it for occupation.
There was now a race for it. The Sullan veterans
gained it first, an almost impregnable position from
" which it was difficult to dislodge them. Sulla's
design was to withdraw upon a prepared position
where he could give battle to the greatest advantage.
His first movements seemed like a retreat. The
Chaeroneans with the Roman army implored him
not to leave their city to its fate, whereupon, as this
chimed in with his own views of the situation, he
at once sent them off with the tribune Gabinius,THE ENTRENCHED POSITION	aoi

and one legion, to occupy the town and prepare
an entrenched position : left Murena to hold the
fords till all was clear, and himself marched along
the right bank of the Cephissus.

Archelaus, as soon as Murena's withdrawal opened
the fords, crossed over and began to take up a
position between Mount Hedylius and Mount
Acontius, facing Chaeronea. He extended a flank-
ing force to occupy Mount Thurium on his right.
Sulla now linked up with Chaeronea and went
himself to view the position. An entrenched line,
fronted with strong stakes, had been erected,
sufficient to prevent the passage of war chariots,
but not that of infantry. Before it were massed
the legionaries of Gabinius, and behind it the siege-
engines from Athens had been set up like a battery
of heavy field-guns. Murena was falling into
position on the left of this, close under Thurium.
Sulla's cavalry corps (which he intended, as part
of the general plan, to command in person) was
posted on the right, out in the plain. On the
rising ground in the rear, Hortensius on the left,
and Galba on the right, commanded cohorts of
reserve.

Sulla inspected the men of Gabinius, and after
receiving the complimentary presentation of a laurel
wreath, spoke a few words of encouragement and
thanks. The force on Mount Thurium was a
danger which might render the fortified position
untenable ; but Gabinius had already secured local
volunteers, acquainted with the ground, who under-
took to deal with the danger. Satisfied that they
were able and trustworthy, Sulla approved, before
leaving to take up his position on the right
wing.202

SULLA IN GREECE

V

The first movements of the coming battle were
set on foot. Cautiously outflanking the flanking
party by means of the mountain paths, the Chae-
roneans gained the hill-side above them. Attacked
from above, the enemy were hurled down the hill-
side in disastrous confusion. Some three thousand
are said to have fallen there ; of the remnant,
some were cut off by the men of Murena, while
others broke in upon the wing of Archelaus's
position, seriously upsetting it.

The war-cars opened the battle in earnest by
hurling themselves upon the division of Gabinius
in the centre, which withdrew within the staked
line. Their frustration was utter and complete,
to the delight of the legionaries, who mockingly
called them on with the familiar catch-cries of the
Roman circus. The support which followed the
cars was a corps of fifteen thousand men, slaves
freed for the purpose of enrolment, who were
armed and trained in the old Macedonian fashion,
as a phalanx, with close packed ranks of pike-men.
On open ground, the attack of the cars, with their
scythe-armed wheels, followed up by such a phalanx,
would have been a most formidable one ; but it
bore no relation whatever to the situation which
Sulla had constructed for its benefit. The phalanx,
like the cars, was unable to operate against the
masked entrenchments. Met by the hand-to-hand
grapple of short-swordsmen fighting on an en-
trenched line, played upon by the war-engines
which hurled stones and shot bolts into the rear of
its massed ranks, the phalanx could not bring its
power to bear. Even so, the struggle was a sternBATTLE OF CHAERONEA

203

one. The slave troops fought with the utmost
valour, and kept their ranks. The legionaries had
to wrestle bare-handed with the hedge of pikes, to
get near enough to use the short sword.

Archelaus had not been idle. He had flung out
the cavalry of his right wing to envelop the Roman
left. Hortensius moved up his troops to meet
the danger, but was pressed back, and was in some
danger of being cut off. Sulla, who so far had not
been engaged at all, came swiftly to the scene and
restored the line. Archelaus, guessing by the dust
what sort of movement was in progress, recalled
some of his cavalry, and ordered a concentration
upon the weakened right wing from which Sulla
had come. To replace the troops he moved, the
division of Taxiles was brought up against Murena.
Sulla hesitated. . . . This operation, however
(which must have taken some time for an army so
numerous, and of mobility inferior to the Roman
standard), resulted in giving the Pontic army a
distinct " slew " towards its right. Sulla made his
decision; he pushed in all the troops he could
spare with Hortensius, to support Murena, and then
dashed back to his right wing. He regained it
before the movement of Archelaus had matured,
found it holding its own, and ordered an advance.

The cavalry charge which followed upon the
weakened Pontic left was the turning-point of the
battle. The host of Archelaus crumpled like a
house of cards. The wing being routed, and
pursued off the field, the centre was driven in by
Gabinius with frightful slaughter. Sulla, as soon
as he was assured that all went well, hastened back
to the danger-spot—Murena. But even Murena
was now advancing, and the whole Pontic army was204

SULLA IN GREECE

in flight. It soon found that it was trapped. Every
avenue of flight somehow led back to the Romans.
Archelaus placed himself in front of the camp, and
bade the desperate mob turn again to fight. It
turned, but having no longer any cohesion or direc-
tion, it turned only to be slaughtered, and was
driven on helplessly to the gates of the camp.
At last Archelaus ordered the gates to be opened
to receive the fugitives ; but it was too late. The
victorious legionaries entered with the stream.
The disaster was complete and irremediable.

It is said that of all that immense host, only
ten thousand arrived at Chalcis. Possibly that
number may have been the only force surviving
as an organised body ; but in any case it was a
" retreat from Moscow." Sulla reports his own
losses as fourteen missing, of whom two returned
towards nightfall, a remark which may be received
in the sporting spirit in which it was made. He
may only have counted the men who ran away.

Sulla was conscious of the improbability of what
he had done ; for the trophy he erected on the
field of battle, on the scene of his cavalry charge,
was dedicated not only to Mars and Victory, but
to Venus, the spirit of Fortune, and the lucky
throw of the dice.

He held games at Thebes, to celebrate his victory.
It was perhaps then, or shortly afterwards, that
he received news perhaps more serious than that of
the approach of Taxiles and Archelaus—Valerius
Flaccus Was upon the road.

But to estimate the significance of Flaccus we
must go back a little.V ¥  V. v; V;  V: *  V  V V;  w:  V'  $  ¥  y  Si  «!  y  V  V  V: v:	:T)HtV ^JZfwIcedon^ =  ^ ^HE WAR^ " J^p,^  ^^EECE^  Ifc ~ -=ggsi <ssJ	g  ii A A A  *8  £  !i A A  A  £  ii <A  A  A ,ft  *8  £  <A A A  i
	>>>)iOT>>ySS1£i>>>*£££>*>^W>%^	;aCHAPTER IX

THE VENGEANCE OF MARIUS AND THE
RETENTION OF ASIA

O accomplish all that Sulla was destined to

accomplish, it was strictly necessary to possess
the temperament of Sulla. He never trusted more
absolutely to Fortune than when he left Italy in
order to carry on the war against Mithradates.
That he never could have acted more wisely, we
can see at this distance of time ; but it was not
altogether so clear then.

The situation in Italy was as dangerous as it
could very well be. The revolt of the Italians was
still smouldering: the terms on which so many of
them had laid down their arms had either not been
carried out, or had been carried out in a way which
made them ineffective. The Samnites were un-
appeased : the Varian exiles had not been recalled :
and Sulla had added a fresh swarm of them, amongst
whom was Marius himself—Marius, whose sensitive-
ness and austerity now added their force to the
effects of his age and his genius and his popularity.
He was an old man, and an embittered old man,
and a terrible embittered old man, and a terrible
embittered old man of genius who was worshipped
by half the inhabitants of Italy.

The equites who had supported Sulpicius were in

I

207208	THE VENGEANCE OF MARIUS

a state of thorough discontent. Who was not ?
The whole of Rome was in that condition in which
no one is contented, no one satisfied, and every
one is on the watch to make a bid for greater safety.
Sulla had reduced the amount of interest they could
recover from their debtors ; and although he had
not revived the project of Drusus for removing
the control of the courts from the equites, he probably
intended to do so sooner or later, if only to escape
impeachment when he came home. The corpora-
tions can hardly have expected the restoration of
their privileges in Asia, when Sulla resettled the
east. They are unlikely to have failed to inform
themselves of Sulla's views on that head. In spite,
therefore, of the obvious fact that Roman dominion,
and with it the financial position of the great bankers,
hung by the most tenuous of hairs, an effort was
made to upset Sulla's settlement, restore the Grac-
chan constitution, and recall Marius.

The new arrangements made by Sulla before he
left for the east did not permit a tribune to bring
a motion directly before the Assembly in the old
way hitherto customary. The intermediation of a
consul was necessary. Cinna was therefore ap-
proached as the likeliest person. He was influenced
by the overtures made to him, and consented to
act.

He brought before the Senate two proposals :
one for the re-enactment of the cancelled law of
Sulpicius, allowing of the enrolment of new citizens
in any of the tribes ; the other, for the, recall of the
exiles.

These proposals were fair enough upon the face
of them, and would certainly command a majority
when referred to the Assembly. If brought forwardCINNA ACTS FOR THE EQUITES 209

in a time of profound peace and security, they
would have been wise measures of conciliation, and
perhaps this is what they seemed to Cinna. But
in the circumstances of the day, their meaning was
something very different from this. If passed
into law, they would bring to his support practically
the whole of the Italians, and would also secure
him the alliance of the party of Marius. The
repeal of Sulla's measures and a return to the
Gracchan constitution would then be easy. Marius
would take over the command against Mithradates ;
and the settlement he made would, naturally enough,
be all in favour of the friends who had loyally sup-
ported him. Sulla would be impeached before an
equestrian court. The stripping of Delphi would
alone be ground enough for a condemnation.

The men who hatched this scheme must have
had strangely imperfect ideas concerning the peril
in which civilisation lay1 : a peril which was
cutting the ground from under their feet while
they conspired for prizes they might never see.
Asia had not yet been recovered. It might never
be recovered. And if it were lost, then with it
would go all that Rome meant, both to con-
temporaries and to succeeding ages.

II

Cinna's colleague Octavius, who stood firmly
by Sulla's settlement, was an example of a type of
man common enough in all ages, a formalist who
might have made an excellent administrator, but

1 There is, however, another possible explanation. The plan
of campaign which Marius proposed to adopt against Mithradates
may have been known, and may have seemed to the bankers
to promise greater advantages. (See f.n. p. 224 post.)

B.V.	O2io	THE VENGEANCE OF MARIUS

who had no trace of the easy adaptability which
allows men to see beyond the letter to the spirit.
He was a severe, honourable man, who treated
the Roman constitutional usages "as if they had
been immutable mathematical truths." His only
conception of the task Sulla had set him was to cling
at any cost to the letter of the arrangements, without
intelligence, and above all, without any sort of elas-
ticity or discretion. The rigid policy of Octavius,
however well-intentioned, was of itself enough to
destroy Sulla's hope that things might be left alone for
a time to settle and heal in peace. Octavius could
not even exploit his own strength to any advantage.
Between the two well-meaning physicians, the
patient, who needed rest and quiet before all else,
was once more turned out of bed into turmoil.

The conflict between the consuls culminated in
a pitched battle in the Forum. Although he had
Quintus Sertorius as an organiser, Cinna was
beaten, and had to make a rush from the city, leaving
ten thousand of his followers on the field. The
Senate passed a decree outlawing Cinna and the
;i leaders of the Populares, who presented themselves
before the Italians with a good cause and over-
whelming arguments. Money, arms and recruits
poured in upon them : the army in Campania went
over to the Populares, and furnished cadres for a
much greater army, which Cinna proceeded to
organise. A fleet was collected. A general arrived,
for Marius himself landed in Etruria with a small
force of exiles and of Numidian cavalry, and sent to
Cinna to offer himself as a private soldier in the ranks.
Cinna welcomed him, and bestowed proconsular
authority upon him. If Octavius had plotted the
creation of these events, he could not have broughtCIVIL WAR

211

them about so effectively and so swiftly. All the
advantages Sulla had given him had been thrown
away. And now the forces of the Populates began
to march on Rome.

It is impossible to describe in sufficiently damning
terms the incompetence which Octavius and the
Senate proceeded to pile upon incompetence. They
appealed to Strabo. Strabo came, pitched his camp
at the Colline Gate, and demanded the consulship
for next year. The Senate did not relish the
demand, and went elsewhere for help. It conferred
the franchise on all Italians formerly allied with
Rome. This concession, which might have done
something to stop the trouble at its source, if made
in time, produced ten thousand recruits. The
Samnites were approached, to see whether some
arrangement could not be made with them, by which
the army of Metellus Pius, then in Samnium, might
be set free. The Samnite terms were too humiliating
to swallow, so Metellus was recalled to Rome :
whereupon the Samnites promptly joined Cinna.

Rome was by this time completely invested by
land and sea. Marius had acted with vigour.
He was in no good mood. Since the day of his
exile he had never cut his hair. He had offered
Cinna to serve as a private soldier. When he
received the proconsular fasces from Cinna, he had
remarked with ominous irony that he was unworthy
of all this grandeur. He had collected about
himself a bodyguard of Illyrian Celts, Ardyaean
tribesmen as savage as himself. With forty ships—
the tale reads more like the story of a viking foray
of the ninth century than that of a Roman consular
—he blockaded Ostia, cut off the provision fleet
and captured the freights. He then hove in to212	THE VENGEANCE OF MARIUS

Ostia, stormed the port and barred the river:
after which he marched up to the Janiculum hill
on the right bank of the Tiber, where he commanded
the great highway to Etruria and Gaul. What was
coming from this quarter was no ordinary Roman
army, but a host of fierce desperadoes unshackled
by Roman tradition, led by a man who had invented
one more novelty in the way of military strategy.
No one before had ever thought of capturing Rome
through Ostia—but the plan was not forgotten.

To add to the agony, pestilence broke out among
the troops in the city, and swept away seventeen
thousand persons. Those who remained were in
no great heart for fighting. They requested Metellus
Pius, who was in favour of compromise, to take com-
mand of them. Metellus declined the responsibility.
Octavius, who refused all compromise, remained
in command. Desertions became alarmingly fre-
quent. The Senate opened negotiations with Cinna.
While they were in progress, Cinna pitched his camp
close up to the city gates, and the desertions from
the city reached such numbers that it became
clear that resistance was hopeless. The Senate sur-
rendered unconditionally, save for the stipulation
that Cinna would shed no blood. Cinna promised.

But there were more generals than Cinna in the
field.

What of Marius ?

hi

Like many rough and self-made men, Marius was
by nature sensitive. As Sulla had noted, the most
ordinary praise or criticism upset him. He could
be firm as a mountain in those great things before
which common men collapse ; but he was weakMENTAL CONDITION OF MARIUS 213

where common men are strong. He had an almost"
morbid craving for justice in a world inherently
unjust. He had been brooding over his own
wrongs and humiliations—as if six consulships and
innumerable honours, official and unofficial, were
not enough to set a man up in his own conceit.
His failure to gain the Mithradatic command had
been a blow ; his flight before Sulla and all the "
hardships he had undergone had been the final
straw. He returned from exile with his mind dis-
tinctly unhinged. He had been worried, persecuted,
frightened, enraged, till the emotions became fixed
as an obsession. And an obsession in a man like
Gaius Marius is indeed a terrible thing. Who is
to overpower Hercules himself ?

We do not know how far Cinna and his friends
realised the truth. In any case, Marius was not an
ally they could easily reject. Sertorius had held a
serious conference with Cinna over the question—
a conversation which shows that Sulla was not the
only man who entertained doubts concerning the
fitness of Marius for office. Sertorius strongly
dissuaded Cinna from allowing Marius to join
them. They were already victorious without
Marius ; and he knew of no one less easy to deal
with, or less to be trusted when in power. Cinna
was apologetic; he expressed his real regret; but
in fact he had actually invited Marius to come.
Sertorius at once answered that there was no more
to be said. He had supposed that Marius came
of his own accord ; but if he had been invited,
they were bound by their word to accept him.

Marius pointedly refused to enter Rome until his
sentence of outlawry was officially and ceremoniously
reversed. A scratch collection of electors was214	THE VENGEANCE OF MARIUS

hurriedly assembled in the Forum, and the neces-
sary legislation scrambled through. Then Marius
entered. The gates were closed, and for five days
the terror reigned. Octavius was the first victim ;
but for weeks and months the sleuth-hounds were
still seeking those who lay hid from vengeance.
■ That Marius was insane there can be little doubt.
All his actions point to mental derangement. His
reign of terror as much exceeded anything that had
been known in Rome in the past as he exceeded
Nasica or Opimius in moral stature. But it was
strictly an individual vengeance. He appealed to
no law, held no court, heard no defence : in his
madness he revealed himself to be just what Sulla
had thought—a military tyrant, a Mithradates who
neither really understood nor really cared for the
processes of civil life. The corpse of Lucius Julius
Caesar was stabbed afresh at the tomb of Quintus
Varius, the author of the Varian Commission.
The slayer of Marcus Antonius the orator was
publicly embraced. His Ardyaei left corpses lying
about in the streets, ravished the wives and children
of those they murdered, and sacked their houses.
Only one man of eminence among the Optimates
stayed at his post in Rome and escaped with his
life. Even in his madness Marius had nothing
against Mucius Scaevola. . . . Catulus was allowed
to take his own life.

We know that Marius was not naturally an evil
man. His life had been stern, austere, and public-
spirited : he had been much loved, and that alone
is evidence of some inherent quality in him that was
just and merciful. But we know that he fretted
over unfairnesses and injustices ; we have not the
slightest evidence that he possessed one spark ofMARIUS CONSUL VII 86 B.C.

the cynical humour which oiled the wheels for Sulla.
He was a demented moralist determined to root-up,.
destroy and stamp on all wickedness and evil dis-
position, which in practice meant all who had
opposed Gaius Marius. ... To destroy injustice, *
the recipe of the morally ignorant in all ages has
been to destroy the unjust man. . . . He knew of
no solacing theory of original sin. He was unable
to see himself towering giant-like among the pygmies,
his genius untouched and unaltered by their in-
gratitude and hostility. Least of all could he see
any of the reasons why the injustices had not been
at root unjust, nor the unfairnesses really unfair. . .
So he struck with all his force at the foes who had
imperilled that frailest of delicate growths—the
huge and immortal reputation of Gaius Marius.

There was no nervous specialist to certify him ,
as insane. No one had the power to restrain him.r
The Populates were themselves alarmed at the v
terrific thing they had evoked, which at any moment v
might strike at them. They approached him with '
increasing apprehension. So the terror went on :
and the giant set his foot on the bleeding bodies of
those whose chief hold on the remembrance of
posterity is that they were his victims.

Marius had, among his obsessions, the conviction
that he was destined to have seven consulships : >-
which certain omens and predictions had foretold.-
The anxious Populates put him up for his seventh <
consulship in the ensuing year. He lasted just so v
long; he had been drinking heavily and moodily ~
against insomnia ; and a few days later he died
raving in delirium, fighting his battles over again
on his sick-bed, and leaving others to face the awful '
reactions of the deeds he had done.216	THE VENGEANCE OF MARIUS

So died Gaius Marius, seven times consul, twice
triumphator, the creator of the new Roman armies,
the saviour of his country, the beloved commander.
He died of insufficient conviction of his own
importance.

Quintus Sertorius acted swiftly on the death
of Marius. The Ardyaei, stained with every enor-
mity known to human crime, were rounded up and
slaughtered by his Celtic troops.

The vital statistics of contemporary Rome would
make interesting reading, if we had them.

IV

We may now review the situation. The Populates
were at long last in absolute possession of the field,
save for Sulla, far away in Greece, without money or
resources, fighting, with his back to the wall, against
the perpetually reinforced hosts of Mithradates. . . .
They had captured the machine ; the control of
policies, of armies, of government, was entirely in
their hands. They had nothing more to fight for :
their victory was complete.

And now they had to pass the grand test. What
were they going to do with their victory ? It is
doubtless important to gain victories—though some
men are able to dispense with them—but it is of
far greater importance to be able to use a victory
when it is gained. For the only use of victory is
the opportunity it gives to exercise freely the creative
power of the human mind. A fruitless victory is
so much energy wasted.

The three years which followed illustrate a
characteristic which often, perhaps usually, marks
popular revolutions : they proved that the revolt
of the Populares was not a bid for a new creativeTHE POPULARES SUPREME	217

effort, but a revolt for certain particular reforms.
There was nothing to prevent them from introducing
any millennial ideals they might possess, and of
making the Roman world, if they desired, a political
paradise. But having extended the franchise to
the Italians, the Populares could positively think of
nothing else, except to cancel Sulla's laws, and/
return to the old system, and to organise an army
to fight Mithradates. ... This was surely a very
small mouse for so very great a mountain to produce.
When we look back upon the blood shed, the
damage done, and the hatred engendered, we may
well stand astonished at the amount of energy one
party had expended to prevent, and another had
expended to achieve, such results. Perhaps nothing
illustrates better than such an instance the core of
truth in the creed of the cynics, who think the folly
and evil of humanity larger than its wisdom or its
goodness.

v

It was the refugees from this revolution who
filled Sulla's camp outside Athens with their presence
and their reminiscences. They cannot have been
soothing company. They fled to him as to a man
recognised as a strong refuge in times of trouble.
Sulla did not hurry and did not worry—overtly,
at least; he lost no time, but he pursued his way
uninterrupted, finishing his work to the end as he
went along, and trusting to Fortune.

