No More Learning

Like Italy, most of the provinces adhered to the oligarchy
strange position
Cinna and Sulla.
Italy and the pro vinces in favour of the govern menl.
87.
if
it
a
a
it
it,
Measurel Sullm
O6.
11
CINNA AND SULLA BOOK 1v
—Sicily, Sardinia, the two Gauls, the two Spains. In Africa Quintus Metellus, who had fortunately escaped the mur derers, made an attempt to hold that province for the Optimates ; Marcus Crassus, the youngest son of the Publius Crassus who had perished in the Marian massacre, resorted to him from Spain, and reinforced him by a band which he had collected there. But on their quarrelling with each other they were obliged to yield to Gaius Fabius Hadrianus, the governor appointed by the revolutionary government. Asia was in the hands of Mithradates ; consequently the province of Macedonia, so far as it was in the power of Sulla, remained the only asylum of the exiled oligarchy. Sulla’s wife and children who had with difliculty escaped death, and not a few senators who had made their escape, sought refuge there, so that a sort of senate was soon formed at his head-quarters.
The government did not fail to issue decrees against the oligarchic proconsul. Sulla was deprived by the comitia of his command and of his other honours and dignities and outlawed, as was also the case with Metellus, Appius Claudius, and other refugees of note; his house in Rome was razed, his country estates were laid waste. But such proceedings did not settle the matter. Had Gaius Marius lived longer, he would doubtless have marched in person against Sulla to those fields whither the fevered visions of his death-bed drew him; the measures which the government took after his death have been stated already. Lucius Valerius Flaccus the younger,1 who after Marius’
1 Lucius Valerius Flaccus, whom the Fasti name as consul in 668, was 100. not the consul of 6 54, but a younger man of the same name, perhaps son of the preceding. For, first, the law which prohibited re-election to the 151. 81. consulship remained legally in full force from c. 603 (iii. 299) to 673, and
it is not probable that what was done in the case of Scipio Aemilianus and Marius was done also for Flaccus. Secondly, there is no mention any where, when either Flaccus is named, of a double consulship, not even where it was necessary as in Cic. pro Flace. 32, 77. Thirdly, the Lucius
85. Valerius Flaccus who was active in Rome in 669 as prime)r muztur and consequently of consular rank (Liv. 83), cannot have been the consul of
can. ix CINNA AND SULLA
73
death was invested with the consulship and the command
in the east (668), was neither soldier nor oflicer; Gaius 35, Fimbria who accompanied him was not without ability, but insubordinate; the army assigned to them was even in numbers three times weaker than the army of Sulla. Tidings successively arrived, that Flaccus, in order not to
be crushed by Sulla, had marched past him onward to Asia (668); that Fimbria had set him aside and installed himself 85, in his room (beg. of 669) ; that Sulla had concluded peace 85, with Mithradates (669-670). Hitherto Sulla had been 85-84. silent so far as the authorities ruling in the capital were concerned. Now a letter from him reached the senate, in which he reported the termination of the war and announced
his return to Italy; he stated that he would respect the
rights conferred on the new burgesses, and that, while
penal measures were inevitable, they would light not on the masses, but on the authors of the mischief. This announcement frightened Cinna out of his inaction: while he had hitherto taken no step against Sulla except the placing some men under arms and collecting a numberof vessels in the Adriatic, he now resolved to cross in all haste to Greece.
On the other hand Sulla’s letter, which in the circum- Attempt: stances might be called extremely moderate, awakened in 21:13:" the middle-party hopes of a peaceful adjustment. The
majority of the senate resolved, on the proposal of the
elder Flaccus, to set on foot an attempt at reconciliation, and with that view to summon Sulla to come under the guarantee of a safe-conduct to Italy, and to suggest to the
668, for the latter had already at that time departed for Asia and was 86.
probably already dead. The consul of 654, censor in 657, is the person whom Cicero (ad Att. viii. 3, 6) mentions among the consulars present in Rome in 667 ; he was in 669 beyond doubt the oldest of the old censors living and thus fitted to be prime)r . renalur; he was also the interrex and the magirter eyuitum of 672. On the other hand, the consul of 668, who perished at Nicomeclia (p. 47). was the father of the Lucius Flaccus defended by Cicero (pro Fla“. :5, 6r, comp. 23, 55. 32, 77).
100. 97. 87. 85. 82. 86.