Most of the provinces adhered to the Optimates,
Africa fell early into the hands of the Populares,
and the east was to be their next objective. Although
Sulla had been, of course, deprived of his command,
and placed beyond the pale of the law, he had
grown so to dominate the situation and the thoughts2i 8	THE VENGEANCE OF MARIUS

of men that there could be no settlement till he
was dealt with. In addition to this, Mithradates
also had to be dealt with, if any Rome were to be
left to govern.

The new government undertook the task with
interesting light-heartedness. After the death of
Marius, L. Valerius Flaccus, his old consular
colleague back in the days of Saturninus and
vGlaucia, had been elected to fill his vacant place.
Sertorius, the only member of the party capable
of handling a great campaign, was entirely passed
over. A large army was organised and despatched
under the command of Flaccus, who, being no
soldier, was given as chief of staff a certain Fimbria.
Flaccus crossed over the narrow seas and set out
on the march through Macedonia.

Sulla was still in no hurry; the quickest way
was to wait, and Sulla was always excellent at
waiting. Mithradates still commanded the sea,
although the fleet of Lucullus was busily at work,
and growing. Flaccus approached through Thessaly
driving the Mithradatans out before him ; and Sulla
moved north through the passes, pitching his camp
just beyond the mountain barrier. There Flaccus
found him. For some time the two armies lay almost
in contact, neither commander making any move.

A great deal can be done by waiting. The
process revealed a number of surprising reactions.
The troops of Flaccus began to desert. The
magnetism of Sulla was acting. The trickle became
a steady stream; and Flaccus broke camp. To
have remained longer would have meant the
absorption of his entire army by Sulla.

Besides, a great deal can be arranged in silence.
Sulla had a considerable number of factors toSULLA AND FLAGCUS	319

take into account in his calculations. He must
already have known that another army of Mithra-
dates was on the way by sea ; Lucullus would have
kept him informed on that score. To waste time
and men in fighting Flaccus would have been
inexcusable in a man so acute and so public-spirited
as Sulla always showed himself to be. Flaccus
may very well have seen matters in the same light;
nothing was to be gained for any genuine purpose
by fighting, with the inevitable result of the crippled
survivor having to turn at last to encounter the
hosts of the Pontic king. The two Roman com-
manders therefore silently distributed their tasks.
Flaccus marched north again, round through Thrace
to Byzantium, crossed the straits and arrived in
Chalcedon, on the northern flank of Mithradates'
dominions. Sulla retired back through the moun-
tain passes, and moved a few miles eastward past
Chaeronea towards Orchomenos. . . . Domestic
differences could be settled afterwards.

Sulla chose Orchomenos because he was no longer
threatened from Thessaly and the passes. The new
army would land at Chalcis : and Orchomenos lies
very conveniently on the edge of a vast lake or
marsh, the Lake Copais, fed by the Cephissus and
the mountain streams. The position formed a
natural entrenchment which only needed a little
finishing in order to be defensible by a small force
against a large one. Sulla was not wandering about
Greece in an aimless way. He knew with formidable
precision just what he was doing.

Athens would have been the best base for the
use of a Mithradatan army ; but Sulla had carefully
made it his task to acquire Athens. All things
considered, Chalcis was practically the only other220	THE VENGEANCE OF MARIUS

landing-place possible. Any other to the south
would have been a blind alley ; any other to the
north would have placed the, new-comers between
Sulla and Flaccus, with the certainty of having
their communications cut as they advanced into a
difficult country. Chalcis was a port perfectly
adapted for the landing of a large army; and
Orchomenos was beautifully designed by Fortune
to enable Sulla to fight that large army. Orchomenos,
therefore, was the district where he dug himself
in with all the resources of Roman engineering.

VI

When Dorylaus and his army arrived, eighty
thousand strong, to join Archelaus, it was with the
most express orders to fight. Mithradates frankly
disbelieved that his last army could have been
defeated at Chaeronea without incompetence or
treason among its commanders, and Dorylaus seems
to have taken the same view : a view which he
considerably modified after his first taste of Sulla's
methods. Archelaus occupied Boeotia, and took
every measure calculated to draw Sulla into a battle.

Sulla was still in no hurry. He went on driving
his network of ditches, and drove them as near as
he could to the camp of the Pontic army. But he
was not merely digging himself in: he was digging
Archelaus in also, and shaping the ditches to a
definite strategical end. The ditches were dykes,
the flooding of which would pen in the Pontic
army, and limit the cavalry operations which were
its main reliance.

When this fact dawned upon the perception of
Archelaus he at once gave the word to attack the
ditches. The workmen were driven out, and theSULLA AT ORCHOMENOS	221

covering troops, moving up to their support, were
broken by formidable charges of cavalry, and for a
moment the line seemed to be giving way. Sulla
rode to the spot, leaped from his charger, and
seizing an eagle rushed through the broken ranks
with it, calling upon the fliers to follow him : " and
when they ask you where you left your commander
—remember Orchomenos ! " The line was rallied
and reformed ; two fresh cohorts were thrown in
from the right wing, and the advance of the cavalry
was checked.

Sulla reorganised and rested his troops before
proceeding. Then he moved up to continue the
work on the dykes. Archelaus replied by hurling
his cavalry once more upon the accessible Roman
front. It was met and driven back in confusion
with great slaughter; and now the legionaries
followed, and drove before them the archers who
sought to protect the retirement of the horse.
Throughout the course of the battle, the floods
must have been creeping over the adjacent country.
The Pontic army was penned into its camp, where
it passed a miserable and disheartening night. The
dykes were still pushed on.

On the second day of the battle of Orchomenos,
Archelaus made a determined effort to break the
ingenious toils which were closing upon him. The
whole remaining force of the Pontic army was •
thrown upon the Romans along the causeways yet
open. What began as a sally ended in a complete
rout, for the legionaries pressed so closely upon their
flying foes that in the struggle they took the camp
by storm. The fall of men was so great that \
Plutarch records with interest that weapons and X
armour could still, in his own day, two hundred222	THE VENGEANCE OF MARIUS

years after the battle, be fished out of the mud of
the marshes. Archelaus hid for two days in the
fen, until he could escape in a small boat to Chalcis.

VII

The deed was done ! The battle of Orchomenos,
lasting over two days, was one of the world's decisive
battles. It determined that Roman dominion was
to survive, Roman tradition to be unbroken, and
that her evolution was to be continued till it gave
rise to the civilisation of modern Europe. Never
again would Lucius Cornelius Sulla need to assume
an ingratiating smile to any man ! The bar was
crossed, the crisis surmounted: Fortune had
crowned him. This was the hour of supreme
triumph for Sulla, unalloyed by any regret or
remorse. . . . Fortune can do great things. For-
tune had done this. Ditches or no ditches, surely
no mere human power could have done it!

In the meantime, the army of Flaccus had had
its own adventures. Although elected by the vote
of Roman citizens, Flaccus, whether through his
vices or his virtues, was an unpopular man with his
troops. He became involved in a growing quarrel
with Fimbria, who was on all grounds much more
acceptable to them. It is possible that Flaccus was,
as alleged by the historians, a rascal intent on
feathering his own nest; and it is equally possible
that he may have been a Catonic idealist sternly
refusing to connive at the rapacity of a corrupt
soldiery.1 Whether he were one or the other, the
' act of the electors could only present their troops
with a commander who was a misfit. The trouble

1 It is significant that Flaccus distinguished his consulship
by bringing in a measure for the cancellation of debts.THE WAR GOES AGAINST MITHRADATES 323

culminated by Flaccus taking refuge in a house,
whence, waiting for night, he escaped by climbing
a wall and fleeing to Chalcedon, and then to Nico-
media. Fimbria found him there, hidden in a
well; and although Flaccus was a consular, and
commander-in-chief, he hauled him out, cut off
his head, threw it into the sea, left his body un-
buried, and appointed himself general.

These highly unconstitutional proceedings at any
rate gave the army an acceptable and able head.
Fimbria advanced into Asia. The newly acquired
dominion of Mithradates being founded, as such
things are, merely upon a superficial military con-
quest without political root, was collapsing as rapidly
as it had extended. The great mercantile communi-
ties of Smyrna, Ephesus and Sardes were in revolt
against his policies, and were not pacified by the
execution, at his order, of the whole Senate of
Adramyttium. He deported the population of Chios
to cure it of disloyalty, but he could not stop the
rot that set in. The suspected Celtic chiefs of
Galatia were invited to a conference, and shared
the fate of the Senate of Adramyttium. A few,
however, got away, and raised the tribesmen. The
oriental ways of Mithradates proved incapable of
achieving his aims. Defeated by Fimbria, he was
obliged to leave Pergamus and take refuge in the
island of Mitylene. He would not even have gained
that refuge but for the hesitation of Lucullus, who
was unwilling to grant Fimbria the political advan-
tage of making the master-stroke. Had the king
been victorious in Europe, the tale might have been
widely different, but two magnificent armies had
disappeared into Boeotia, never to return. Mithra-
dates temporised. He recognised his most important224 the vengeance of marius

foe—the man who, with a handful of troops, had
dispersed his vast dreams of empire. It was Sulla.1

A merchant of Delos brought the first private
enquiries. Sulla consented to meet Archelaus and
to talk matters over. They met at Delium, " where
the temple of Apollo stands," on the sea-front
near Tanagra, southward of Chalcis.

Archelaus opened the conversation by reminding
Sulla that Mithradates had been a friend of his
father. The rapacity of the Roman corporations
had been the real cause of this war, but the king
was ready to make peace if he could gain, as he
hoped, fair terms from such a very different kind
of man as his old friend's son.

Sulla had every practical reason for jumping at
the proposal; but he kept an unrelenting front.
He replied that if Mithradates had been wronged,
he should have taken peaceful and diplomatic
means of obtaining redress—not the course of

1 The following suggestions do not quite deserve to be called
speculative. They have natural and inherent likelihood, even
if evidence to support them be lacking. It is extremely improb-
able that Marius never mentioned to his friends the plan of
campaign he intended to adopt against Mithradates. It is even
probable that he would vehemently criticise Sulla's strategy,
and lay down the lines on which he himself would proceed.
The course of action taken by Flaccus and Fimbria would then
represent the outline of Marius's plan—namely, to enter Asia
Minor across the straits and strike towards the Pontic homeland
of Mithradates. This might automatically have brought about
the evacuation of Greece and western Asia Minor by Mithradates.
It is only fair to recollect that even under Fimbria the plan was
by no means a failure. We cannot exactly estimate the degree
to which the campaigns of Fimbria and Sulla exercised mutual
influence. The conception of Sulla's campaign in Greece
deserves discussion from a military point of view. Finlay
thought that, economically, Greece never recovered from it.NEGOTIATIONS	335

murdering and torturing Roman citizens in Asia.
Sulla said that he considered the actions of Mithra-
dates to show deliberate hostility rather than the
indignation of a wronged man. As for that friend-
ship with his father, that, said Sulla, had only been
remembered after he himself had defeated two
Pontic armies. . It was a weakness to make peace
at all. The war ought, by rights, to be firmly
carried on and driven home.

Archelaus answered by advising Sulla to abandon
the idea of conquering Asia. The state of affairs
in Rome, he suggested, urgently demanded Sulla's
presence. The king was willing to assist him with
money and ships and men. . . . Sulla's irony came
out in his prompt interposition. He recommended
Archelaus to pay no further heed to Mithradates,
but to grasp the crown himself, surrender the
fleet, and become an ally of Rome. He reminded
Archelaus of the way in which the king treated
his friends, and of the consistent loyalty with which
the Romans had treated theirs. . . . Archelaus
was somewhat shocked. He would never think of
treason to his master. Sulla came down upon
him with force. " So you, Archelaus, a Cappa-
docian and a servant (or ' friend ' if you prefer the
word) of a barbarian king, would not, for such a
great reward, be guilty of a dishonourable action:
and yet you talk to me, Lucius Cornelius Sulla, a
Roman commander, of treason !—as if you were
not the man who fled from Chaeronea with few
left out of a hundred and twenty thousand men,
and who hid two days in the marshes at
Orchomenos."

Archelaus changed his tone and came to the
point. Would Sulla make reasonable terms with

S.P.	P226	THE VENGEANCE OF MARIUS

Mithradates ? Sulla replied that he would. The
articles of agreement which he drafted provided
that Mithradates should evacuate Paphlagonia and
the Roman province of Asia, restore Bithynia and
Cappadocia to their lawful rulers, and pay an
indemnity of three thousand talents, besides deliver-
ing up seventy fully equipped ships of war, and
restoring the Chians to their city. On these terms
he would confirm Mithradates in his other posses-
sions, and declare him an ally of the Romans.

These terms were such as a victor dictates to
a vanquished enemy; but Archelaus (not the first
man nor the last to succumb to Sulla's dominating
magnetism) provisionally accepted them on the
king's behalf until a personal meeting could be
arranged. The king at first refused to countenance
the terms. Sulla prepared to visit Asia, to see the
negotiations through. He also wished to be a little
closer to Fimbria, whose nearer acquaintance it was
now time to cultivate. As Archelaus, in execution
of the terms, removed the Pontic troops from
Europe, no obstacle stood in the way.

He set out by land, through Thessaly, Macedonia
and Thrace, taking Archelaus with him. It was
noticed that he treated Archelaus with great con-
sideration. The Cappadocian general was taken
seriously ill at Larissa : whereupon Sulla stopped
his march and treated him "as if he had been one
of his own officers, or his colleague in command."
Suspicions were revived. The battle of Chaeronea
was something which Archelaus had difficulty in
living down. It was also observed that, with the
exception of Aristion (who was not on good terms
with Archelaus), all the friends of Mithradates
who fell into Sulla's hands were released. SullaATTEMPT TO MODIFY THE TERMS 227

gave Archelaus a considerable landed estate in
Euboea, and the status of Friend and Ally of the
Roman People. Men scented some secret under-y
standing. Sulla dealt with these criticisms in his
memoirs : to what effect, we are not told. But
Sulla had every reason to be civil to Archelaus,
whose influence might yet mean very much;
Archelaus would feel much more free to act as
he thought best, if he knew that he had a safe refuge
in the event of his master's anger; and, besides,
Sulla could be carelessly generous when the mood
came to him.

Envoys arrived, who had authority to accept the
terms Sulla had transmitted through Archelaus,
with the exception of the cession of Paphlagonia,
which the king could not part with ; as to the
ships of war, there was some mistake, as they knew
of no such clause. They also hinted at better
terms that might be obtained from Fimbria. Sulla
was not to be bluffed. He could himself do very
well in that line. He took a very angry and bluster-
ing tone. " What!—hold back Paphlagonia ? And
deny the clause about the ships ? I expected to
see Mithradates at my feet, to thank me for leaving
him even that right hand which destroyed so many
Romans. He will sing another tune when I come
into Asia ! In the meantime, let him take his ease
in Pergamus, directing a war he has never seen."

The envoys were intimidated. Archelaus inter-
vened, and begged Sulla to leave the negotiations
to him. Receiving Sulla's consent, he left to visit
the king, while Sulla settled affairs in Macedonia.
Archelaus returned to Philippi with the king's
unqualified agreement to the terms. He seems to
have been successful in persuading Mithradates228	THE VENGEANCE OF MARIUS

that Sulla was both a more formidable opponent
and a more profitable friend than Fimbria: in
which without doubt he judged rightly. Mithra-
dates requested a personal interview.

VIII

The fleet of Lucullus, which had won two con-
siderable sea-battles off the Trojan coast, was joined
by a fleet that Sulla had equipped in the Thessalian
ports, and the united squadrons, sailing up to the
Hellespont, met the army after its long march
round by Thrace. The interview with Mithradates
took place at Dardanus, on the Asiatic side of the
straits. It was interesting, because it illustrated
two opposite forms of bluff, one of which will
always successfully browbeat the other. Two
hundred ships, twenty thousand infantry, six thou-
sand cavalry, and an array of war cars, were the
trifling escort intended to convey to the world the
pomp and power of Mithradates. With arrogant
insolence Sulla arrived with four cohorts, two hun-
dred horse, his own genius, and the moral power
, of the Roman name. He at once put Mithradates
in his place. As they met, and the king extended
his hand, Sulla imperiously demanded whether he
were willing to ratify the terms of peace. The
king was at first too astonished to answer, but
remained silently reckoning up the man before him.
" How is this ? " demanded Sulla harshly. " I
think the petitioner speaks first, and the conqueror
listens in silence." Mithradates therefore began,
and explained his view of the war- It had been
partly an inevitable fatality ; some sort of war was
bound to happen, and no one was really at fault;
and partly the Romans had only themselves toINTERVIEW WITH MITHRADATES

blame. He developed the argument which turned
up in one form or another in all discussions of the
subject. It was the venality and corruption of the
Roman officials and corporations which were the
real cause of the war. Sulla openly derided this
point of view. He had heard (he said) that Mithra-
dates was a man who never lacked plausible reasons
to justify a bad case—and now he could see that it
was so. He took the case point by point, and
reminded Mithradates of all the indisputable facts
which showed that the king had had hostile intentions
independent of any offence of the Roman officials.
Of these latter Sulla said significantly little, and
nothing at all in palliation of their conduct: but he
insisted that they were excuses, not reasons, for the
war, and that peaceful means of redress had always
been open. He again detailed in particular the
barbarous acts committed by the orders of Mithra-
dates, reminded him that he was in an impossible
military position, and demanded afresh whether
the treaty arranged with Archelaus were to be
ratified. Mithradates meekly said that it was.
Sulla therefore at once embraced the king, and gave
him the kiss of peace and friendship.

Mithradates, having handed over the agreed
number of ships, sailed home to Pontus, and the
first Mithradatic war was ended. He was to be
heard of again, but Sulla had other things to occupy
his mind. Sufficient to the day was the evil
thereof.

IX

Enthusiasts are always more royalist than the
king. The army, which, being Roman and not
Pontic, had ideas of its own, was somewhat scan-230	THE VENGEANCE OF MARIUS

dalised and critical at letting King Mithradates off
so easily as this. It was all in favour of " hanging
the Kaiser." Sulla had no objection to explanation.
He quieted the enthusiasts by a public address,
pointing out that such compromises were necessary
and expedient, since any attempt to enforce harsher
terms might simply have resulted in Mithradates
transferring the negotiations to Fimbria. An alli-
ance between Fimbria and the king would have
been too powerful for Sulla. Now, however,
Fimbria was isolated, and it was time to pay a
friendly visit to his army.

Fimbria was encamped at Thyatira. Proceeding
thither, Sulla pitched camp not far off, and began
to dig in. He sent to require that Fimbria should
deliver up his command, since it was held on an
illegal and unauthorised tenure. Fimbria, who
evidently thought this demand a good joke, replied
that Sulla's own command was now illegal. Sulla
did not see the joke. His official commission had
been perfectly in order from the start, and he had
never admitted the validity of the order superseding
him: whereas no possible argument, from any
point of view, could make out Fimbria's commission
to be legal.

/ For all his popularity, Fimbria apparently had
!not the peculiar power over men which Sulla
possessed in such plenitude. He could not—at
any rate, he did not—prevent his men from meeting
and talking with the Sullans. It became clear that
they could not be relied upon. Before long, some
of them were helping Sulla's men to dig the trenches,
and did not trouble to come back. Fimbria called
an assembly.

He urged his men to stand by him. Many letFIMBRIA

331

him know plainly that they would not fight fellow-
citizens. He rent his garments in desperation, and
spoke to the disaffected personally; but it was
without effect: the desertions continued. Fimbria
canvassed the officers, and managed to get some
support. Calling another assembly, he asked these
officers to take an oath to remain with him : but
now they too hesitated, and suggested that every
one should be called upon to take the oath. He
made a personal appeal to those who .were under
special obligations to him. The first he named,
a close friend, refused to take the oath. Fimbria
drew his sword, and was prevented from killing
him only by the intervention of those around. It
was evident that the whole army was breaking up
under the magnetism of Sulla.

The only possible resort was to wipe out the
cause. Fimbria persuaded a slave, by money
rewards and the promise of freedom, to undertake
the perilous gamble of going to Sulla as a " deserter,"
and assassinating him. Fortune stood on guard
over Sulla, for even here Fimbria bungled in choos-
ing his man. The man began to lose his nerve
at the last critical moment, attracted attention, was
arrested, and confessed. The indignation of the
Sullans was deep and outspoken.

Fimbria finally went to the Sullan camp himself
and asked for an interview. To his disappoint-
ment, Sulla sent an officer in his stead; but after
what had just occurred, it can hardly be surprising
that Sulla declined a personal meeting with a
desperate and none too scrupulous man. He was,
however, moderate in the terms he offered Fimbria.
In spite of all that was known to have happened
in Rome, and all that was known against FimbriaTHE VENGEANCE OF MARIUS

personally,1 Sulla offered him permission to leave
Asia by sea, and go whither he would. He answered
gloomily that he knew of a better way. Leaving
the camp, he went to Pergamus, entered the temple
of Asclepios, and there stabbed himself. His ill
luck pursued him. The wound was not mortal:
so at his master's command his servant drove the
weapon home. Sulla handed the body over to
Fimbria's freedmen for burial, remarking acidly
that he would not imitate the conduct of Marius
and Cinna. The army of Fimbria was incorporated
with the Sullan. This was the end of Fimbria,
and of the popular expedition to the east.

Thus far the victory of Sulla over the Populates
'had been extraordinarily complete and entirely
bloodless, save for the suicide of Fimbria. He
had done better than wipe out an army; he had
absorbed one!

x

Sulla spent the winter in Asia : his men in
rest, and he himself in work. The disaster had been
enormous, and it was little use to hope that the
settlement could be other than a grievous one.
The measures of Mithradates were cancelled ; his
more important adherents, and those who had been
responsible for the massacres, were proceeded
against and executed. The financial side of affairs
was particularly important. Sulla had been living
from hand to mouth during all these months since
he left Rome. His own private income, together
with that of his officers, had been entirely cut off.
Sulla did not propose to sacrifice the greater in the
interest of the less, nor Rome (on which everything

1 He had attempted to kill old Scaevola during the funeral of
Marius.SETTLEMENT OF ASIA

»33

else depended) to the comfort of a province which
had imperilled the very foundations of Roman
dominion. His financial measures, therefore, were
terribly severe. The hitherto unpaid revenues of the
last five years were assessed, and ordered to be col-
lected : and a special war levy of twenty thousand
talents was laid upon the country. It was impossible
to pay such sums : the cities were compelled to
borrow heavily. The Roman bankers advanced the
loans 1: and by this huge operation Sulla's return
to Rome was financed, and the great bankers given
such a stake in its success that their whole influence
was likely to be thrown into the scale to maintain
the value of the security he represented to them.
So far from committing himself to any political
alliance with them, Sulla had committed them to
his cause by the powerful bonds of business interest.

There was no alternative. Sulla was not respon-
sible for the situation in which he found himself.
Least of all had he been responsible for the train
of events which had originally caused the Mithra-
datic war. And he may have reflected that it was
better for Asia, in the long run, to pay these sums
for the maintenance of political control, than to
fall into the hands of the financial corporations
without any political control to hold them in check.
It was a bad business in any case.

There was discrimination. Those cities which
had remained loyal to Rome received special recog-
nition, and those which had suffered with exceptional
severity were given compensation. Sulla studied
on the spot the whole problem of the Asiatic adminis-

1 With paid and unpaid interest, the loans swelled in fourteen
years to sixfold the original amount. Asia, nevertheless, con-
tinued to be one of the most prosperous of the Roman provinces.234	THE VENGEANCE OF MARIUS

tration. He took away with him some intelligent
conceptions as to the origin of the trouble and its
best remedy, which were destined to bear ample
fruit in days to come.

Sulla's period of office as proconsul had of
course long ago expired ; he had moreover been
formally deprived of command, and he possessed
no authority of his own to appoint a successor.1
He therefore merely left Murena, with Fimbria's
two legions, to act as his deputy, and to see the
new arrangements carried out. Lucius Lucullus
also remained, in part, probably, at his own wish,
to superintend the naval and the financial side of
affairs, both of which needed the attention of an
able man. Lucullus was never at any time a keen
party man, while no one was better qualified to deal
with finance. He was one of those uncommon men
who are always popular, always trusted, and always
trustworthy; but if he had merely walked to and fro
in the street, he would somehow have made a fortune
out of it. He had a natural magnetism for money.
Sulla had no objection to an arrangement which
had much to recommend it. Piracy was swarming
in the Greek seas, and needed to be dealt with.

While settling Asia, Sulla drafted a letter to the
Senate at Rome, which constituted his political
pronunciamento. He reported his proceedings in
Greece and Asia, and informed the Senate that he
was about to return to Italy. He promised to
respect the rights of the new Italian citizens admitted
to the franchise, and to confine his punishment

1 The legal position was that Sulla's command continued in
force until his successor took it over. But, so far, Flaccus was
the only person who could have claimed to exercise this right,
and he was dead: in addition to which Sulla denied his claim.SULLA WRITES TO THE SENATE 235

to the leaders of the revolution. With the rank
and file he had no quarrel. To his supersession he
made no reference whatever.

In some cases there is practically no distinction
observable between the product of a generous
instinct and that of a subtle diplomacy. It is very
difficult to judge under which of these categories
to place Sulla's motives in framing the terms of
this letter, unless we frankly admit that the heart
and the head, properly exercised, lead to the same
results. It was exactly what any man would have
written, who was inspired by resolute principle
and honest public spirit; but it was also a shattering
blow for the Populares. If we compare the actions
of Octavius with those of Sulla now, we obtain a
perfect contrast between stupidity and intelligence.
Sulla's messenger was not allowed to enter Rome.
The publication of the letter might have broken
up the Cinnan coalition.

Still Quintus Sertorius was not sent. Cinna
determined to cross the seas himself. He got no
further than Ancona. The troops, on learning their
proposed destination, mutinied, and Cinna was
killed. His colleague in the consulship, Gnaeus
Papirius Carbo, gave up all further thought of
carrying the war overseas, and took up his post at
Ariminum. Moderate men, terrified at the prospect,
strove to effect a reconciliation between the parties,
but it seemed impossible to bridge the gulf. Ener-
getic preparations were made. A hundred thousand
men were held under arms in Italy, and every step
was taken to be ready against the emergency of
Sulla's return. Lucius Scipio and Gaius Norbanus,
two moderate men not involved in the Marian
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	5

236CHAPTER X

SULLA COMES HOME
i

SULLA left Ephesus early in the year, and after
a passage of three days landed at Piraeus.
He spent a little time in Athens, which he could
not expect to revisit. He was initiated into the
mysteries—then still a privilege not to be despised,
even if it no longer possessed its former importance ;
and he acquired the library of Apellicon the Teian,
which contained the unique revised copies of
Aristotle's works. This was an achievement of
some significance in the history of literature. From
the versions which Sulla then obtained sprang all
the later complete editions of Aristotle.

The strain of the last few years was telling upon
him. At Athens he was attacked by the first
symptoms of gout. He was in no hurry, and went
to Aedepsus in Euboea, to take a course of the hot
waters, and a rest cure. For a while he put aside
all business, and " amused himself with actors."
No record remains of the dramatic pieces he selected
for his entertainment. . . . On the beach at
Aedepsus he was humbly presented with two
magnificent fish by some native fishermen. He
was delighted, and enquired their town. They
were men of Haliae in Boeotia. He had a long
memory for some things. Haliae was one of the

237238

SULLA COMES HOME

towns he had broken up and dispersed after the
battle of Orchomenos, for disaffection. So there
were men of Haliae still remaining. The trembling
fishermen admitted it. Sulla dryly bade them
cheer up and go in peace, as they had engaged the
services of no insignificant intercessors. On the
strength of this, the former inhabitants of Haliae
felt that they had authority to reassemble and
refound their city.

At length he took the road again, and marching
through Thessaly and Macedonia crossed the moun-
tains to Dyrrachium. The Populares were now
showing the curious paralysis which before had
marked the Senate, and probably for the same reason
—the influence of the great financiers was against
them. Not only was Dyrrachium open to Sulla,
but Brundusium (which stood to it as Dover to
Calais) was not reliably held. The omens at first
were unfavourable. At Apollonia, not far from
Dyrrachium, a satyr was caught, alleged to be
exactly like the satyrs depicted by painters and
sculptors. It was brought before Sulla, and ques-
tioned through several interpreters ; but whatever,
or whoever, the uncouth object might be, it, or he,
could speak no known language, and answered only
by noises "something between the neighing of a horse
and the bleating of a goat." Sulla, in consternation,
ordered the disastrous object to be destroyed.

Whether it were the satyr, or the general situation
of affairs, Sulla felt that every possible step should
be taken to assist Fortune. He had about forty
thousand men—all old and trained soldiers, entirely
devoted to him. But to invade Italy was very
different from invading Asia. Among the peculiar
virtues of Sulla was a thorough understanding thatHIS UNDERTAKINGS	239

political conditions are more important than military,
and are precedent to the latter. He never fell into
the superficial error of supposing that military
operations could create or destroy the circumstances
that are formed by public opinion and the subtle
forces which unite or dissever men. He knew that v
political considerations could melt armies, or bank
up against him powers with which he could never
hope to struggle. As Hannibal dissolved the Alps
with vinegar, Sulla prepared his way by dissolving
political opinion in Italy.

It was his aim to convince the Italians and the >
mass of ordinary men that they had nothing to /
fear from him. He issued a promise of unconditional
amnesty to all who severed their connection with the ^
revolutionary government; and he solemnly under-.,
took to confirm and protect the new Italian citizens
in their hard-won franchise. Every man in his
army severally made oath not to take his discharge
(as was his right in strict law) on entering Italy ;
not voluntarily to do any injury to Italy ; to main-
tain the Italian franchise, and to recognise Italian
citizens as friends and equals. The army, of its
own accord, offered to lodge bonds of good be-
haviour with its commander, each man depositing
a certain sum of money which could be forfeited
in the event of desertion or misconduct. Sulla,'
thanked his men warmly, but refused this practical -
mark of loyalty. He was satisfied with their word.'

The omens were now favourable. He trans-
ported his army over to Brundusium in twelve i
hundred vessels, and the great port opened her !
gates to him. All Apulia, the heel of Italy (and j
in this case her Achilles heel), came into his hands
without a blow being struck.240

SULLA COMES HOME

Sulla was, in the sight of all human prudence,
gambling with fortune : but his throw of the dice
was firm and decisive, and, as usual, the lucky throw
came up. From Brundusium he took the Appian
road by Tarentum and Venusia, crossed the corner
of Samnium, and entered Campania once more.
At Capua, for the first time, he came into contact
with the enemy. The army of the consul Gaius
Norbanus was at Capua ; that of the other consul,
Lucius Scipio, was on the way from Rome, and
had not yet arrived. This was indeed Fortune !
Sulla attacked Norbanus at once, crushed him,
and blockaded the remnant of his army in Capua
and Neapolis.

There must have been a fatal lack of central
direction in the strategy of the Populates. Besides
the direct military injury, the defeat of Norbanus
damaged their prestige beyond repair, and set free
all the waiting disaffection which only needed
reassurance in order to reveal itself.

11

The weakness of some kinds of policy was at
this point illustrated by the accessions which came
to him. All the proscriptions of Marius had failed
to wipe out certain crucial persons who were
destined to play important parts in the future :
failed, for the simple reason that it was impossible
even to identify them. Young Marcus Licinius
Crassus joined Sulla probably at Dyrrachium ; and
promptly upon the victory at Capua, Strabo's son,
Gnaeus Pompeius, a young man as charming and
popular as his father had been hateful and hated,
came down from Picenum with strong reinforce-
ments. Gaius Julius Caesar, a youth of nineteen,POMPEIUS

with oiled hair and fashionable clothes, the nephew
of Gaius Marius and the son-in-law of Cinna, was ,
in Rome, and stayed there. Sulla had returned to ■
an Italy where the first triumvirate, that later on
ushered in the empire, was already on the threshold
of manhood. Crassus fought and Pompeius fought;
Caesar merely looked on. Like Sulla, he could .

Every one who came into contact with Pompeius
fell under his spell. He had not only great physical
beauty, but first-rate ability, and, to crown all, he
had a perfectly genuine humility and unselfishness
which carried away the ordinary sensual man.
Sulla, like every one else, had disliked and distrusted
Strabo ; Pompeius (as every one else did) he loved.
The news had already arrived that Pompeius had
raised a small army in Picenum, masked Carbo
from the military road that gave access to Sulla's
flank, and securely organised the district. He
came in person to report and join up.

When they met, and Sulla dismounted, to find
three whole legions and the vision of Pompeius,
the wise man of the world returned their formal
greeting of " Imperator ! " by the same glorious
name—that dream, ambition and envy of all Romans.
Indeed, here at last was his ideal, the Perfect
Aristocrat! It was as if Fortune had greeted his
return to Italy by granting him the sight of the
human embodiment of all he wanted. . . . And
Pompeius was faultless : he blushed, was pleased,
but did not take it seriously. . . . There was
hope for Rome. . . . Many years later his head
was thrown at the feet of Julius Caesar, and even that
man of steel and crystal recoiled from it, remember-
ing what once it had been. . . . But the Perfect

M,	0

bide his time.

/242

SULLA COMES HOME

Aristocrat had many a year of success and fame to
come to him before that day. To Sulla, he became
the pattern to point to, when blunderers and fools
went wrong. And if ever we ask ourselves what
mysterious ideal it was which Sulla was pursuing
through the labyrinth of war and statecraft, the
best answer we can give is—Pompeius. To Pom-
peius he invariably rose and uncovered. Of such
noble material are the illusions of men sometimes
made!

hi

Sulla advanced rapidly northwards with his new
reinforcements. Scipio had not got beyond
Teanum. Sulla parlied. Now, as before, he had
no intention of wasting by the use of force the men
7 whom he could gain by persuasion. Scipio listened
' to Sulla's proposals for negotiation and accommoda-
tion, which were precisely what all moderate men
most wanted.

Sulla was holding the door open, as he had all
along held it. How long he could continue to
hold it open, with his camp full of the refugees
and their memories, was a different matter ; but
he was still holding it open, and he did not betray
any man who passed through. The negotiations
with Scipio were somewhat prolonged, and while
they went on the armies fraternised. By degrees
Scipio's legionaries began to go over to Sulla.
Scipio, still unable to make up his mind, in alarm
denounced the armistice. Sulla indignantly main-
tained that an agreement had actually been con-
cluded. Whether it had been concluded or not,
- Scipio's army heard with profound disapproval that
the consul had broken off a promising negotiationSULLA'S PLANS

243

for peace. It went over to Sulla in a body. The ;
consul, having (unlike Fimbria) a clear conscience, )
did not commit suicide. He held his ground, and j\
was arrested in his own tent by Sulla's order. He !
was removed in custody.

Many commanders have won battles. Sulla's ^
two bloodless victories over Fimbria and Scipio '
are his own peculiar glory.

The desertion of Scipio's army brought the ■
campaign to an end for that year. Sulla, who had / /
led a forlorn hope over the sea from Dyrrachium \/\
to Brundusium, was in possession of half Italy,
and safely entrenched in a position to renew the
war upon favourable terms.

IV

He made no secret of his intentions. Events
were marching firmly under his hand, and he could
feel them to be going well. The immediate effort Y
of the Popular leaders was to raise more troops. <
Yet what they really needed was leadership, not ■
men. The moderate leaders had proved useless.
The party chiefs accordingly came forward openly
to take command. Gaius Marius the younger (an
adopted son of old Marius) and Gnaeus Papirius
Carbo were elected consuls for the year, and at
once set to work. Quintus Sertorius went into
Etruria to raise fresh legions. Sulla was perfectly
aware of all the steps they were taking, as can be
seen by the plan of campaign he drew up for the
new operations.

Three armies were to be organised. One was to
advance northward from Picenum along the Adriatic,
towards Cis-Alpine Gaul; and Metellus Pius was
to be its nominal commander. Sulla, however,244	SULLA COMES HOME

wished Pompeius to have a practically equal standing
with Metellus. . . . Pompeius hesitated to accept
such a post, in view of the greater rank and age of
his prospective colleague, so Sulla consulted Metellus,
who at once, pleased at the consideration shown
him by a young man, cordially agreed that Pompeius
should come to him on the terms arranged, and
personally wrote to invite him. Pompeius therefore
started for Picenum.

Crassus, a natural genius who could organise
anything, and had the good sense to leave purely
military matters to his professional subordinates,
was sent into Central Italy. With native caution
he asked for an escort. Sulla answered : "I give
you for escort your father* your brother and your
friends and kindred whose unjust murder I am
avenging." Crassus accepted the rebuke, and pene-
trating into the Marsian land eastward of Rome,
raised there a force destined to play an important
part in the coming struggle.

When, therefore, the campaign opened, two of
Sulla's three armies were commanded by the later
colleagues of Julius Caesar in the famous " first
triumvirate." Facts of this kind are important to
remember.

v

During the struggle against Mithradates Sulla
had been playing a close intricate game of war in
which there were but few moves, and those for the
most part short ones. Circumstances were now
entirely changed, and with the change came an
alteration in his methods. His two Italian cam-
paigns were wars of long moves and rapid marches
—a strategy boldly designed, depending muchADVANCE OF METELLUS

upon the accurate conjunction of widely separated
armies.

The campaign began by the advance of Metellus
northward from Picenum along the great military
road which skirted the eastern coast. The fleet
accompanied him, and entering Ravenna isolated
on that side the important junction of Ariminum,
whence the road turned in a north-westerly direction
straight across Italy to Placentia on the Po. He
sent Marcus Lucullus forward to seize Placentia.
By this means Metellus acquired a powerful position
in Carbo's rear, where he could watch all the roads
leading into or out of northern Italy. The task
of Pompeius was to prevent this long and some-
what tenuous line from being cut by a blow from
Carbo : for which purpose he advanced inland,
joined up with Crassus, and drove Carbo's lieutenant
into Spoletium. All these operations were not, by
themselves, safe ; if they had stood alone, there was
every likelihood that Carbo's counter-blow would
bring down the frail scheme like a house of cards,
after which Carbo would only need to wipe out the
scattered Sullan forces in detail. Sulla had reserved
for himself the movements which were to give
meaning and strength to those of Metellus, Crassus,
and Pompeius.

His own advance, on the western side of the
peninsula, was along the Via Latina, through the
heart of that mountainous country which was the
true homeland of Rome. Near Signia, some thirty
miles from the city, he came into touch with the
army of the younger Marius. With all the caution
of his adoptive father, Marius retreated upon a
favourable situation at Sacriportus, and made ready
for battle. The march was a difficult and dangerous246	SULLA COMES HOME

one ; the country is one of those in which all the
advantage lies with a defending army. The rear-
guard of Marius held all the passes, and Sulla's
veterans had to fight as well as march every foot of
the way. To add to the difficulties the weather
was adverse ; storms of wind and rain overwhelmed
the troops, and for once Sulla was in a hurry. He
must have known how much depended on the speed
and success of his movements. He was expressly
anxious to fight that day : for he had had an im-
portant dream the night before, in which he thought
he saw old Marius warning his son to beware of
the morrow as a fatal day. He had already sent
out orders for a concentration preparatory to an
attack, when his principal officers intervened. They
pointed out the impossibility of executing his
orders : the men were dead beat, and had of their
own accord flung themselves upon the ground to
get a little rest, as soon as the march was halted.
Sulla never flogged a willing horse, and, as always,
he gave way ; but it was with the most intense
reluctance. Fortune had played false at the critical
moment.

But it was not Fortune that had played false :
the blame rested on human strength and endurance,
which could not rouse themselves to accomplish
the task Sulla had set them. Fortune came to the
rescue.

The actual course of events is variously told.
Plutarch had two versions of the tale—one probably
that of Sulla himself, in which Marius made an
attack in person ; the other that of Fenestella, in
which it was asserted that Marius never ordered
the attack, but, tired out, was snatching a little
sleep at the time. In any case, the attack wasBATTLE OF SACRIPORTUS	347

made. The Sullan legionaries were engaged in
throwing up the earthwork which, by strictest and
most invariable command of the drill-book, never
failed to surround their camp at night. Caught
unawares, they snatched up their weapons and -
fought.

Discipline, training and moral always tell in war ;
but they can never have told more than in the
short-sword fighting. Sulla's men, however dead
beat, were sufficiently alive to forget their fatigue,
and to scatter the new recruits of Marius before
them. One division of the consular army declined
to engage. Marius, according to Fenestella, was
awakened by the stream of fugitives which began
to pour through his bivouac. He had only time to
reach Praeneste ; the gates were already shut, and
he was drawn up to safety by a rope. It was indeed
a fatal day for him. Sulla's dream had come true.

The battle of Sacriportus cleared the road north.
While Marius sent urgent messages to the praetor,
Lucius Brutus Damasippus, to evacuate Rome,v
leaving as few of the Optimates behind him as heV
could, Sulla detached Quintus Ofella to blockade
Praeneste, and pushed on. Brutus carried out the
orders sent him, and when Sulla at last arrived
at Rome, to snatch a glance at the old city—which
he must often have wondered whether he would
ever see again—it was to meet the maddening news
of fresh massacre, Pelion heaped upon Ossa, in /'
which even the noblest and most honoured Roman'
of his day had perished.