74 CINNA AND SULLA BOOK XV
consuls Cinna and Carbo that they should suspend their preparations till the arrival of Sulla’s answer. Sulla did not absolutely reject the proposals. Of course he did not come in person, but he sent a message that he asked nothing but the restoration of the banished to their former status and the judicial punishment of the crimes that had been perpetrated, and moreover that he did not
security to be provided for himself, but proposed to bring it to those who were at home. His envoys found the state of things in Italy essentially altered. Cinna had, without concerning himself further about that decree of the senate, immediately after the termination of its sitting proceeded to the army and urged its embarkation. The summons to trust themselves to the sea at that unfavourable season of the year provoked among the already dissatisfied troops in the head-quarters at Ancona a mutiny, to which Cinna fell a victim (beg. of 670); whereupon his colleague Carbo found himself compelled to bring back the divisions that had already crossed and, abandoning the idea of taking up the war in Greece, to enter into winter-quarters in
Ariminum. But Sulla’s ofl‘ers met no better reception on that account; the senate rejected his proposals without even allowing the envoys to enter Rome, and enjoined him summarily to lay down arms. It was not the coterie of the Marians which primarily brought about this resolute attitude. That faction was obliged to abandon its hitherto usurped occupation of the supreme magistracy at the very time when it was of moment, and again to institute consular elections for the decisive year 67 r. The suffrages on this occasion were united not in favour of the former consul Carbo or of any of the able oflicers of the hitherto ruling clique, such as Quintus Sertorius or Gaius Marius the younger, but in favour of Lucius Scipio and Gaius Norbanus, two incapables, neither of whom knew how to fight and Scipio not even how to speak; the former of these recommended himself
desire
Death of Cinna. [84. Carbo and the new burgesses am against Sulla.
88.
can. u: CINNA AND SULLA
75
to the multitude only as the great-grandson of the conqueror of Antiochus, and the latter as a political opponent of the oligarchy (iii. 478). The Marians were not so much ab horred for their misdeeds as despised for their incapacity; but if the nation would have nothing to do with these, the great majority of it would have still less to do with Sulla and an oligarchic restoration. Earnest measures of self defence were contemplated. While Sulla crossed to Asia and induced such defection in the army of Fimbria that its leader fell by his own hand, the government in Italy
the further interval of a year granted to it by these steps of Sulla in energetic preparations; it is said that at Sulla’s landing 100,000 men, and afterwards even double that number of troops, were arrayed in arms against him.
Against this Italian force Sulla had nothing to place in the scale except his five legions, which, even including some contingents levied in Macedonia and the Pelo
employed
amounted to scarce 40,000 men. It is true that this army had been, during its seven years’ conflicts in Italy, Greece, and Asia, weaned from politics,
and adhered to its general—who pardoned everything in his soldiers, debauchery, brutality, even mutiny against their oflicers, required nothing but valour and fidelity towards their general, and set before them the prospect of the most extravagant rewards in the event of victory—with all that soldierly enthusiasm, which is the more powerful that the noblest and the meanest passions often combine to produce it in the same breast. The soldiers of Sulla voluntarily according to the Roman custom swore mutual oaths that they would stand firmly by each other, and each voluntarily brought to the general his savings as a contribu tion to the costs of the war. But considerable as was the weight of this solid and select body of troops in comparison with the masses of the enemy, Sulla saw very well that Italy
ponnesus, probably
Dificult position of Sulla.
His mode ration.
could not be subdued with five legions if it remained united in resolute resistance. To settle accounts with the popular party and their incapable autocrats would not have been difficult; but he saw opposed to him and united with that party the whole mass of those who desired no oligarchic restoration with its terrors, and above all the whole body of new burgesses—both those who had been withheld by the Julian law from taking part in the insur rection, and those whose revolt a few years before had brought Rome to the brink of ruin.
Sulla fully surveyed the situation of affairs, and was far removed from the blind exasperation and the obstinate rigour which characterized the majority of his party. While the edifice of the state was in flames, while his friends were being murdered, his houses destroyed, his family driven into exile, he had remained undisturbed at his post till the public foe was conquered and the Roman frontier was secured. He now treated Italian affairs in the same spirit of patriotic and judicious moderation, and did whatever he could to pacify the moderate party and the new burgesses, and to prevent the civil war from assuming the far more dangerous form of a fresh war between the Old Romans and the Italian allies. The first letter which Sulla addressed to the senate had asked nothing but what was right and just, and had expressly disclaimed a reign of terror. In harmony with its terms, he now presented the prospect of unconditional pardon to all those who should even now break off from the revolutionary govern ment, and caused his soldiers man by man to swear that they would meet the Italians thoroughly as friends and fellow-citizens. The most binding declarations secured to the new burgesses the political rights which they had acquired; so that Carbo, for that reason, wished hostages to be furnished to him by every civic community in Italy, but the proposal broke down under general indignation
16
CINNA AND SULLA BOOK IV
CHAP. Ix CINNA AND SULLA
77
and under the opposition of the senate. The chief difli- culty in the position of Sulla really consisted in the fact, that in consequence of the faithlessness and perfidy which prevailed the new burgesses had every reason, if not to. suspect his personal designs, to doubt at any rate whether he would be able to induce his party to keep their word after the victory.
In the spring of 671 Sulla landed with his legions in Sulla [88. the port of Brundisium. The senate, on receiving the lands in
Italy, news, declared the commonwealth in danger, and com
mitted to the consuls unlimited powers; but these incapable leaders had not looked before them, and were surprised by a landing which had nevertheless been foreseen for years. The army was still at Ariminum, the ports were not garri soned, and—what is almost incredible—there was not a man under arms at all along the whole south-eastern coast. The consequences were soon apparent. Brundisium itself, a considerable community of new burgesses, at once opened its gates without resistance to the oligarchic general, and all Messapia and Apulia followed its example. The army marched through these regions as through a friendly country, and mindful of its oath uniformly maintained the strictest discipline. From all sides the scattered remnant of the Optimate party flocked to the camp of Sulla.
and is reinforced by parti sans and deserters.