The murder of Quintus Mucius Scaevola was
-in its day as shocking and scandalous as that of
Thomas Becket many centuries later. The old
man took refuge in the temple of Vesta, the holiest248	SULLA COMES HOME

spot in Rome, where the ever-burning fire stood.
The image of the goddess was drenched with his
blood ; his body was cast into the Tiber. He left
behind him his great work on the Civil Law, in
eighteen books, the basis from which all subsequent
study of law took its start. Sulla would have been
more than a soldier and a statesman—he would have
been a saint (a spiritual degree of which he had never
heard)—if such a deed had not roused his emotions
to fury. He was now the last of the group of
Optimates who had struggled to save the State from
all that was overwhelming it. Rutilius was still in
exile : Lucius Crassus had died, no one knew how ;
Drusus had been assassinated ; Scaevola murdered
on the altar : he himself had survived—how ? By
a series of miracles and chances—by Fortune.

He had no time to waste. He pushed on north.
The three Sullan armies were closing upon Carbo,
who, at Clusium in Etruria, was held immobilised,
unable effectively to deal his blow at Metellus while
Sulla was coming up so rapidly. But Carbo was
in a powerful position; and Sulla's advance came
gradually to pause. The moment had arrived for
fresh plans of campaign, and for a regrouping of
the various elements in the field.

VI

The Populates were making every effort to relieve
young Marius in Praeneste, but thus far they had
been prevented from doing so. The war began to
centre upon the fate of Praeneste. Into this condition
of pause the Samnites (who might have moved
before) flung themselves, with the object of bearing
down the balance.

A powerful force of Samnites and Lucanians,ARRIVAL OF THE SAMNITES	349

under the Samnite general Pontius Telesinus, set
out for the relief of Praeneste. Picking up the
garrison of Capua on its way, it swelled to a formid-
able striking force of seventy thousand men, before
which Sulla's detachments fell back. This serious
news made it urgently necessary for Sulla to return
southwards.

As Fortune would have it, he could go; for at
this juncture his first plans matured of themselves.
The proconsul Norbanus, carrying out what would,
under more favourable circumstances, have been
Carbo's counter-stroke, had masked Marcus Lucullus
in Placentia, advanced upon the main force of
Metellus Pius, and been defeated. Lucullus there-
fore left Placentia and ventured a pitched battle
at Fidentia. He had sixteen cohorts against fifty.
While he was waiting for a favourable opening the
gale blew a quantity of flowers from the meadows
near by, till the troops were involuntarily decorated
with them. With something of Sulla's own quick-
ness at turning such incidents to account, Lucullus
pointed out to his men that they were already
crowned with the chaplets of victory. They ac-
cepted the half-jesting omen, joined battle, and
were completely successful. The whole of Cis-
Alpine Gaul fell into the hands of Metellus as the
result.

Carbo's powerful position was crumbling. Sulla
accordingly felt free to return to Praeneste, which
had become the chief point of danger. Sending
word to Crassus to join him, he took post south
of the city. Metellus was already on the march
into Etruria, and Carbo threw up the game. He
was never a man of strong nerves. He left secretly
to take ship for Africa ; the remnants of his army250

SULLA COMES HOME

either dispersed home, or fell into the hands of
Metellus.

The Samnites had entered the war too late :
so late that they were the only combatants left in
the field, with three Sullan armies to fight. One
possible resource was left. They could destroy
Rome, and go down fighting. The city was but
one day's march away. Pontius Telesinus consulted
his Lucanian colleague, Lamponius, who was willing.
The associated leaders of the Populates, Lucius
Brutus Damasippus and Carrinas, went with them.

It was not only the Samnites who were prepared
to die fighting. If the roof of the world were to be
pulled in, the slippered ancients, the boys, the
loafers of the slums, and the odds and ends who were
all that, for the moment, were left in Rome, were
equally ready to be present at the occasion. Pontius
camped that night by the Colline Gate, having
• cleverly dodged Sulla by a forced night march.
At daybreak, the slippered ancients made their
heroic sally, and were cut to pieces, as they probably
expected to be, by the Samnite fighting men.
Complete and unutterable panic reigned in the
city : the women (Plutarch says) behaving as if it
were already sacked. But the delay had sufficed.
Before Pontius could follow up his easy victory,
there were horsemen on the horizon—Balbus and
seven hundred of Sulla's troopers, the advance
guard of Sulla himself, who was coming up fast and
furious behind. Balbus and his men only waited
to wipe the sweat off their horses, and, rebridling,
engaged the Samnites. Before noon, the foot-
sloggers were at hand, and Sulla with them. He
halted them, and ordered them to eat and drink
while cohort after cohort wheeled into place.BATTLE OF THE GOLLINE GATE 251

Dolabella and Torquatus strongly counselled cau-
tion : they were not dealing with young Marius,
or Carbo, but with Samnites and Lucanians.
Sulla refused to listen. His blood was up. It was
four in the afternoon when the trumpets sounded
and the battle was joined.

VII

Dolabella and Torquatus, whether their counsel
was expedient or not, were right in their estimate of
the situation. The battle before the Colline Gate
was fought with a ferocity and desperation very
far from the standard of the Popular armies. The
left wing of the Sullans was at length broken, after
a sanguinary struggle, and Sulla rode to stop the
rout. His white charger was recognised, and two
Samnites simultaneously hurled javelins at him.
Only the watchfulness of his servant, who touched
the white horse forward, saved him, the javelins
falling behind his horse's tail. He flung himself
into the turmoil, entreating, threatening, catching
hold of men with his hands, but not even Sulla
could breast the stream of defeat. He was borne
along in the crowd, and carried, whether he would
or no, to the camp, where a considerable part of
the fugitives had taken refuge. Not only was the /
wing broken up, but even many of the non-com- •'
batants, who had come out of the city to look on,
were involved, and killed or trampled underfoot.

In Rome, all was believed to be lost, and the
siege of Praeneste was supposed to be raised. Many
fugitives arrived at the head-quarters of Ofella's
investing army, to assure him that Sulla was dead,
and Rome in the hands of the Samnites. Ofella,
being out of the circle of excitement, must have252	SULLA COMES HOME

thought this a rather unlikely tale ; but the fugitives
were certainly a fact, since there they were before
him. He did not raise the siege, but wisely waited
for further information.

The battle must have broken up, and lost its
ordered coherence, after nightfall; but it can have
been no happy night they spent, striving to patch
up some order out of the shattered remains of the
unbeaten Sullan legions, not knowing what Fortune
had in store. What Sulla thought of matters may
be better guessed, if the story of his prayer to Apollo
be true. He had a little golden image of Apollo,
bought from Delphi, which he always carried
about with him in battle. He drew it out, kissed
it, and said : " Oh, Apollo Pythius, who in so many
battles have raised to honour and greatness Lucius
Cornelius Sulla Felix, will you now cast him down,
and bring him to the gate of his own city to perish
shamefully with his fellow-citizens ? " And, indeed,
it must have looked very like that.

But about midnight messengers from Crassus
arrived with the sobering and restoring enquiry
whether Sulla had any supplies to spare. It then
appeared that the right wing, which Crassus had
commanded, had been entirely successful, and had
driven its opponents right off the field to Antemnae,
on the Tiber, north of Rome, outside which Crassus
was waiting. Apparently Fortune had not been
quite so fickle as she appeared, and the absence of
any pursuit was explained. Sulla reached Antemnae
by dawn, to see for himself how matters stood.

A body of three thousand of the enemy, whom
Crassus had penned in, sent out a herald to ask for
terms. Sulla granted them their lives on condition
that they changed sides. They accepted theseEND OF THE BATTLE

terms, and joined in an attack on their late allies.
We are not told to what section they belonged.
They can hardly have been Samnites.

The battle outside the Colline Gate, from first
to last, lasted some sixteen hours or so, from the
afternoon of one day to the morning of the next.
Like all battles with the Samnites, it was a savage,
stand-up, knock-down fight, in which endurance
counted for more than science : and as with all
unscientific battles, it is hard to trace exactly where
it ended and when or how. During all those
sixteen hours, the temple of Fortune, which stood
in the angle of the wall close to the Colline Gate,
looked down upon the combatants. In the upshot,
the miserable wreck of Sulla's magnificent army had
six thousand prisoners, including Pontius Telesinus,
Brutus, and Carrinas : most of the rest of the
Samnite fighters lay on the field.

VIII

This was the end. Sulla had come home. ,CHAPTER XI

THE DICTATORSHIP OF SULLA
i

BUT to what home had he come ? To a world
in ruins, a State in chaos, a mankind corrupted
by revolution, war, passion, folly, until—even if the
bricks of old Rome had been saved from the deathless
fury of the Samnite—the spiritual, the archetypal
Rome, immortal in the heavens, the city of Camillus
and of Manius Curius, might well seem to be
dissolved. Sulla was in the position of one who
builds afresh from the foundations. The old Rome
.{ had come to an end : if Rome continued, it would
be a new Rome. And Sulla would have been not
a modest man but a fool if he had refused the task;
for there was no one else who could undertake it.
Two feelings were in his mind : a sardonic scepticism
about his own private ability to accomplish the work
before him, and an almost equally sardonic convic-
tion that Fortune would probably see him through.

The events of the last two years of his life were
woven in too complex a web to allow of being
narrated wholly in order of time. We have to
disentangle them into a different kind of order ;
and first we may take his official triumph.

It was a memorably splendid function, distin-
guished by the royal spoils of Mithradates—for
Sulla had conquered a king—while in the rear

254SULLA FELIX	255

marched the exiles, crowned with garlands, hailing
him as Father and Restorer. After the procession
was over, Sulla delivered the formal official address,
in which he reported his actions and justified the
proceedings of his tenure of office. He deliberately
belittled the part played by his own foresight and
intelligence, and insisted throughout on the pre-
ponderant share of Fortune, enumerating in detail
the many hazards, and the miraculous conjunctions
of events, which had brought him home. Hex
finally requested to be granted the honorary title
of " Felix "—the Fortunate. And if there had
been, in the past, any considerable element of mere
jest in his attitude towards Fortune, there can have
been very little now. The moment was almost the
most solemn in the life of a Roman. The title he
requested was the judgment he asked from mankind.

11

He had not come home merely to wreak ven-
geance on political foes, though, being human, he
may have had no deep objection to the execution
of people he disliked, and, being a pagan Roman
in his moral training, vengeance was to him not a
luxury but a duty. But passion played so small
a part in his life that the blind fury of hatred prob-
ably had little to do with his motives. He had
come home of course to save himself ; but, for the
rest, to re-establish a principle and refound a State. /
He had not created the circumstances : they were
given him, as a problem of chess is posited for
solution. And in all that follows we must strictly
remember the factors of circumstance which were
not external but internal conditions. Sulla did not
live after two thousand years of Christianity, nor256 THE DICTATORSHIP OF SULLA

even in an age of developed human science and
philosophy. He went by such rules as a man
may derive from obvious common sense and
ordinary worldly experience. Even the main point
of Plato's teaching—that obvious common sense
may be hopelessly fallacious, and ordinary worldly
experience worthless—had not yet penetrated to the
minds of men in Sulla's age. He unconsciously
did as much as any man to drive home to mankind
the practical importance of the Platonic standpoint:
as will be clearer in the sequel.

The problem he had to solve was to restore the
mystical, the ideal Rome—the state of mind and
temper, the moral tension, which had constituted
Roman greatness. The main process must lie in
the re-creation of such an aristocracy as that which
had first created Rome. To do this, he had on the
one hand to collect the remnants of the old aristo-
cracy, and to bring forward elements which might
be fitting to supplement them ; on the other, he
had to repress all adverse influences. The clearing
of the stage came first in order, before the new
actors could be introduced upon the scene.

Here the call of political theory coincided with
the demands of prudence. The Populares them-
selves had made it extremely dangerous for Sulla
to leave them alone : nor had they hitherto done
anything to convince him that their genius was
indispensable to the new Rome. They had borne
their full share in creating that logic of events
which is sometimes the blessing of men and some-
times their curse. For when great courses of
action are once launched, they are as much out of
control, even of the actors, as an avalanche is ;
and men may fight madly against a necessity whichMASSACRE OF THE PRISONERS 257

sweeps them on to actions they abhor. It is the
peculiar distinction of Sulla that he was not a man
who fought against the logic of events. With a
dry lucidity he carried out its dictates to the last
letter. He was not mad, in the sense in which
old Marius had certainly been mad; there was no
emotional frenzy in his mind : he was far too
cynical to worry about injustice ; the acuteness of
his intelligence was, if anything, sharpened ; he
merely drove to its logical conclusion a process
which other men had started, and to which there
was no rational alternative in the field.

It began with the slaughter of the prisoners )
taken in the battle at the Colline Gate. They had [ /
been rounded up into the Circus Flaminius, which v
stood in the Campus Martius, and three days after
the battle they were massacred by Sulla's orders.

He was addressing the Senate at the time in the
temple of Bellona,1 close to the circus ; and the
shrieks and cries startled the nerves of the august
assembly. The calm logician paused in his re-
marks, and reassured the nervous sentimentalists.
It was, he observed acidly, merely the noise of a
few offenders whose chastisement he had ordered.
The senators did not accept his assurance with
any kind of enthusiasm. Blood !—always more
blood ! Where would it end ? Sulla might have
asked the equally cogent question—Where did it
begin ?

Since it was clear that Praeneste could never

1 This temple, being technically outside the city, was the
place where the Senate usually assembled to meet any one who,

like Sulla, until his triumph was over, could not legally enter
the city precincts. Foreign envoys were received at the temple
of Bellona.

s.r.	R258 THE DICTATORSHIP OF SULLA

be relieved, young Marius and the leaders died
by their own hands, and the town surrendered.
Twelve thousand prisoners fell into the hands of
Sulla. In accordance with his old promise, he
dismissed all the ordinary citizens, both Roman and
Praenestine, together with the women and children.
The men of senatorial and official rank were detained.
At first he proceeded against them by the legal
method of individual prosecution, but finding that
this would take more time than any one could spare,
he anticipated the inevitable result by ordering
them all to be executed. Praeneste was sacked. . . .
Capua also surrendered. Naples was taken by
storm. Many towns held out for long periods.
Volaterrae, for one, defied a siege of nearly three
years, and then surrendered only on terms. But
by that time passions had run too high to be checked.
Sulla's commander was slain by his own troops,
and the garrison massacred as it marched out.

ill

To do his work in the way he wanted, a legal
office was necessary for Sulla. The power he
possessed was, if it were anything, that of a pro-
consul in Asia : a very dubious official authority
to exercise in Rome. One of the consuls for the
year—the younger Marius—was dead ; the other,
Carbo, was in exile, and an interrex was in office.
But Sulla did not want the consulship. Its powers
were far too restricted. He needed something
much greater—something at once legal, and suffici-
ently wide in scope to accomplish his ends. He
therefore proposed to the Senate the revival of the
Dictatorship.

There was a touch of antiquarianism in theTERMS OF THE DICTATORSHIP 359

suggestion. For a hundred and twenty years there
had been no Dictator ; it was an office almost as
obsolete as that of the Lord High Admiral in
modern England. But the idea had two virtues.
It was practical; and it went back to the days of
aristocratic supremacy, when men had no such
fear of Dictators as the oligarchy had always shown.
The Senate instructed the interrex, Lucius Valerius
Flaccus, to draft a law. Sulla was to be a novel
kind of dictator, technically " reipublicae constitu-
endae causa " ; and instead of holding the office
for a certain limited time (six months was the period
of the original office, technically " rei gerundae
causa "), it was to continue indefinitely, with practic-
ally unlimited power—even the power to make new
laws. The truth was, that this office was not the
Dictatorship, but was an absolute monarchy, in
which Sulla held all the power that had once belonged
to the kings. He had penetrated to one conception
which was historically accurate : namely, the truth
that, however much it may afterwards walk in
independence, an aristocracy is in its origin the
creation of a king.

Armed with this new power, Sulla proceeded
vigorously with the preliminary task of clearing the
stage. He despatched Pompeius to Sicily and
Africa, to recover those provinces and to resettle
them, while he himself took the task of dealing with
Italy. He declared that the very name of Samnium
ought to be blotted out; and when he had finished
with it, Samnium was the wilderness it has remained
since that day.

Here, too, Sulla acted with consistence. The
Samnites had been a disruptive force ; their very
virtues, however admirable of their kind, did not260 THE DICTATORSHIP OF SULLA

make for peace, security, or creativeness. They
had always been ready to wreck Roman government
in the interests of their own independence : and
the only question was whether this unbending spirit
of freedom was equally valuable to the world. No
modern man dare answer such a question ; he can
only seek a way round the problem. For Sulla,
the answer was clearly implicit in the principles he
held. Believing, as he believed with his whole
heart, in the necessity and expedience of Roman
government, he did not hesitate at the logical con-
clusion. He did not hesitate when he faced the
still more difficult problem of the elements in Rome
itself which had continually sought the destruction
of Roman government. And here several rather
curious factors entered into the matter.

If Sulla had returned to a Rome which was in all
respects normal, his logic might have taken a turn
different from that which it did take : but he was
standing in the midst of a catastrophic wreck—in
which the public treasury, and the private fortunes
of his friends, not to speak of his own, had dis-
appeared. Something of the former was recovered
by the capture of Praeneste, and the discovery of
Carbo's war-chest at Ariminum, but hardly sufficient
to put the finances of the government on a stable
basis. The majority of the refugees had no doubt
been carried on the pay-roll of the Sullan army :
ten years of war, revolution, and confiscation were
not likely to have left them much. Title deeds,
even when they survive such storms, do not bring
in money of themselves. If the treasury were to
be refilled, and compensation made to those who
had suffered, some quite extraordinary measure
must be resorted to.THE GREAT PROSCRIPTION	a6i

The measure which Sulla evolved was to all
intents a Capital Levy on the wealthy men who had
stood behind the revolution. There was no fiscal
machinery by which such a levy could be carried
out as part of the ordinary administration of govern-
ment. A Roman, moreover, would have been even
less likely than a modern man to endorse the principle
of a capital levy ; but presented to him in the shape
of confiscation by the State of the property of
political outlaws, it might pass muster. Again,
it was neither possible, nor worth while, to split
hairs over the scheme ; to take a man's property is
to take his life, and it would be a more defensible
plan to make a clean job of the business, and to
wipe out all opportunity for conspiracy and revenge
on the part of desperate men. Hence all the cir-
cumstances of the case pointed to one conclusion.
The punishment of the guilty, the removal of
dangerous sources of future rebellion, the refilling
of the treasury, and the compensation of the sufferers,
could all be made to follow from one act-p-the
Great Proscription : which secured at the same
time the removal of great amounts of wealth from
hands which had misused it to others which would
(at any rate in political theory) use it better.

Sulla's intention created an alarm among some
of his friends which seems perhaps surprising,1 if
we do not realise that this " capital levy " was the

1 Mommsen refers to " the indefiniteness of the proposed
categories " as an explanation of this. The proscription was
to include all civil and military officers, who had acted for
the revolution since the convention with Scipio, which Sulla
still maintained had been formally concluded. There is
nothing indefinite about this. We must look elsewhere for
an explanation.262 THE DICTATORSHIP OF SULLA

core of the Great Proscription. They were recon-
ciled to it chiefly by the careful presentment of the
plan as an act of vengeance. They could accept it
in that dress. But that many of them realised that
the vast confiscations which accompanied it were
an attack on property is shown by several facts.
Some discredit attached to Sulla's action, not
explicable in view of the ease with which mere
proscriptions were glossed over in other instances.

Metellus Pius, a man thoroughly trusted by the
average opinion of the oligarchy, and also a man
high in Sulla's confidence, was put forward to
interrogate him in a way which would have had
no meaning if the measure had been purely a political
proscription and nothing else. The Dictator was
asked (a significant question) where the executions
were to stop, and on what principle they were
to be conducted. " We do not ask you," said
Metellus, " to spare those whom you intend to
destroy, but to free from doubt those you intend
to spare." This was putting the matter plainly.
Sulla replied ambiguously that he hardly knew
whom he intended to spare. He was evidently
reluctant to be drawn into public discussion. " Tell
us whom you will not spare," said Metellus. . . .
Pressed to this point, Sulla yielded : the first of
the notorious proscription lists was published. It
contained eighty names. The next day he posted
two hundred and twenty additional names, and
followed this with a third list of equal length.1

1 The actual numbers proscribed by Sulla have been exag-
gerated. Valerius Maximus says 4,700. Appian says 40
senators and 1,600 equites. The latter figures are probably
correct. They may not include the retrospective confiscation
of the property of men who had already fallen, nor the executionsTHE LISTS

263

They were accompanied by an edict forfeiting to
the State the property of the proscribed, excluding
their children and grandchildren from civil office,
setting a reward of twelve thousand denarii upon
each head, and extending the proscription to any
person who should harbour or protect one of the
proscribed. The property of those who had already
fallen was included in the confiscation.

The publication of the lists, while no doubt
it safeguarded certain individuals, drew down on
Sulla's head the criticism he probably anticipated.
He had to shoulder the entire responsibility ; he
had to endure the public belief that the whole
affair was merely another example of his cynicism
and levity; public opinion, indeed, regarded this
official publication and formal procedure as even
worse than the frank personal vengeance of Marius.
Sulla did not mollify his critics when he addressed
them in the Forum. He assured them that he had
put down all the names he could remember at the
moment, but if he had forgotten any he would
add them later ! This produced silence, if not
consent.

The real nature of the proscription is shown more
clearly than even by the questions of Metellus, in
the kind of story the Romans afterwards related
concerning it. The less reputable elements among

which were military rather than political measures. It is the
inclusion of the latter which swell the total to that given by
Valerius Maximus. Mommsen suggests the figures :

Proscription of Marius : 50 senators, 1,000 equites.

Proscription of Sulla : 40 senators, x,6oo equites.

These figures illustrate the argument in the text. Sulla's
proscription fell heaviest on the equites. Hence the legal
witticism that the prosecutors and judges had been executed,
and only the advocates left!264 THE DICTATORSHIP OF SULLA

the Sullans had no doubt as to the objective in view.
There was a rush to place upon the proscription
list the name of every one who could profitably be
plundered. Plutarch distinctly says that those who
suffered for political reasons were few in comparison
with those whose only offence was their wealth.1
It became the fashion, even among the Sullans,
to say that this man had been killed by his house,
that by his gardens, and another by his hot baths.
One Quintus Aurelius, who took no part in politics,
and imagined that all he had to do with public
affairs was to sympathise with the misfortunes of
others, strolled into the Forum to read the latest
list. Finding his own name there, he cried out:
" My Alban farm has informed against me ! " . . .
The notorious Lucius Sergius Catilina, who had
murdered his own brother, legalised his position
by getting his brother's name included in the
proscription list. . . . The case of Sextus Roscius
of Ameria was a particularly bad one, and is well
known on account of Cicero's share in the proceed-
ings which brought it to light. By the complicity
of Chrysogonus, Sulla's secretary, the name of the
elder Roscius was placed upon the list of proscribed ;
he was then murdered by two of his kinsmen, and
his wealth seized. When his fellow-townsmen

1 We have no means of estimating the precise value of this
assertion. It may mean that those who had acted in civil or
military office on behalf of the revolution were few in comparison
with those who were proscribed for having been secret financial
backers of Marius and Cinna. Sulla had more means than the
general public possessed of knowing the identity of these men.
Those who had bought up the property of refugees, confiscated
by Marius, certainly went upon the list: so that in the knock-out
auctions the refugees must often have been simply buying back
their own property.SCANDALS	365

took steps to have this scandal put right, the con-
spirators accused the younger Roscius of the murder
of his father, and proceeded to suborn witnesses
to prove it. It was unlucky for them that the young
man who acted as advocate for Roscius was Marcus
Tullius Cicero.

It is improbable that Sulla either intended, or
would voluntarily have allowed, such disgraceful
scandals as these ; and they did not stand alone.
He had intended something which, if unorthodox,
was at any rate rational. There are faint indications
that he resisted abuses where he could. Crassus
received no further official employment after it was
shown that he had illegally seized the property of
a man who was not officially proscribed; but
Sulla owed Crassus too much for severity to be
possible—and in fact he owed a great many people
too much.1 There is nothing in Sulla's character
—except the cynicism which was a question of
manners rather than morals—to suggest that he
would deliberately unravel with one hand the fabric
of law and order he was attempting to weave with
the other. ... It was an integral part of the
scheme that the confiscated property should be
put up to public auction, where it was sold at
knock-out prices. Vast properties in this way
changed hands for next to nothing. The profits,'
nevertheless, filled the public treasury to over-
flowing. Sulla shared in the purchases, by way of
setting the ball rolling, and also as a claimant
justified in taking his share in this oblique scheme
of compensation. Crassus did more. With his

1 Sulla's " culpable indulgence " only means that he had
not the power to restrain his servants, and did not risk his
authority by trying to do so.266 THE DICTATORSHIP OF SULLA

natural instinct for money, he bought on a huge
scale, and laid by this means the foundations of his
afterwards immense fortune. . . . Public opinion at
large did not distinguish between any hypothetically
legitimate or illegitimate method in these things : it
seems to have taken the view that the whole scheme
was a scandalous one, root and branch.

Posterity has accepted this view—perhaps without
enquiry. It is true enough that no amount of
enquiry can square a political proscription with the
laws of ethics ; nor is there any way of palliating
the monstrous cases of which those of Catilina and
of the kinsmen of Sextus Roscius are instances.
Sulla paid the penalty. His name has ever since
rested under a cloud which no one has been bold
enough to lift.

In the outcome, the objects at which he had
aimed were achieved. The men who had designed
the revolution, and financed and inspired it, and
contemplated its atrocities and profited by them,
were swept away by a reign of terror which impressed
the world—temporarily, at least—as it was meant to
do ; the public treasury was refilled out of their
confiscated property, and from the perhaps super-
abundant surplus the exiles who had been ruined
were handsomely compensated. ... It was not
the rich alone who profited. The bitter enquiry
was made, whether the Optimates had fought the
civil war for the sole purpose of enriching their
slaves and freedmen. The question was intended
to reach the address of Lucius Cornelius Sulla.

Certain irrational emotions intrude into the best
ordered lives, not to speak of those which are less
well disciplined. Marius had passed beyond ven-
geance—if any man could have wreaked it on thatSULLA'S CREATIVE MEASURES 267

grim soldier. By Sulla's command his tomb was
torn open, his bones scattered—a fate which has
befallen many better men than he—and his memory
outlawed. M. Marius Gratidianus, the adopted
son of Marius's brother, was tortured to death at
the tomb of Catulus, as a sacrifice to the manes of
that admirable and well-meaning man. The heads
of the proscribed senators were publicly piled at
the corner of the Forum, where they were conveni-
ently visible to their colleagues leaving the Senate
House. . . . And so little are the mere feelings of
men related to the facts of life, especially of politics,
that amid all these gestures the man who, when
Sulla was dead, was to succeed to the tradition of
Marius and carry it to victory, passed unharmed.
Gaius Julius Caesar was twenty-one years old in
the year of Sulla's dictatorship.

IV

Sulla's creative measures belong to two types.
He made an effort to collect about himself the core
of a new aristocracy ; and he drafted extensive
schemes of practical reform. He was particularly
anxious to unite Pompeius to himself by the closest
bonds. Every man has a touch of paternal feeling,
and it may be that Sulla longed for a son of whom
he could be as proud as he would have been of
Pompeius. He had no daughter of marriageable
age: but Metella had a daughter, Aemilia, by her
former marriage with M. Aemilius Scaurus. Sulla
proposed that Pompeius should marry her.

If ever Sulla showed folly and sentimentality, it
was over Poi^ipeius. Aemilia was married, and was
expecting a child : Pompeius also was married, to
Antistia, who had a tragic story. Her father hadGENEALOGY OF THE CAESAR FAMILY

40
ON
00

This branch adhered
to the Optimates

Sextus
Julius
Praetor 123 B.C.

Sextus
Julius
Consul | 157 B.C.

This branch adhered
to the Populates

Lucius
Julius

~~I.

Gaius
Julius

Lucius	Gaius

Julius	Julius

Consul 90 B.C. (Strabo Vopsicus)

Aurelia=Gaius
Julius

I

Sextus
Julius
Consul 91 B.C.

Juiia=Gaius
Marius

Marcus =Julia
Antonius

M. Antonius
Triumvir

Lucius
Julius
Consul 64 B.C.

M. Atius=Julia
Balbus I

I

Gaius=Cornelia
Julius I

|	Dictator |

Atia=G. Octavius	Julia=Gn. Pompeius

|	Magnus

Augustus

ffl
M

O

o

co

a

o

w
C3

r1
>THE NEW ARISTOCRACY	269

perished in the proscription the year before, when
Scaevola fell, and her mother had become insane
with grief, and killed herself. This tale might
well have been sufficient to ensure that Antistia
should be left in peace ; but since every man has
at least a weak spot, and must betray it at some
moment in his life, this proved to be the accidental
arrow which found the joint in Sulla's armour.
Some things he could not see. He could not see
that since an aristocracy is rooted in the quality
of its hereditary gifts, it is therefore rooted in the
purity of its family life ; he did not get hold of the
conception, which any old Roman patrician would
have shared with any modern puritan, that marriage
must not be tinkered with. He could not even
catch the notion of chastity as a tabu. Considering
the principle for which Sulla was standing, this
was more than a venial fault: it was a flaw that
ran right into the foundation of things. He thought
it a perfectly satisfactory arrangement that Pompeius
should divorce Antistia and marry Aemilia !

Pompeius, always amenable, allowed himself to
be persuaded. The match would be to his benefit.
The result was that Antistia was divorced, and
Aemilia married to him: whereupon Aemilia
promptly died. It was, of course, a pity ; but
Sulla had the stepson he wanted, and Pompeius
had the Sicilian command.

Another promising possibility for the new aristo-
cracy was young Gaius Julius Caesar. Sulla had
marked him from the first. Caesar, however, was
the nephew of Marius and the son-in-law of Cinna.
Sulla proposed that he should divorce Cornelia.
Unlike Pompeius, Caesar was a genuine, if not a
perfect, aristocrat. He coldly declined. He dis-270 THE DICTATORSHIP OF SULLA

approved of Sulla's politics, and probably of his
private character : and the fall of empires and the
crash of worlds, or even considerable personal in-
convenience, would not have made Caesar do any-
thing he did not choose to do. Nor would Caesar
withdraw from his own activities. He put down
his name as a candidate for the priesthood—an
important official position in its way. Sulla at once
pulled the strings and saw that he was rejected.
He even contemplated placing Caesar's name on the
proscription list. Here, however, he encountered
the reality—as distinct from the theory—of aristo-
cracy. Young Gaius was a remarkably important
person in the inner social world of Rome : his
descent was not merely blue-blooded, but azure
in its augustness : he was very rich, and very
charming in a curious, cold, impersonal way. He
pulled the strings himself. At once all the social
"wheels were at work. The most highly-placed
people intervened to persuade Sulla : even the
college of Vestal Virgins took up the case. Sulla
was constrained : but he said, frankly, that they
were blind not to see many Mariuses in that boy.1
When this was reported to him (for he was the
kind of man who heard all the news going) Caesar
quietly effaced himself. He spent the time in
lounging from one to another of his country pro-
perties in the Sabine district, till one evening he
unexpectedly ran into a party of Sullan soldiers
who were looking for likely people. Caesar tipped
the commanding centurion two talents, a proceeding
which fulfilled all the necessities of the situation.

1 Plutarch: Caesar, I; Suetonius, Div.Jul. I. This story rests
on as good evidence as most such anecdotes. It may be a little
too good to be true: but Sulla was certainly an astute psychologist.POVERTY OF MATERIAL	*71

But feeling the Sabine district to be less restful
than he had hoped, he decided to take a tour in the
east, where he remained until Sulla was dead.

However, there was still Pompeius, the Perfect
Aristocrat. Sulla had not lost hope.

The men whom Sulla could manage—men like
Metellus Pius and the younger Catulus—were
(perhaps just because he could manage them) in
another way equally unsatisfactory. They had all
the qualities which enable men to work together
loyally and amicably : good sense, good temper,
adequacy to the ordinary calls of government,
sufficiency of stability and balance ; they admirably
fulfilled some of the tests of aristocracy, but they
lacked precisely the very power which is the deter-
mining factor in political success—ability to meet
the unexpected. Such a man as Metellus had every
gift except originality and adaptability. Whatsoever
the cause may have been, aristocracy in Rome seemed
to have reached a point at which intelligence and
discipline were separating out as distinct and
mutually exclusive elements. . . . How exclusive
they were is clearly seen in the remarkable incident
of the younger Cato. Sulla seems to have cast a
hopeful eye on the juvenile population, and young
Marcus Cato, among others, was frequently brought
to Sulla's house by his tutor, where he took an
observant interest in the proceedings. His final
comment was : " Why does nobody kill this man ? "
The alarmed tutor promptly terminated the visits.
... In view of the later career of Cato, we are
irresistibly led to the deduction that what he disliked
in Sulla was what he disliked in Caesar, namely,
intelligence.

Sulla's searching interest did not stop at the272 THE DICTATORSHIP OF SULLA

oligarchy. Following his systematic principle of
making one action serve many ends, he selected
from the slaves of the proscribed—who came under
the hammer with the rest of the property involved
—the best men he could find, set them free, and
incorporated them into a body known as the
" Cornelians." They numbered about ten thou-
sand. This step had precedents in the earlier
history of Rome. It was no innovation. It repre-
sented a deliberate and careful choice of new blood
for citizenship, and gave the new men a peculiarly
strong interest in the maintenance of the new
constitution which Sulla was creating.

v

The Populares had spent two years in power,
without being able to think of any reforms to carry
out. Sulla's period of dictatorship proved to be
a torrent of practical reform. There was not the
least trace of the spirit of Metternich about him.
The most radical of the Populares was less radical
than he, when faced by a necessity and an oppor-
tunity. The oligarchy looked on, humble and
mystified, in the background.

He confirmed the grant of the franchise to the
'Italians, and brought to its full fruit the policy of
Drusus. Henceforward, any citizen of an Italian
community was a citizen of Rome, and all distinction
between the old and the new citizens was swept
away. On the day on which this was done, the
old City State ceased to exist, and the modern
nation was born. It was an infant, helpless and
unconscious, destined to struggle for many a century
before it grew up ; but it was born, and Sulla was
the surgeon who ushered it into the world.THE FRANCHISE	373

To accompany this measure, he made great
changes in the local government of Italy. Hitherto,
political conceptions had been limited by the
principle, from which no thinker had been able to
escape, of the city as the political unit. Prior to
Sulla's day there had been, broadly speaking, only
two methods of uniting the subject cities with Rome.
They could be declared independent communities
in alliance with Rome—when they retained their
own separate government, and had no power of
influencing Roman policy. Or, alternatively, they
could be given the franchise, when they became
part of Rome, and were, of course, governed by the
Roman magistrates, while their citizens travelled
to Rome to exercise the vote if they ever exercised
it at all. Since all Italy was now in the Roman
franchise, it had become a physical impossibility
for the Roman magistrates to carry on the local
affairs of the Italian cities, and the clumsy old
arrangements had to give way. Sulla instituted a
definite scheme of local self-government, each city
being given a constitution, modelled on that of
Rome, for the purpose of managing its own affairs ;
while the Roman magistrates retained the power of
control and special jurisdiction over those matters
which involved general policy, such as afe now
exercised by a national government.

It was beyond Sulla—it was, indeed, beyond
any man, until in the course of ages the problem
was solved by a natural evolution—to devise a
scheme by which the distant citizens could take their
legal share in the election of the Roman magistrates,
and in Roman legislation. They could, of course,
go to Rome for the purpose, but probably few ever
did so. It was, on general grounds, not even

S.F.	STHE DICTATORSHIP OF SULLA

desirable that they should go. This was the fatal
flaw which rendered democracy impossible in the
new Rome.

Nor was this all. With the forfeitures which
had accrued from the cities condemned for participa-
tion in the late civil war, and from the proscriptions,
Sulla set on foot great schemes of land-settlement.
He granted 120,000 small holdings to the discharged
soldiers of his armies, thus resettling Italy with
precisely the class of small farmer who was most
needed, and at the same time fortifying his new
arrangements with the zealous support of men
who had everything to lose by their alteration.
To strengthen the position of the new settlers, he
made their land inalienable, and he abolished the
corn dole which had done so much to destroy the
small Italian farmer. Everything he could do to
make the settlements permanent, he did.

Sulla next dealt with the equites, that class of
'bankers and merchants whose political exploits we
have been chiefly engaged in surveying. He
abolished their control over the courts, and handed
the latter back to the senatorial order. He swept
away all the privileges that had made them a definite
class in the State. They had made much of their
money by the odious Gracchan system of farming
the taxes. Sulla, having seen for himself in Asia
what the tax-farming system was capable of produc-
ing, abolished it altogether, and converted the taxes
into fixed amounts. . . . He had seen the day
when great men were murdered for even suggesting
these measures. He had lived long enough to
pass them himself; and the equites trembled and
obeyed.

Having taken the courts away from the equitesLEGAL REFORMS	275

he proceeded to a fierce and stringent reform of
the courts themselves. He created eight different
judicial courts for the trial of various types of case.
He separated civil from criminal justice for the first
time in the history of law, and originated the system
by which civil cases were trjjed by a single judge,
and criminal cases by a bench of judges, or jury,
as we should call it. Since, among these courts,
he created one for the trial of cases of murder, he
practically abolished the death penalty, for the
citizen assembly retained its sole right to pronounce
sentence of death, and murder cases were now
withdrawn from its cognisance. Moreover, since
another of his courts was for the trial of cases of
treason, he made it much less likely that any special
partisan tribunal like that of Quintus Varius would
ever again be set up. . . . All these measures had
a purpose, and suggest that he had a good memory.
Every one of them covered the ground of some old
notorious scandal of Roman government. His court
" De Repetundis," for example, was largely the
fruit of his experience in Asia. It was intended to
make impossible, or, at any rate, less probable,
such proceedings as those which had caused the
Mithradatic war. The arguments of Archelaus and
of Mithradates had had their effect.

Finally, he turned to the Senate, into whose
control he had restored the courts ; and here his
reforms reached their culmination. The jurisdiction
of the censor had been used by the oligarchy to
pass its friends into the Senate, and to expel as
many men of enlightenment from it as possible.
Sulla avenged Publius Cornelius and his ten pounds
of silver plate by completely abolishing this censorial
power. He made senators irremovable. To restore276 THE DICTATORSHIP OF SULLA

the balance, he caused entrance to the Senate to
depend upon popular election. A seat in the Senate
was to be the corollary of election to a magistracy.
The supremacy of the citizen assembly Sulla left
untouched ; but he provided that the only measures
which should be proposed to it for legislation should
be such as had passed the Senate, and were forwarded
to it for ratification. He put the citizen assembly
practically into the legislative position of a modern
constitutional king, who has the right of assent or
veto, but nothing more.

As part of this scheme, he reorganised the magis-
tracies. He increased the numbers of the magis-
trates to enable them to deal with the increasing
amount of business that passed through their hands.
Two especial objects seem to have been before his
mind. First, he attempted to keep apart the civil
and the military powers, and to give the supremacy
to the statesman rather than the soldier. He made
it impossible for a civil magistrate to hold at the
same time a military office. Secondly, he made it
illegal to hold an office for several years in succession.
He regulated and consolidated the laws relating
to these matters, and enforced the old laws with
regard to the age at which a candidate was eligible
for office.

These measures had several aims. They pre-
vented the magistracies from becoming the close
preserve of a clique, who continued their friends
in profitable posts year after year because there
were not sufficient magistrates to make possible
the yearly change in the provincial governorships.
The increase in the number of magistracies enabled
the work to be done by properly elected men who
laid down office at the legal time, so that thereSULLA'S CHIEF AIM	277

was no further excuse for informal prolongations.
And the increase provided the requisite number of
qualified senators—men of official experience, who
knew something of the business of administration.
The amateur senator, whose only claim to the dignity
was his social position in a wealthy oligarchy, was
swept away.

One leading fact is betrayed by these reforms of
the magistracies. Sulla was so careful to refurbish
and restore the old republican machinery of govern-
ment, with its limited annual tenure of office ; so
careful to prevent the tribunes from holding the
legislative initiative in the citizen assembly, as
Gaius Gracchus had held it; so particularly careful
to render it impossible for any man to hold the
consulship for several years in succession, as Marius
had held it—that his motive in making these arrange-
ments must have been especially strong. It is on
the definiteness of his policy in this respect that
we can build up the proof that his opposition to
Marius was no mere question of personal ambition
or party prejudice, but was rooted in a genuine
difference of political principle. Sulla had a good
deal more than the amount of intelligence necessary
to imagine a simple logical extension of the six
successive consulships of Marius. Why stop at
six ? Why not, indeed, a permanent consulship ?
Why not a monarchy ? This was the strategic
point at which Sulla struck. He aimed at rendering
it impossible ever to develop a Roman magistracy
into monarchy. And this is again precisely the'
point on which Caesar sided with Marius, and
against Sulla.

Thus far, however, the advantage in point of
enlightenment must be adjudged to Sulla. Mon-278 THE DICTATORSHIP OF SULLA

archy, as they knew it, was an old, outworn,
reactionary, incompetent principle. A man who
seriously proposed to renovate it as a necessary
and vital element in political life would need to
create a new form of monarchy, standing in a new
relationship to the rest of the State. Sulla was
certainly not called upon to provide his opponents
with a political philosophy. He had little personal
sympathy with monarchy. To him, as to most
Romans, it seemed at the best a barbarous expedient
for saving idle citizens from the trouble of exercising
their own brains and shouldering their own responsi-
bilities. He had no disposition to wear himself
into an untimely grave by doing other people's
work for them. He saw the problem before him
as a question whether Rome should remain a
growing, self-determined, political State, whose
voice was found by the conference of all the classes
and citizens who composed it, or become a State
obeying the arbitrary will of a despot who, however
enlightened he might chance to be, would neverthe-
less determine for men what men had hitherto
determined for themselves.

VI

During the first year of his dictatorship, therefore,
consuls were elected as usual, and the ordinary
course of administration pursued its way, while
he was engaged in creating the new constitution.
For the second year, he himself came forward as
a candidate, and exercised the normal office while
still dictator for the purpose of his special functions.
His colleague was Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius,
a stroke, Sulla ambiguously remarked, of Fortune,
since Metellus was likely to be an amiable passenger.SULLA IGNORES THE TRUTH 279

And it is hardly possible to doubt his motives.
Having reformed the constitution, he was determinedA
to start it upon its new career by a year in officeN
as an ordinary magistrate, giving a concrete example '
of how it should be worked, and seeing for himself
what rough corners there might be in it. He
still had the power to remedy these. There was,
indeed, no external reason why he should ever
surrender the dictatorship. But whatever other
men might think, the mere fact of his consulship
hinted at a personal bias against regarding his
dictatorship as permanent.

It is distinctly apparent that in this, too, Sulla
was allowing private feeling to blind him to the
real state of the case. His supremacy was not so
easily to be got rid of. That admirable condition
of equality among themselves which had marked
the old patricians, as it marks every true aristocracy,
was based upon an actual equality of character and
intelligence. But Sulla's position was based upon
an actual inequality. There were not two Sullas,
still less were there five hundred. . . . Whether
he liked it or not, he had, in practice, to recognise
its reality by many exceptional actions quite in-
compatible with his theory, and so was forced into
inconsistencies which did not escape public criticism.
Much was attributed to arbitrariness of temperament,
and even to savage cynicism, which may have been
due far more to a conscious effort to square two
different conceptions of duty.

Sulla could not escape the dilemma. To restore
law by despotic decree, and order by violence, is, ,
an inconsistency which attracts attention. No one j/
took him seriously when he insisted on the necessity
of discipline and obedience. No one even realised280 THE DICTATORSHIP OF SULLA

that he was wholly in earnest. Still less was it
comprehended that this, and not his external
reforms, was the core of his aims. The pro-
scription lists hung round Sulla's neck. No one
could distinctly see anything else. No one could
see, or hear, or feel, or touch, or taste, anything
about Sulla, except that he was the author of the
Great Proscription.pl. hi.

£Jfe ^t^cct^Jlnstoctxih

( Cftiacas S^ntipclus^l^tias^
as a tjcnttuj man.

Stccowinicfccl from {ft SSotnc„
£Jiaple$ and Gypaific^eti busts*CHAPTER XII

THE DEATH OF SULLA
i

THE trend of affairs illustrates once more the
logic of events which began to entangle
Sulla. The Perfect Aristocrat had gone to Sicily,
where the remains of the Populates were collecting.
Perpenna had taken command of the exiles and
refugees; Carbo had collected a navy, while
Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus was raising an army
in Africa. Perpenna did not wait long. He evacu-
ated Sicily. Pompeius was incorrigibly good-
natured, and also incorrigibly lawless. He treated
Sicily with liberality, and seems to have accepted
a large number of excuses which would not have
passed muster in Rome. He could not, indeed,
avoid the necessity for many executions, when the
notorious facts were too strong for him ; but when-
ever he could cultivate a blind eye, he did so.

Carbo, who fell into his hands, had a legal trial—
a proceeding adversely commented upon in Rome,
where it was argued that young Pompeius had no
right to insult a man of consular dignity by solemnly
sitting in judgment upon him, and that it would have
been more respectful to have executed him out of
hand. Quintus Valerius, a man of considerable
learning, was another case. Instead of suffering
immediate death, Valerius was brought to a personal

281282

THE DEATH OF SULLA

interview with Pompeius, and it was only after a
long conversation that Pompeius, finding him
obdurate, reluctantly ordered his execution. These
cases might conceivably be due to a young man's
sense of prudence in dealing with political opponents
who were far from being friendless, and very often
far from being socially uninfluential; but such
instances as that of the city of Himaera show that
it was more than this. Himaera was so deeply
involved in revolutionary activity that when Pom-
peius opened his tribunal it seemed certain that the
city would receive heavy punishment. Sthenis,
one of the leading citizens, publicly assured Pom-
peius that this would be to punish the innocent
and let the guilty go free. Pompeius asked who,
in that case, would accept responsibility for all that
had been done : whereupon Sthenis answered that
he would do so, who had compelled his friends by
persuasion and his enemies by fear. This seems
to have impressed Pompeius so favourably that he
passed over the conduct of Himaera.

He kept very strict discipline, and when the conduct
of his troops was made a subject of complaint, he
had their swords officially sealed into the scabbards.

The suspicion always clung about Pompeius, to
the end of his life, that he loved praise and admiration
so much that he could not resist the temptation
to curry favour with any human being, at the expense
of more important considerations. The criticism
was unjust, for a great deal—perhaps all—of his good
nature was perfectly genuine. He lacked a certain
severity of temperament which made the typical
Roman both harsh and also law-abiding. The
circumstances of the day had certainly discouraged
the spirit of strict obedience to law : but PompeiusPOMPEIUS IN AFRICA

383

showed a distinct tendency to disregard forms.
Among the incidents of his Sicilian command was
reported his remark to the Mamertines, when they
put in their Roman charter as a defence: " Will you
never stop talking of law to us, who carry swords ? "

There was much in all this that disappointed
Sulla, who was intent on the restoration of severe
discipline and the old patrician obedience. Caesar
was the man he really wanted; but by the irony
of fate Caesar was one of the men with whom he
could not get on, or who could not get on with him.
He removed Pompeius to Africa. There was no
doubt of the military competence of the Perfect
Aristocrat; and Domitius was assembling an army
that constituted a serious menace.

The reports of the Perfect Aristocrat grew worse.
His relations with the troops were admirably good,
too good to be altogether admirable in some eyes.
Shortly after their arrival in Africa, one of the
soldiers discovered a buried treasure : whereupon,
in spite of all orders, the whole army was soon
digging furiously, while Pompeius walked to and
fro and laughed at them. No further treasure
being found, the army came to its senses and
apologised ; and the way in which he took the
incident added much to his popularity. He defeated
Domitius, stormed his camp, and reduced Africa
to order within forty days of his landing ; and
then ascertaining that lions and elephants were
still existent in Numidia, went off on a big-game
hunting expedition.

Sulla now wrote to recall him. Capable though
Pompeius was, he was very young, and there was
in his actions an element of casualness perhaps
difficult to isolate and blame, yet not altogether284	THE DEATH OF SULLA

consistent with dignity. Moreover, considering that
he had never occupied any official post, but was
merely a special military deputy, his personal
popularity with the troops raised serious questions.
Along such lines as were here possible, there would
be no revival of the ideal Rome, but only some kind
of Greek military tyranny. Sulla was trying to
suppress precisely this danger of military tyranny,
and endeavouring to confirm the supremacy of law
and civil government. Pompeius had better come
home, and be with Sulla for a while. With experi-
ence and good companionship he would learn; and
the military task had been accomplished with success.

Sulla was wise. As soon as the order of recall
was known, the troops broke out into a demonstra-
tion of loyalty to their commander which was only
divided by the narrowest of margins from open
rebellion. The news was actually despatched to
Sulla that Pompeius had raised the standard of
revolt. His bitter comment was : "It seems that
it is my fate to strive with children in my old age."
. . . But further and more reliable information
put a somewhat different complexion on the matter.
Pompeius and his army had carried on a highly
emotional argument, accompanied by tears and
speeches, which had ended in the army submitting
to reason. But the Perfect Aristocrat would have
been more perfect than any aristocrat ever is, if
he had not gained the justifiable impression that
he could do nearly anything he liked with a crowd.

11

There were undercurrents. The lightness of
Pompeius' hand in Sicily was known ; and the
welcome prepared for him in Rome was equivalentPOMPEIUS AND THE OPPOSITION 285

to a political demonstration against Sulla. Very
few people understood much, or cared much, about
the virtues of the new constitution, except that it
had in some way or other trenched on everybody's
rights and satisfied no one; what they knew,
what obsessed them to the exclusion of most other
things, the label that stuck to Sulla, the medium
through which every one saw him, was that he had
been the author of the Great Proscription. It was
not easy for him to prevent a demonstration in
favour of his own favourite. Sulla did the only
thing that could be done : he took the wind out
of his enemies' sails by outdistancing them all
in the fervour of his enthusiasm. He was the
first to greet Pompeius and to fall upon his hand-
some neck, hailing him with the honorary title of
" Magnus "—the Great; and commanding all
present to acclaim him by that title. Pompeius,
in perhaps a slightly different spirit, did not take
this title any more seriously than that of
" Imperator." It was a long while before he
added it to his signature ; but the name stuck ;
he was always " Pompeius Magnus." Sulla's sin-
cerity may not have been so obvious as on the
former occasion.

But the Perfect Aristocrat was not quite so
perfect as he had once appeared. He asked for
a Triumph. Sulla pointed out that he had held
no office. A triumph was an honour legally given
only to commanders of consular or praetorian rank—
so that even Scipio Africanus had not enjoyed a
triumph for his Spanish campaigns. If he granted
it, it would discredit his government and nullify
his efforts to restore the rule of law. Pompeius
was not convinced. He seemed to think these286

THE DEATH OF SULLA

arguments an additional reason why he should have
a triumph. It would be particularly good to have
what no one else had ever had. Sulla intimated that
he would use his authority to stop any such idea.

Pompeius reminded Sulla that more people
worship the rising than the setting sun. Sulla
had perhaps just resumed his seat in a mood of
annoyance, for he did not catch the remark; but
noticing by the obvious sensation around him that
something unusual must have been said, he enquired
what it was. When it was repeated to him, he
seemed thunderstruck, and then cried out: " Let
him Triumph ! Let him Triumph ! " . . . After
all, what did it matter ? There would never be
a new Rome : there was no Perfect Aristocrat:
let him Triumph. Sulla must have known from
that moment that his work was vain. He had
/ merely patched up the old oligarchic Rome.

So Pompeius enjoyed his triumph. He had a
great plan for having his triumphal car drawn by
elephants ; but unfortunately the gates were too
narrow, so that the old conventional method of
employing horses had to be retained. The triumph
was a little spoiled by the troops, who did not think
that Pompeius had given them a sufficient donation ;
but it was popular. Enthusiasm for Pompeius was
the easiest way of demonstrating against Sulla.

Pompeius, with the wisdom that is given to
babes and sucklings, had spoken the truth. Sulla's
sun was setting. . . . His work, for good or for
evil, had been done to the best of his abilities ;
but it was hard that its doom should be pronounced
by the very man whose example and person were
to have ushered in the new era. Caesar was an
enemy, too powerful to be crushed ; and PompeiusTHE OPIMIAN WINE	287

—O ! Pompeius was a fool, a gilded soldier, a
Greek tyrant! The labour of restoration was to
have been only the framework for the task of
creation : . . . and this was all that was left of the
new aristocracy !

hi

Sulla was not a man to enact a private tragedy.
He was more the kind of man who, in trouble, goes
out and gets drunk. He grew sharper and more
cynical, and more Bohemian in his private
enjoyments.

He now made up his mind, and prepared to
resign the Dictatorship. The work he had done
others must carry on. He had tried to restore a
spiritual state, an atmosphere ; he had not tried to
make himself a monarch. The Romans could there-
fore carry on his intentions, or not, as they chose ;
and have Pompeius, if they liked Pompeius better.

Sulla dedicated a tenth of his fortune to Hercules,
the Doer of Great Deeds, and gave a public feast
of many days' duration. He silently underlined
the occasion by producing nothing less than the
" Opimian " wine—the immiortal vintage of that
year when Gaius Gracchus fell. He had spent
most of his mature life in fighting the results of
the Gracchan policy, particularly that aspect of
it which had wrested the control of government
from the responsible, political authorities, and
given it into the unofficial, irresponsible hands of
financiers and traders. He would toast himself
out of office on the appropriate vintage. . . . His
meaning seems to have been recognised, for many
people—probably the financiers—held aloof, so that
every day of the feast much food had to be thrown288

THE DEATH OF SULLA

into the river for want of eaters. The bankers were
not beaten yet.

Fortune herself held aloof from that feast; the
ill-luck which dogged all those who had to do with
the fall of the Gracchi pursued even Sulla when he
invited it by this broad gesture. In the midst of
the feasting, Metella fell sick, and lay dying. For-
bidden by the official ritual from visiting the sick,
or polluting his house with mourning, he sent her
a divorce and caused her to be removed to another
house. Though he accepted the ceremonial neces-
sity with a calm which somewhat disturbed his
critics, it was not from indifference ; for as soon
as he was absolved from its jurisdiction he gave her
a magnificent funeral, in which he defiantly broke
his own sumptuary law limiting the expenditure
permissible on such occasions.

' Sulla began to go down-hill after his breach
with Pompeius and the death of Metella. He did
not observe his own sumptuary laws even in his
own private entertainments. His parties of un-
conventional friends grew more numerous, and
more costly. But he was still a man of business,
who could wear the mask well enough in business
hours, and throw it off cheerfully after them. A
few months after Metella's death he was sitting
in the theatre when some one, in passing, plucked
a few hairs from his woollen cloak. It was a
handsome girl. Sulla looked up in surprise, and
asked what that meant. There was no harm, she
answered, in sharing in his Fortune : and she went
on to her seat. Sulla was intrigued, and made
enquiries. She was Valeria Messalla, the sister of
Hortensius the orator. He kept his eye upon her ;
and they carried on the kind of affair that can soOFELLA	289

easily be conducted by looks alone. A Valeria of
the great Messallan family was as good as a Cornelius
of the Sullan branch, and Sulla was attracted. He
made overtures, was accepted, and married her.
But he made little change in his manner of life.
He saw enough of social distinction and formal
greatness during business hours, to enjoy the
company of a different sort of person in his leisure
moments. There is no sign that Valeria influenced
him, or engaged more than a passing interest.

IV

The time came round, and with it the elections
and the vacation of office by the old magistrates.
Pompeius had set an example, and Ofella now
followed it. He came forward as a candidate for
the consulship, for which he was not legally eligible.
Sulla prohibited the candidature, but Ofella persisted,
and appeared in the Forum with an armed body-
guard. But Ofella was not Pompeius. Sulla, sitting
in the Temple of Concord, from which he over-
looked the whole Forum as from a gallery, sent
a centurion across to cut down Ofella. When
the uproar had subsided, Sulla rose and addressed
the crowd. He was making a last appeal to their
sense of obedience to law. He told them that he
had authorised the act, which was therefore a
legal execution and not a murder; and he com-
manded them to release the centurion. He explained
to them precisely what Ofella had done.

" There was once a husbandman," he concluded
dryly," who was much troubled by vermin. Twice
he took off his shirt and shook it. On the third
occasion he burned the shirt. Take care that the
city of Rome is not like that shirt."

s.p.	TTHE DEATH OF SULLA

With this grim and prophetical parable, he ended
his career as a public speaker.

Pompeius was canvassing in person for another
candidate, Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, whereas Sulla
was supporting Quintus Lutatius Catulus, the son
of his old friend and commander. Lepidus was
the kind of man particularly obnoxious to Sulla,
an ex-governor of Sicily, who, to escape a prosecu-
tion for extortion, had left the Optimates for the
Populates : a violent and fluent speaker, of doubtful
character, and still more doubtful wisdom. Lepidus
had little chance of election without help. The
popularity of Pompeius was the factor which turned
the scale in his favour. As they were leaving the
Forum afterwards, Sulla came forward and spoke
to Pompeius.

" Young man," he said, " I see that you rejoice
in your victory, and no doubt you think it a matter
for congratulation that that scoundrel Lepidus is
elected before an honourable man such as Catulus.
But have a care for yourself, for you are strengthening
an enemy at your own expense."

These, as far as we know, were the last words
which ever passed between Sulla and his ideal
aristocrat; and they might have formed the epitaph
of Pompeius. He strengthened his enemies at his
own expense.

With the opening of the new official year, Sulla
"divested himself of the Dictatorship. Those who
hoped, and those who feared, that he never would
do so, were alike disappointed. His resignation
impressed his contemporaries. There was some-
thing great in the proceeding; but men were not
agreed as to the exact nature of the greatness.
Considered as a " gesture," was it the noble act ofSULLA RESIGNS	291

a public-spirited man too large for the little glories
of kingship ?—or was it the contemptuous act of
a cynic weary of doing good to Rome ? They could
not tell, for none of them understood Sulla.

Both motives may have had their part. Sulla
not only resigned, but, self-stripped of his sanctity
as Dictator, walked publicly in the Forum, a private
man again, so that any one who chose could call
him to account for his acts. No one did so. No
one questioned him. . . . But a young man fol-
lowed him home, denouncing him and all his
works, which Sulla endured with fortitude. . . .
It is surmised by historians that the proceeding
was carefully staged by Sulla's orders, and the
surmise is possible. It would have been like
Sulla's perverse humour to stage an opposition of
one man: the joke would have been good. But
then it would have been only a joke; and Sulla's
sense of humour was ample enough to have enjoyed
far more the amusing reality of being actually
abused by one young man.

We are none the wiser for the remark he made as
he re-entered his house : " This young man will
prevent any future holder of such power as mine
from laying it down again " : a truly Delphic com-
ment—on which two thousand years of puzzled
silence fell.

Having done this much, he retired to his Cam-
panian villa, and the world had little more to hear
of him. The career of Lucius Cornelius Sulla was
over.

v

It was over in more senses than one. Sickness
was creeping over him, in no way fended off by
his habits. He had not at first noticed its approach,292	THE DEATH OF SULLA

but it revealed itself more and more. It was an
intestinal ulceration. Its symptoms, as related by
his biographer, are obscure ; but the probability
is that he was attacked by one of those internal
parasites which are known to modern medical
science, though beyond the control of the physicians
of his own day. He may have acquired it in Asia.
He was ordered a course of hot baths, without
result.

During this, his last year of life, he hunted,
occupied himself in reorganising the municipal
affairs of the neighbouring city of Puteoli—a task
which he took as seriously as the reorganisation of
Rome—an4 completed his autobiography, dedicated
to Lucius Lucullus, and finished only a few days
before his death. In it he mentioned that the
Chaldaeans (probably those who accompanied the
Parthian ambassador in the days of his Cilician
propraetorship) had foretold him a life of honour,
to conclude in the fullness of prosperity. ... It
may have been as well not to drag it out. . . .
He had apparently no regrets. And he said that
he had had a dream, in which he had seen his son
stand by him in mourning attire, bidding him cast
off further care and come with him to Metella,
to live in peace and comfort with her.

The day before his death, he heard that one
Granius, a public official of Puteoli, had, in the
expectation of his demise, declined to discharge a
public debt. Sulla was not dead yet, and the
news touched all his most violent prejudices. . . .
Disobedience !—dishonesty !—only waiting for him
to go. . . '. He had Granius summoned to his
presence, and strangled. But in the excitement
(for he seems to have spoken heatedly) he burst aHIS FUNERAL 78 B.C.	393

blood-vessel. He passed the night in acute pain,
and died probably towards morning.

He left behind him two children, Faustus and
Fausta, by Metella; and after his death Valeria
was delivered of a daughter.

When his will was read, it was noticed that
Pompeius was passed over in silence. Lucullus
was his executor, and the guardian of his children.
No word came across the grave to the Perfect
Aristocrat. But Pompeius had no ill-feeling. There
was a widespread movement to prevent Sulla re-
ceiving a public funeral: and when it was decided
(against the traditional usage of the Cornelian house)
to cremate the body, Lepidus intervened to stop
the deposition of the ashes in the Campus Martius.
Pompeius came in person to Campania, took charge
of the body, and conveyed it to Rome. All his
power and influence were employed to protect the
defenceless dead man who had been so powerful in life.
Even Lepidus could not interfere with Pompeius.
The women folk of the Optimates contributed the
funeral-spices for their party chief. Such vast
amounts were subscribed that in addition to what
was borne on two hundred and ten litters, a large
figure of Sulla, attended by a lictor (the mark of
the dictator), was made out of the frankincense
and cinnamon.

It was a dull, threatening day, and those in
charge were doubtful about carrying out the corpse.
At about three o'clock in the afternoon they at last
risked it, still fearing that rain would prevent the
ceremony. Sulla's body was borne on a golden
bier with royal splendour, preceded by horsemen
and trumpeters. The pall-bearers were senators.
His standards and fasces went before. The pro-294	THE DEATH OF SULLA

cession was enormous. Over two thousand golden
crowns were carried in it, the gifts of cities, legions,
or individual friends. All the guilds of priests and
priestesses followed ; the entire Senate ; the whole
body of magistrates ; a great number of equites in
regalia ; and all his veterans in their due legionary
ranks, bearing their full-dress golden ensigns and
silver-mounted shields. Young Faustus was not of
age to deliver the funeral oration, so the first public
speakers of the day accepted the office on his behalf.
The cheers of farewell were raised by the ranks in
order, beginning with the senators and ending with
the plebeians. The wind blew up the flame, and
the pyre burned splendidly ; everything was con-
sumed in good time, and the fire was dying to its
embers when at last the rain came and continued till
nightfall. ... So, as Plutarch says, his Fortune
continued with him to the last, and even officiated
at his funeral.

His monument was erected in the Campus
Martius, with the epitaph, composed by himself,
that no man had excelled him in doing a good
turn to his friends or a bad one to his foes.

i
iPL IV.

(jams ^Julias Cacsatr

ific portrait basf in du
^nfisfi^JvCuseum.CHAPTER XIII

THE DEATH OF SULLA'S WORLD
i

NO sooner was Sulla dead than all the powers
and forces which he had held in check
were once more set free. How powerful they were
we can see by the promptitude of their action.
The utmost that Sulla had done had not destroyed,
nor even seriously weakened them. But they were
forces that could not act directly ; they needed
a representative, and they could as then find none
better than Lepidus. The struggle was not a long
one. Before many months were out, Pompeius
was able to inform the Senate that the danger was
over. Lepidus was dead ; his armies were dis-
solved. Sulla's work had marked a period. To
undo what he had done, the equites would need to
find and finance a man greater than Lepidus ;
greater than Pompeius; perhaps greater than
Marius—if such a man could be found.

To understand the career of Sulla we must
continue the story a little further, and review the
processes by which his work was undermined and
destroyed. He had been right when he quoted
the Chaldaean prediction that he should die in the
fullness of prosperity. With his invariable good
fortune, that is what he had done. Had he lived,
it would have been to see his own failure develop

295296 THE DEATH OF SULLA'S WORLD

with an inevitable necessity out of the circumstances
he had left. For he had failed in the essential
task—the creation of a new aristocracy. He had
only restored an oligarchy, and there it was, without
difference or improvement. His real success lay
in the fact that he had dragged Rome by the short
hairs through the most dangerous series of crises she
had ever had to face : he had succeeded as a practical
statesman : he had at least left Rome pretty much
as he found it, instead of a silent city of ruins, fast
being forgotten : but he was destined to fail as a
creative idealist. . . . This is a habit Fortune
has. She is willing to help men to great practical
successes : but she reserves the task of creation for
herself.

The equites had reasons for anxiety which in-
creased with time. Stripped of all the advantages
and privileges which Gaius Gracchus had given
them, they were faced with conditions slipping
steadily from bad to worse. The old oligarchy
had been of angelic light and wisdom compared
with the new oligarchy which Sulla left behind
him. Beside the men of the new senatorial courts
who acquitted Gnaeus Dolabella, the men of the
old equestrian juries who condemned Publius
Rutilius Rufus might justly feel themselves patterns
of judicial virtue. The scandals of misgovernment
which began with the two Dolabellas found their
towering peak of iniquity in the notorious case of
Verres. Such misgovernment could not fail to
reflect itself in damage to commercial interests
which gave a sharper edge to opposition than
simple righteous indignation could have given.

There were several loose ends to Sulla's work
from any or all of which it might be unravelled.SERTORIUS IN SPAIN	297

He had left the east hardly pacified. Mithradates
was steadily rebuilding his power. The seas, after
half a generation of anarchy, were swarming with
organised piracy. It was still conceivable that Rome
might lose the east. And (complete though Sulla's
victory may have seemed) the most brilliant of all
the Populares was still defending the last ditch.
Quintus Sertorius, driven out of Italy, had taken
to a roving life, as a captain of what later ages would
have called Free Companions. After many remark-
able adventures, which may be read in Plutarch's,
life of him, he formed a government in Lusitania'
which he conducted with admirable ability and
success. For some eight years he held his ownj
against all the forces which the oligarchy could I
send against him. He had genius as a soldier J
and perhaps genius as a statesman, as we can see
by the interesting account which Plutarch gives
of the college he founded for the sons of Lusitanian
chiefs, an educational institution none the less real
because the youths were not only students but also
hostages for their parents' loyalty. . . . Quintus
Metellus Pius entirely failed to deal with Sertorius.

From the personal point of view, the career of
Sertorius in Spain was a romantic tragedy ending
in failure and death; but in its political aspect it
was a triumph of unconventional genius which
altered the course of history. The consequences
were incalculable. The Senate was compelled at
last, much against its will, to send Pompeius to
Spain with proconsular power. Even Pompeius
met his match in Sertorius. Mithradates seized'
the opportunity to re-open the war in the east.
On top of this the gladiators broke out of the
training school at Capua, elected a Thracian named298 THE DEATH OF SULLA'S WORLD

Spartacus as their leader, and planted war in the
midst of Italy itself.

Spartacus, the slave-Napoleon, is an illustration
of the danger and difficulty of dealing with the
European as a slave. Here, thrown up accidentally,
was a man of military genius at least equal to Ser-
torius, equal, for all we know, to Hannibal; for
Spartacus was never defeated in a strictly military
sense. For two whole years he defeated every
army which the oligarchy could raise. He could
have broken out of Italy and gone free to the wide,
if his men would have followed him. But Spartacus
illustrates another thesis also—the importance of
political, as distinct from military factors in war.
He fell because his slave army had not the close-knit
disciplinary construction of the Roman State.

When we disentangle the events of these years
between the death of Sulla and the rise of Caesar,
a number of interesting truths emerge. The Roman
State, when confronted by mere force, or external
danger, was still rigid enough and solid enough to
defy all assault. Her internal coherence resisted
the fourfold strain put upon it by Sertorius, Spar-
tacus, Mithradates, and the Cilician corsairs. It
was her own evolution, her own processes of internal
growth, that were the difficulty : over these, she
was constricted, crippled and strangled. She
blundered through to victory under circumstances
of the most scandalous nature, which shocked and
disgusted her best citizens, and convinced them that
vast changes were imperative.

The downfall of Sertorius was the first to come.
It demonstrated once more the inherent weakness
of the popular party—its inability to keep itself
proof against internal treachery : its lack of cohesion.FALL OF SERTORIUS	299

Sertorius was assassinated by members of his own
party, fellow-exiles who were jealous of him with
the feeble-minded jealousy of those who envy a
man they cannot replace, and whose work they
cannot do. When the conspirators promptly fell
into the hands of Pompeius and the lawful govern-
ment, Pompeius had a delicate problem to deal
with. They offered, as ransom for their lives, the
correspondence of Sertorius, containing many letters
completely incriminating a large number of im-
portant individuals in Italy. It is perfectly obvious
that the popular party was far from dead ; that the
movement against the oligarchy afterwards headed
by Caesar was already in being ; and that Sertorius
was a forerunner of Caesar, though an unlucky
one without " Caesar's fortune " either material or
spiritual.

Pompeius chose a course for which he deserves
every praise as a wise and right-minded man. He
burnt the correspondence unread and unrevealed,
on the ground that enough blood had been shed,
and that it was time to let ill alone. . . . Had
Pompeius been more short-sightedly prudent in a
partisan sense, he might have stamped out the
Caesarian revolution; but had he done so, he
might have stamped out Rome as well. Very little
margin, in the end, saved the Mediterranean
civilisation from dissolution into anarchy.

Another hint of importance is given us by the
circumstances of Sertorius's death and the revelation
it brought about. We can see that the precise
type of the Caesarian revolution—its militaristic
nature—arose naturally out of such facts as these.
It was impossible to make a water-tight party out
of the Populares save by means of military discipline.THE DEATH OF SULLA'S WORLD

The powerful pressure of interest kept the oligarchy
unfalteringly united. The Populares had no such
motives to bind them together. Caesar must have
seen in these years that the only possible solution
of the problem was to bind them in the strong
bonds of soldierly association : and there was no
other solution within the reach of a practical states-
man who must produce immediate results.

Pompeius returned from Spain in the following
year to find that as regards Spartacus, the oligarchy
had been driven to place itself in the hands of
Crassus as a sort of political liquidator in bankruptcy.
Crassus was excellently adapted for the task. Though
not a great soldier, he had precisely the faculties
required : he organised the war as if it had been
a bank or a business, and overwhelmed Spartacus
by mobilising against him the resources which
a civilised political State can command. When
Pompeius arrived, just in time to help in wiping
the servile army off the earth, both these old dis-
ciples of Sulla were in a changed mood. They had
begun to see matters from a different point of view.

They were not, as it happened, friends. A
third power, anonymous and indefinite, intervened
to make a link between them, while their armies
still stood intact. This third power seemed to
know the change in their minds; it seemed to
have the power of saying and doing the things which
would bring Crassus and Pompeius together ; it
seemed to possess the diplomatic ability to secure
for itself a price for its intervention.

n

Crassus and Pompeius held the consulship to-
gether for the ensuing official year. Their jointPOMPEIUS AND CRASSUS	301

power, once united with that of the anonymous
third factor, who controlled the electors of the old
party of the Populares, was sufficient to compel the
oligarchy. Besides the consulship, Pompeius re-
ceived a triumph, and Crassus an ovation; and
(judging by subsequent events) there may well
have been secret clauses to the agreement which
only time would reveal. In return the Populares
received their price. The Sullan constitution was.
abolished. Pompeius himself introduced the law
which sent the tribunes back to the Assembly
with all their old powers. The courts were once
more handed over (though not so absolutely as
before) to the equites. The tax-farming system
was revived: the censorship was restored. We
have no difficulty in perceiving whose interests
were served by these changes. ... The anony-
mous third power did more than this : it ushered
Crassus and Pompeius out of office again without
a breach: it sent Pompeius into retirement after-
wards, there to wait for events which should in due
time happen.

These were very strange proceedings, without
a parallel in Roman politics. Since when had the
Populares possessed these gifts of diplomacy ?
Since when, moreover, had they gained the power
of playing the intricate chess-play which from this
point began on the political board ? It started
from the position in Asia, where Lucullus was
carrying on a series of wonderful campaigns against
Mithradates. More than any other man, Lucullus
was the successor and the representative of Sulla.
But he had less political instinct than Sulla, and he
was being felt for by a foe more dangerous than
any that Sulla ever had to face.3oa THE DEATH OF SULLA'S WORLD

Lucullus, who could probably have survived any
military difficulties, could not survive the powerful
financial influences which were at work against him,
both in Asia and at Rome. The equites were in
power again. His last campaigns were wrecked
and rendered futile. After exploits which few
soldiers have ever surpassed, he began to stand
unaccountably in the position of a failure.

Ill

Two years after the eventful consulship of
Crassus and Pompeius, Gaius Julius Caesar stood
as a candidate for the quaestorship, his first official
post. His year of office was distinguished by a
remarkable episode. His aunt Julia, the widow of
Gaius Marius, died. She was one of the few
surviving links which connected that generation
with the world of Gaius Gracchus, and although
we know nothing of her personality or of the in-
fluence which she exercised, Caesar did not seem to
think the occasion meaningless. He himself not
only delivered the funeral oration—a much admired
one in its day—but he did something more signifi-
cant : he formally exhibited the ancestral images,
including that of the outlawed Marius. So popular
was this daring action that he could afford to ignore
the protests made against it.

He was away in Spain the following year, so
it would be difficult to bring home to him any
responsibility for the progress of the cabal against
Lucullus. The logic of events probably saved
him much trouble, both then and later. The
abolition of Sulla's constitution had been but a
preliminary to practical business. The equites meantLEX GABINIA 67 B.C.	303

to have Lucullus out of Asia. He was superseded 1
and replaced by a fresh commander. ... Mean-
while, under the government of the oligarchy the
Cilician corsairs had actually produced famine in
Rome itself, by intercepting the corn ships—a con-
summation that can hardly have been altogether
unexpected in some quarters. Ways and means
were ready. A tribune was put forward to propose
a measure of emergency. This, of course, was
perfectly in order ; but the measure of emergency
he proposed was a deep and carefully thought out
scheme which very few tribunes known to us had
the brains to produce on their own responsibility:
it was that Pompeius should be appointed with full
powers—carefully specified—for three years, to
take every necessary step required by the situation.
Pompeius was, in fact, made military dictator.

The price of corn dropped as soon as the emer-
gency law was passed. The success of Pompeius
against the corsairs was swift and complete. In
three months he did what the oligarchy had not
done in ten years. His treatment of his prisoners
was, as usual, humane and sensible. He settled
them in colonies in Asia Minor.

Caesar, meanwhile, continued his own course
with perfect calm: reflecting, it may be, on the
admirable example Pompeius had given to the
world of the superiority of a single, personal ruler
to a Senate, and reflecting, also, probably, on the

1 Publius Claudius Pulcher, the notorious " Clodius," after-
wards well known as one of Caesar's principal henchmen, was
in Asia with Lucullus, and actively intriguing against him.
The line taken by Clodius does not quite agree with Plutarch's
idea that his motive was merely personal resentment against
Lucullus.304 THE DEATH OF SULLA'S WORLD

denseness of the oligarchs whose only method of
expressing their political disagreement was to annoy
Pompeius. So convinced were the majority of
Romans as to the advantages of Pompeius's dictator-
ship that a new measure was passed, giving him
the command against Mithradates. Here too the
success of Pompeius was a striking illustration of the
advantages of a single, personal ruler. He took only
some three years to sweep Mithradates off the board
and to carry out a permanent resettlement of Asia.

Caesar regarded all these things with approval.
The absence of Pompeius gave him, perhaps,
additional scope. His aedileship was a rocket-
flight of brilliance, without regard for expense.1
When his own means gave out, he borrowed on
a vast scale which proves that no accommodating
loan from friends was in question : only the great
Roman financiers could have produced the money
Caesar spent like water. As aedile he had charge
of the public buildings of Rome. One morning
the statues and trophies of Marius stood again on
the Capitol, bright with colours and gold, with
inscriptions relating the victories of Marius over
the Cimbri and Teutones. All Rome rushed to
see them. As a test of public opinion, and an
open declaration of faith, it was successful. We
get an interesting glimpse of the change of feeling
that was spreading, when we read Plutarch's account
of the episode : the anger and indignation of some,
the tears of joy that arose in others ; the instant
general identification of Caesar as the only possible
person responsible for it; the impeachment of

1 Caesar was in debt 1,300 talents before his quaestorship.
The interesting question arises, on what did Caesar spend
this immense sum ?CONSPIRACY OF CATILINA

Caesar in the Senate by Catulus; Caesar's cool
and satisfactory defence. As well as a test and a
declaration, it was a reminder that the policy of
military dictatorship, which was showing its value
in the successes of Pompeius in the east, was far
better represented by the political tradition of'
Marius. The reminder was one that could be
conveyed without words.

Other policies and impulses, however, were at
work among the Populates. There are signs that
divisions existed in the secret counsels of the party.
It had never been intended that Pompeius, on his
return home, should continue to be a shining
example of either the virtues or the vices of mon-
archy : but the method of preventing it was not
yet clear. The dissensions were indicated by a
number of different projects, none of which had
the whole weight of the party behind it. There
was an attempt (the " Servilian Rogation ") to set
up a commission with supreme power, a board of
dictatorship. Caesar himself tried to get a personal
commission to settle affairs in Egypt. Neither of
these plans succeeded. A third section attempted
a revolution which became famous as the " Con-
spiracy of Catilina." It was betrayed. The very
mysterious circumstances of Catilina's conspiracy
may be considerably illuminated if we recollect a
few cardinal facts. Caesar was both connected
with the conspiracy and yet not one of the con-
spirators. He neither betrayed it nor endorsed it.
He endeavoured to prevent the illegal execution
of Catilina's accomplices. The truth was that they
were political allies of his own,1 of whose policy

1 Gaesar and Grassus supported the candidature of Gatilina
for the consulship. In prosecuting the Sullan agents who

8,F.	U306 THE DEATH OF SULLA'S WORLD

he disapproved. The oligarchy was allowed to
suppress the conspiracy on condition that it did
not drag in the rest of the party. Caesar probably
had good reason for his passivity. The execution
of the Catilinarian leaders swept the party clear
of an undesirable but powerful element and gave
Caesar absolute control: so that from this time
onward we know without question the identity of
the anonymous diplomatist who arranged the coali-
tion of Pompeius and Crassus, and we can guess
what policy inspired it. The mysterious " No. i "
of the Populates was- Caesar himself.

With Caesar in sole control, the party steadied
to a perfectly lucid policy. He could depend upon
the stupidity of the oligarchy, and its readiness
to insult and frustrate Pompeius. The return of
the latter was imminent. When he arrived, all
fell out as had been expected. The Senate refused
him the consulship; refused him land for his
troops ; refused to ratify his reorganisation of the
east. The Populates were aloof, until Pompeius
was driven to desperation. Then Caesar stepped
forward. The coalition was re-formed. Pompeius
was to receive all that he had asked from the Senate ;
through Crassus, the equites were promised a re-
duction of one-third in the purchase money they
had contracted to pay for the Asiatic taxes ; Caesar
was to have the consulship, and afterwards a gover-
norship for five years, where perhaps he could
recruit his shattered fortunes. The wealthy land
of Egypt was not mentioned. The governorship
was to be in the comparatively poor and barbarous

carried out the Proscription, Caesar allowed the escape of the
worst of them—Catilina. The only possible explanation is
obvious.CAESAR GOES TO GAUL	307

country of Gaul. This satisfied all the parties to
the coalition.

We know the result. The agreement was carried
out by the disciplined masses of Caesar's voters,
the soldiers of Pompeius, and the financial backing
of Crassus and his friends. Caesar left for the north,
there to begin the creation of the Caesarian army
which was a more splendid military machine than
even Sulla's, and that famous conquest of Gaul
which is the start of the history of western Europe.
He kept the organisation of the Populates firmly in
his own hands. Its leaders were his proteges—often
men whom he had rescued from ruin. He found
five years insufficient for the work. The triumvirate
was reconstructed ; his time of office extended to
ten years. Then came the death of Crassus, the
break with the oligarchy, the battle of Pharsalus,
the fall of Pompeius, the dictatorship of Caesar,
and his assassination at the hands of an oligarchic
conspiracy. ... If Sulla's be a strange and
remote age; if Marius be a name to us and
little more, the career of Caesar in Gaul, and
his death, are familiar and almost modern his-
tory.

In going to Gaul, Caesar was following a political
tradition. Marius had been praetor in Spain;
so was Caesar. Marius had made his military
fame in Gaul: so did Caesar. Like Marius,
Caesar was a " westerner," a man with faith in
Europe, or at any rate with his interests centred
upon it. When he crossed the Rubicon he was
leading the young, healthy, rising provinces of the
west to the rescue of the old, ruined and dying
Italy; and perhaps he knew it.308 THE DEATH OF SULLA'S WORLD

IV

The assassination of Caesar was a crisis, in the
most strict and solemn sense of the word. The two
Gracchi, Saturninus, Glaucia, Drusus—numberless
men, great and small—had fallen in the struggle,
and the world had, with agitation, pursued its way.
But it did not pursue its way after the fall of Caesar.
The oligarchy was at length at the judgment seat,
and it was condemned to political death. Octavianus
and Antonius were the judges, and half a million
marching, fighting, engineering Roman legionaries
were the jury which fought out and returned the
verdict.

And now, after many years, the movement begun
by Tiberius Gracchus reached its goal. He had
handed on the tradition to his brilliant and creative
brother, who handed it on to the rough, low-born
soldier who proved to be the greatest military genius
Rome ever produced ; and he, in turn, handed it
on to the keen, cold, lucid statesman who invented
a new type of monarchy to fit the ideal. From him
it passed to the first of the Roman emperors, who,
on the failures of many men of genius, erected a
power destined to be permanent. Augustus had
a genius which consisted largely in the absence of
all the gifts which men commonly associate with
genius. He saw all things in the sober, clear light
of perpetual afternoon. All his life he had the
qualities of a good chairman of committees. Under
the refreshing stream of his mere good sense the
Roman world revived. Other men had laid out
and planted that garden : he conducted its mainten-
ance. Its faults and beauties were not of his
making. He was not the architect of its grandeur
nor of its baseness.REVIEW OF SULLA'S WORK

309

V

We come now to review and judgment. Rome
had passed a political verdict adverse to Sulla. We
are bound to ask ourselves the reason, and to
consider how far it was justified.

The first and most obvious reason is, of course,
that which has already been given, namely, the
worthlessness of the oligarchy, and Sulla's failure
to find the aristocracy he desired : but this is too
vague and general a statement to be particularly
useful. Why was the oligarchy worthless ?—and
what was it that really prevented Sulla from reviving
aristocracy ? On what especial points—if at all—
did the methods of Caesar offer better results ?

The factor which made all the difference was
the purest Fortune : the character of Caesar. No
human contrivance could possibly have secured
that he should automatically, and merely by being
himself, solve the otherwise insoluble problem of
inventing the type of monarchy necessary to justify
the policy he inherited from his predecessors. He
was almost the last of the great Roman aristocrats.
If only one aristocrat were left, and he continued
spontaneously, effectively and without flinching to
act as an aristocrat—what would happen ? The
answer is, that he would become a monarch. There
is no avoiding this conclusion without altering the
meaning of the terms.

It was the peculiar virtue of Caesar that he
did act throughout in perfect consistence with his
own character. His power was not imaginary nor
accidental. He really did, by one means or another,
dominate all who came into contact with him ; he
really had the quiet unbending courage which is3io THE DEATH OF SULLA'S WORLD

never flurried nor frightened; he really had the
austere self-mastery which is the infallible index
to a man's power of mastering other men. To
these qualities (most of which Sulla had possessed
in at least equal measure) he really did add the dry
lucidity which sees things precisely as they are:
and therefore he never hesitated to face the truths
which Sulla had elected to ignore. Having to
choose between being a chief without a clan, and
making the world his household, he calmly chose
the latter course. As the last of the Roman fathers,
he set out to put his giant household in order, and to
command his multitudinous tribesmen for their good.

He was not quite sure what legal form his mon-
archy would take. Augustus had more to do with
the final determination of the details than Gaius
Julius ; but it was Gaius Julius who rough-hewed
the conceptions that were to be embodied in con-
stitutional forms : the ideal of a new type of ruler,
neither an oriental despot nor a mere magistrate,
but one who could accept the existence of the
political State, the " respublica," as a necessary
part of right human life, and could fulfil the function
of regulating it.

Once the preliminary difficulty of conceiving a
rational monarchy, suitable for a political State,
was overcome, Caesar was faced with the same
problem with which Sulla had sought to grapple,
namely, the necessity for a real unity of feeling and
outlook in those who represented the general
direction of the vast Roman State. A gentile aristoc-
racy, whose similarity is to a great degree one of
actual common descent, has this unity ready made
from within. The difficulty is (as Sulla found)
that once such an aristocracy degenerates or dwindlesTHE ARMY BECOMES A GUILD 311

it is impossible to recreate it artificially. There
is a further difficulty, that a gentile aristocracy,
being a natural product usually evolved in days
prior to the political state, is more or less alien to
the institutions of a community rapidly discarding
gentile links in favour of contract, agreement and
voluntary nexus. Caesar's solution of the problem
was to blend together the hints contained in the
policies of his predecessors—the goodwill of Tiberiusi]
with the personal monarchy of Gaius Gracchus and
the military professionalism created by Marius.

He removed political control altogether from the
oligarchy and from the Assembly of the People,
vesting it in a body of men distinct from either.
The fault inherent in the oligarchic system lay in
the fatal method by which it elected men into its
own ranks : and the existence of this method was
due to its neglect of the qualifications which made
for political strength. It could do nothing with
men like Sertorius on the one hand or Spartacus
on the other, but exterminate them; but every*
scoundrel with money could buy his way into its
ranks. The policy of Caesar was to make the
carriere ouverte aux talens through the army. In
the army every Sertorius, every Spartacus, had the
opening to his natural destiny. The army, therefore,
became something between an aristocracy and a
bureaucracy. It was not an aristocracy, since it
made no attempt to breed the type of man it wanted ;
it was not a bureaucracy, for it hedged its members
with rigid discipline^ It was a military order,'
whose chief held in his hands the political control
of the Roman dominion. The Populares had been
transformed from a political party into a military
guild.312 THE DEATH OF SULLA'S WORLD

By doing this, Caesar rendered all his ample
concessions to the equites absolutely delusive. The
political control was now beyond their power to
influence. Money would still talk, as it always
does, but that leverage which the great bankers
had exercised over the provincial governors was
rendered impossible. The governors became re-
sponsible to the emperor alone. The empire suc-
ceeded in asserting the absolute supremacy of the
political control over all other forms of dominion.

This result would have been impossible had it
not been very much to the benefit of the commercial
interests themselves. They had sought the Great
State, and the empire gave it to them. Under the
emperors of the second century—Trajan, Hadrian
and the Antonines—that Great State came to the
fullest degree of peace, happiness and prosperity
that it had enjoyed. It did not stop, nor begin
to decline, until it had reached the utmost limits
that the resources of the age allowed a single govern-
ment to deal with. Political power ended by out-
stripping economic power. Not until the age of
the steamship, the railroad and the telephone could
a larger political unit be made stable: and the
world had to wait until they were invented.

VI

But although Caesar was more successful in
stamping his ideas upon the world, were those
ideas inherently better than Sulla's ?—or, on the
other hand, were they no more than a substitute
to fill the gap left by the failure of better designs ?
Some of Caesar's policies might not have won their
way so readily but for the failure of Sulla's. And
in any case, let us remember that Caesar's methodsCHRISTIANITY NECESSARY	313

did bring about precisely the results which Sulla
tried to prevent: they did close the door finally
upon the political evolution of Rome; they did
end the era of individuality and liberty; they
did remove government from the hands of the
civil authorities, and hand it over to the soldier.

Caesar was justified in so far as he was indeed
compelled, as a statesman, to produce immediate
results ; but military discipline as a basis for social
conduct has this defect about it, that it is produced
by external pressure on character. It may usefully
mould character, and that is something. But
simply to mould character is not enough. Whence
is to come the character it moulds ? A power is
necessary which shall literally generate or create
action—inspire the being and the deeds of men from
within to a common associate end, without any
external force. This is beyond the power of any
statesman. For a man who is using the instruments
of ordinary government is to some extent bound
by them : he must not look too far ahead, or he
may ruin his own power for good: he plays the
short game of instant action and prompt results.
Another kind of man, and another kind of action,
is required for the long game which reaches far
forward and waits for its results : the religious
thinker and the institutes of faith.

Men do not rest permanently content with dis-
cipline alone, because it is not possible to cope with
the practical difficulties of life without some freedom
of action and range of individual discretion. While
they will, and do, sacrifice a great deal for the sake
of material prosperity, they are rightly told by some
inward spiritual faculty that freedom is more
precious, and even, ultimately, more profitable. All314 THE DEATH OF SULLA'S WORLD

inventiveness, all energy—practically all that makes
men materially wealthy—springs from this spiritual
freedom, as we can see by the growing paralysis
which falls upon them when they lose it. This
energy of mind and body is not overrated when we
call it holy. The dumb demand of the Roman
world was for one more thing, deeper and greater
than the gift of immediate organisation which
Caesar bestowed. Forty years after his death, it
came. It was not altogether an accident that the
empire and Christianity arrived in the Roman world
almost together. They were both of them answers
to an insistent problem: they supplied a demand
made with all the heart and soul of millions of
desperate and miserable human beings : the demand
for worldly order and for immortal hope.

Nevertheless, this is a criticism as well as an
explanation of the facts. Caesar's policy was so
inadequate to meet the full demands of the day
that a complementary movement was absolutely
necessary. And, moreover, that victory of the
political principle over the gentile principle which
was marked and illustrated by the success of Caesar
was equally shown in the organisation of the new
religion : it grew up, not as a priestly caste, Levitical
or Magian or Brahman, but as a Church, a separate
organised body of faithful whose mutual bond was
one of agreement, and whose members were similarly
drawn from every class and race without distinction.
Hence, there was from the first a divorce between
the two bodies. Christ and Caesar seemed to be
not merely distinct but even antagonistic. It takes
no great philosophic gift to perceive that this
antagonism is a questionable benefit. We have
not even yet completely resolved it. We are stillFAULTS OF SULLA	3x5

haunted by a dualism beyond our power to transcend.
The State with its material interests, the Church
with its spiritual interests, are obviously enough
both of them necessary to human well-being.
They are clearly intended to work to a common end ;
they are parts of some common whole which we
do not perfectly grasp. We see the advantages of
their separation. It is not easy to dispense with it;
it has so often been a benefit to civilisation that
one should have the power of exerting external
influence on the other. Both, at times, are liable
to demand an exclusive allegiance. . . . And yet,
for all that, we cannot be satisfied with it. The
dualism is a radical fault, though we may not be
able to see how it could be avoided. We are driven
to the belief that somehow, under some circum-
stances, in some way, these two things may yet be
one thing: human society is not meant to rest
permanently satisfied with less. . . . And therefore
Sulla is not to be ignored or despised.

He saw many things—some of them things far
more remote, more difficult, than he supposed
them to be. He had defects due to the mental
quality of the age he lived in ; other defects, personal
to himself; his vision proved to be out of per-
spective. But it was not an untrue vision. There
were inconsistencies in what he did ; cross-purposes
in the circumstances around him ; some things in
his world could not be right, because they were
posited wrongly to begin with. He looked too much
to the past, because the social unity there was nearer
than the social unity in front of him. But he did
hold it better that the determination of policy should
rest with the civil power rather than the military, and
be discovered by the consensus of men deliberating316 THE DEATH OF SULLA'S WORLD

in common, rather than by the edict of a princeps.
He did side with the conception of life in which
political, economic, and spiritual authority are
united in the same hands. If there is any fault
in such a conception, it is not its meanness, but its
seemingly impossible idealism. He came of a race
of men who had actually wielded such a unity of
power, so he did not grant its impossibility ; nor
are we able to declare, in the light of such a fact,
that it is impossible.

The truth may be that there are alternations
in the process of human history—periods of involu-
tion, when all the forces run towards unity, and
periods of evolution, when with unanimity they
depart from it. They were departing from it in
the age of Sulla. The creation of the Great State
involved the destruction of the old smaller unities,
and the building up (often very much on faith)
of vaster and much vaguer unities. Authority was
becoming dispersed ; the old solid faith was be-
coming broken up by the philosophers ; power
was beginning to have its seat outside the old
appointed bounds. Sulla fought in vain against
a tide which set irresistibly against him, and on
which he himself, sceptical, loose-living, uncon-
ventional, often drifted. ... It was impossible
to get outside the logic of events by which the
Roman aristocracy had levelled up to themselves
the successive subject classes. The centre of
authority and power was inevitably dispersed by
the natural development of the process. Hence,
an attempt to restore aristocracy was, in a way, an
attempt to undo the work of aristocracy. Aristoc-
racy could never, ex hypothesi, be restored until
the unity of the Great State was impaired, and itsFINIS	317

component parts had diverged and differentiated,
when the process of levelling-up would once more
become possible. Aristocracy may be defined as
a political process of uniting differentiated types.
As soon as the union is accomplished, its function
automatically ceases.

All these considerations suggest that the history
of Sulla and his times is a part of a process of
which we have not even yet seen the whole. Until
we have done so, there can be no final judgment of
his work. If this be the case, we must regard it as
indissolubly united with our own history—a stage
in the development of the life we see about us and
live in. However remote he may be, or seem, he
functions vividly in us. Rome was not on a side path
of human evolution, but on the great main highway.

We might deduce from all that has here been said
that, whether or not Sulla's real aims " failed,"
they were aims by no means doomed to ultimate
failure, nor foolishly held. He was right in suppos-
ing aristocracy to be important, though he could
neither save it nor restore it. He was right because,
being an aristocrat himself, he felt its virtues in
him ; wrong, because he too was grit of the grind-
stone, part of the logic of events, himself degenerate
together with the aristocracy he sprang from. The
Roman aristocracy created Rome. After it died out,
Rome continued to develop until the impulse given
it by the old aristocracy was spent; and then it
dissolved. Such is the tale of all civilisations
unless they can renew in some adequate shape the
force which originated them.INDEX

Adherbal, 91
Aemilia, 267-2569
Alexander the Great, 42

Empire of, 42,153
Antistia, 267-269
Antullius, 62

Apellicon the Teian, Library of,
237

Aquae Sextiae, Battle of, 123
Arausio, Battle of, 116
Archelaus, 189,192,193, 195,196,
199, 200, 201, 203, 204, 220,
! 221, 222, 224-228
Ardyaeans, 2H, 214, 216
Aristion, 189, 193, 194, 195, 226
Aristocracy, Roman, 44, 46-50,
68-70, 73-76
Definition of, 317
Aristocrat, The Perfect (see Pom-

peius Magnus)

Aristotle's works, 237
Asia, Province of, 59, 146, 149,
150, 152, 175-176, 223, 226,
232-234, 3°4> 306
Asiatic taxes, 59, 233, 274, 301,
306

Athens, Siege of, 29, 193-195
Augustus, 97, 308, 310

Baltic, 21, 114
Bellona, Temple of, 257
Bocchus, King of Mauretania,

101-110, 151, 157
Bonds of good behaviour (offered

by Sulla's army), 239
Britain, 19 et seq.

Brundusium, 170, 185, 239

Caecilia Metella, 39,179,193,288,
292

Caepio, Q. Servilius, 114-117,
148 f.n.

Caesar, Gaius Julius, 27, 240, 267,
269-271, 283, 299, 302-317
Lucius Julius (Consul), 165,
169,170, 214

Calliphon, 195
Cannae, Battle of, 52, 116
Caphis, 192
Capital Levy, 261, 266
Capua, 240, 249, 258
Carbo, Gn. Papirius (father), 92
(Son), 235, 243, 245, 248, 249,
251, 258, 281
Catilina, L. Sergius, 264,266, 305-
306

Cato, M. Porcius, the Younger, 271
Catulus, Q. Lutatius (father), 121,
122, 125-126, 127, 129, 130,
131, 138, 139, 214, 267
(Son), 271, 290
Censorinus, G. Marcius, 157
Chaeronea, 191

Battle of, 198-204
Christianity, 255, 313
Chrysogonus, 264
Cicero, M. Tullius, 86, 264
Cilicia, 152-156

Cimbri, 22, 92-93, 113-116, 125-
130

Cinna, L. Cornelius, 186, 208-213,

235, 241, 269
City State, 40-45, 164, 173-174.
272

Claudius, Appius, 55

Claudius Pulcher, P. (" Clodius "),

303

Concord, Temple of (Rome), 289
Corfinium ("Italia "), 164, 166
Cornelii, in Consulship, 27 &n.
Courts, Judicial, 58,115, 117, 141,
143, 148-150, 158-160, 185,
208, 274, 301
Crassus, Lucius Licinius, 148,158,
159, 248
Marcus Licinius, 240, 241, 244,
245, 249, 252, 265, 300, 301,
302, 306, 307

Delphi, 191-192, 209
Dentatus, M. Curius, 32 f.n.
Dictatorship, 5-8, 258, 287

318INDEX

319

Dorylaus, 220

Drusus, M. Livius (father), 61-62
(Son), 157-160, 165, 248, 272,
308

Dyrrachium, 189, 238

Empire, The, 308, 312
Equites, 58, 59, 76, 94, 114, 115,
117, 139, 141, 143, 144, 145,
149, 157, 164, 165, 170, 174,
177-185, 207-209, 233, 261-
264, 274-275, 296, 301-303,

304, 312

Europe, 19

European, The, 80-81, 298

Faustus and Fausta (Sulla's chil-
dren), 189, 293, 294
Fimbria, G. Flavius, 218, 222-224,

226, 227, 228, 230-232
Flaccus, M. Fulvius, 63

L. Valerius (Consul), 140, 218-

220, 222-223, 224 f.n.
L. Valerius (Interrex), 259
Flora the Courtesan, 32
Fortune, 29, 33, 39, 108, 153, 170,
179, 189, 190, 192, 194, 195,
197, 200, 204, 207, 217, 222,
238, 240, 241, 246, 248, 254,
255, 288, 294, 296
Temple of, 253
Franchise, 24, 60, 62, 75, 83, 140,
145, 147-148, 158-160, 163-
165, 168-170, 173, 178, 207-
209, 211, 217, 234, 239,
272-274

Freedman, The (Sulla's overhead

neighbour), 31
Frisians, 20-21

Gabinius, 200-203

Gaul, 22-23, 53, 90, 92-93, 99,

113-117, 121-125, 126, 307
Germany, 21

Glaucia, G. Servilius, 117, 140,

141, 143, 144
Gracchus, G. Sempronius, 31,
57-64, 65, 66, 82, 85, 115,
157, 287, 296, 302, 308
T. Sempronius, 55-57, 308
" Group, The," 148,150,151,158,
165, 248

Haliae, Fishermen of, 237
Hannibal, 51, 53, 169
Hiempsal, 91

Hortensius, 196, 198, 201, 203

" Italia " (see Corfinium)
Italy, a nation, 164

Jugurtha, 91, 93, 99-110, 118
Julia, Wife of Gaius Marius, 90,

302

Lamponius, 250
Lebadea, Oracle of, 199
Lepidus, M. Aemilius, 290, 293,
295

Lex Servilia, 115^ 117
Longinus, L. Cassius, 99
Lucullus, L. Licinius, 28,147,189,
190, 192, 196-198, 218, 219,
223, 228, 234, 292-293, 301-

303

M. Licinius, 245, 249
Lupus, P. Rutilius, 165, 166

Maecenas, C. Cilnius, 70
Marius, Gaius, 32, 85-90, 93, 94-
106, 113, 117-131, 133, 135-
147, 149, 152-153, 155, I57»
166-167, 170-171, 180, 181,

183,	207, 209, 210-216, 218,
224 f.n., 246, 266, 267, 277,
295, 302, 304, 305, 307, 308

Marius, Gaius, the Younger, 243,
245, 246, 247, 248, 251, 258
Gratidianus, M., 267
Marseilles, 23

Metella, Caecilia (see Caecilia)
Metellus (Dalmaticus) L. Cae-
cilius, 39, 88-89, 95, 179, 190
(Numidicus), Q. Caecilius, 93-
95,99,103, 139-140,142-143,
190

(Pius), Q. Caecilius, 185, 211,
212, 243, 244, 245, 248, 249,
262, 271, 297
Metrobius (the actor), 34
Midias, 195

Mithradates VI, King of Pontus,
146, 149, 154-156, 174-176,

184,	189-190, 193, 207, 217,
218, 219, 220, 223-230, 232,
275, 297, 298, 304

Monarchy, 82-83, 277-278, 308-
312

Murena, L. Licinius, 201-203,
234

Nero, emperor, 27, 28, 195
Nicopolis, lady, 33
Norbanus, Gaius, 117, 148 f.n.,
235, 240, 249330

INDEX

Octavius, Gaius (tribune), 56
Gnaeus (Consul), 186, 209-212,
214

Ofella, Q. Lucretius, 247, 251, 289
Oligarchy, 57, 68-70, 311
Opimian wine, 64, 287
Opimius, L., 62-64, 70
Ostia, 211—212

Parthia, 156

Peasantry, Roman, ruin of, 53, 54
To be restored by T. Gracchus,
56

Perpenna Vento, M., 281
Piraeus, burned by Sulla, 196
Pisa, 23-24

" Political/* defined, 41
Pompeius Magnus, Gn., 28, 32,
240-242, 244, 245, 259, 267-
269, 281-287, 289-290, 293,
295, 297, 299-307
Popular es, 134-135

Become a military guild, 311
Proscription, Marian, 212-216,
262 f.n.

Sullan, 261-267, 279-280

Rome, 23-26

Change in character, 164
Fall of the spiritual Rome, 254
History, 43-55
~ Roscius, Sextus (of Ameria),
264-265

Rufinus, P. Cornelius (ancestor of

Sulla), 32
Rufus, Q. Pompeius (Consul with
Sulla), 178, 180, 186
P. Rutilius, 93, 120, 136, 150-

152, 157, 248
P. Sulpicius, 177-183

Sacred Mount, Secession to, 46, 50
Sacriportus, Battle of, 245-247
Samnites, 32, 160, 166, 172-173,

207, 211, 248-253, 257
Samnium, 166, 173, 240, 259
Saturninus, L. Appuleius, 56, 117,

121, 140-144, 308
Satyr, discovered, 238

Scaurus, M. Aemilius, 150,158,165

M. Aurelius, 115
Scaevola, P. Mucius, 56, 57
Q. Mucius, 148, 150-152, 165,
214, 247

Scipio Asiaticus, Lucius Cornelius,

235, 240, 242-243
Scipio Nasica, P., 57, 64, 68, 70
Sertorius, Q., 116, 128, 210, 213,
216, 218, 235, 243, 297-299,
3ii

Servilian Rogation, 305
Servius Tullius, King, 44, 97
Slavery, 24, 77, 79-80, 298
Social War, 163-174, 177, 185
Spartacus, 298, 300, 311
State, The Great, 42, 76, 312

Rationalised, 43
Stepmother, Sulla's, 33
Strabo, Gn. Pompeius, 166, 170-

173, 185, 186, 211, 240, 241
Sulla, L. Cornelius (father), 33,224
Sulla, L. Cornelius (son), (the
Dictator), appearance, 27-29;
early poverty, 29-31 ; family,
26-27, 30-32 ; character,
34-39, 83-85 ; earlier mar-
riages, 35-36 ; his principles
inferred, 65-83, 277 ; love
of drama, 34-35 ; marriage to
Caecilia Metella, 179; |his
sincere affection for her, 180,
193, 288, 292 ; his cynical
humour, 185, 191-192, 200,
204, 263, 287, 289, 291;
criticism of his ideals, 315-
317; his own verdict on
himself, 255, 294

Taxiles, 196, 198, 199, 203
Telesinus, Pontius, 249-253, 257
Teutones, 113-116, 121, 123-125,
126, 127, 140

Valeria Messalla, 288-289, 292
Varian Tribunal, 165, 169, 275
Varius Hybrida, Q., 165, 169, 214
Vercellae, Battle of, 127-130, 138
Via Aurelia, 24, 212

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