Quintus Metellus came from the mountain ravines of Liguria,
whither he had made his escape from Africa, and resumed, as colleague of Sulla, the proconsular command committed to him in 667 (iii. 547), and withdrawn from him by the revolution. Marcus Crassus in like manner appeared from Africa with a small band of armed men. Most of the Optimates, indeed, came as emigrants of quality with great pretensions and small desire for fighting, so that they had to listen to bitter language from Sulla himself regarding the noble lords who wished to have themselves preserved for the good of the state and could not even be brought to
87.
78
CINNA AND SULLA BOOK IV
arm their slaves. It was of more importance, that deserters already made their appearance from the democratic camp --for instance, the refined and respected Lucius Philippus, who was, along with one or two notoriously incapable persons, the only consular that had come to terms with the revolutionary government and accepted oflices under
He met with the most gracious reception from Sulla, and obtained the honourable and easy charge of occupying for him the province of Sardinia. Quintus Lucretius Ofella and other serviceable oflicers were likewise received and
at once employed; even Publius Cethegus, one of the senators banished after the Sulpician émeute by Sulla, obtained pardon and position in the army.
“Still more important than these individual accessions was‘the gain of the district of Picenum, which was sub
stantially due to the son of Strabo, the young Gnaeus Pompeius. The latter, like his father originally no ad herent of the oligarchy, had acknowledged the revolutionary
government and even taken service in Cinna’s army; but in his case the fact was not forgotten, that his father had borne arms against the revolution; he found himself assailed in various forms and even threatened with the loss of his very considerable wealth an indictment charging him to give up the booty which was, or was alleged to have been, embezzled by his father after the‘ capture of Asculumlljl‘he protection of the consul Carbo, who was personally attached to him, still more than the eloquence of the consular Lucius Philippus and of the young Quintus Hortensius, averted from him financial ruin; but the dissatisfaction remained. On the news of Sulla’s landing he went to Picenum, where he had extensive possessions and the best municipal connections derived from his father and the Social war, and set up the standard of the Optimate party in Auximum
(Osirno). The district, which was mostly inhabited by old burgesses,
by
a
it.
can. 1x CINNA AND SULLA
79
joined him; the young men, many of whom had served with him under his father, readily ranged themselves under the courageous leader who, not yet twenty-three years of age, was as much soldier as general, sprang to the front of his cavalry in combat, and vigorously assailed the enemy along with them. The corps of Picenian volunteers soon grew to three legions; divisions under Cloelius, Gaius
Carrinas, Lucius Iunius Brutus Damasippus,1 were de spatched from the capital to put down the Picenian insurrection, but the extemporized general, dexterously taking advantage of the dissensions that arose among them, had the skill to evade them or to beat them in detail and to effect his junction with the main army of Sulla, apparently in Apulia. Sulla saluted him as imperator, that
as an oflicer commanding in his own name and not subordinate but co-ordinate, and distinguished the youth by marks of honour such as he showed to none of his noble clients—presumably not without the collateral design of thereby administering an indirect rebuke to the lack of energetic character among his own partisans.
Reinforced thus considerably both in moral and
material point of view, Sulla and Metellus marched from
Apulia through the still insurgent Samnite districts towards
Campania. The main force of the enemy also proceeded and Scipio. thither, and seemed as the matter could not but there
be brought to decision. The army of the consul Gaius
Norbanus was already at Capua, where the new colony had just established itself with all democratic pomp; the second consular army was likewise advancing along the Appian
road. But, before arrived, Sulla was in front of Norbanus.
A last attempt at mediation, which Sulla made, led only Sulla gains to the arrest of his envoys. With fresh indignation his a victory
Norbanus
We can only suppose this to be the Brutus referred to, since Marcus at Mount Brutus the father of the so-called Liberator was tribune of the people in Tifata. 67:, and therefore could not command in the field.
Sulla In Campanln opposed by Norbanul
over
1
is,
it
if
it a
a
Detection 13? ").
8o CINNA AND SULLA soox IV
veteran troops threw themselves on the enemy; their vehement charge down from Mount Tifata at the first onset broke the enemy drawn up in the plain; with the remnant of his force Norbanus threw himself into the revolutionary colony of Capua and -the new-burgess town of Neapolis, and allowed himself to be blockaded there. Sulla’s troops, hitherto not without apprehension as they compared their weak numbers with the masses of the enemy, had by this victory gained a full conviction of their military superiority; instead of pausing to besiege the remains of the defeated army, Sulla left the towns where they took shelter to be invested, and advanced along the Appian highway against Teanum, where Scipio was posted. To him also, before beginning battle, he made fresh proposals for peace; apparently in good earnest. Scipio, weak as he was, entered into them; an armistice was concluded; between Cales and Teanum the two generals, both members of the same noble gem, both men of culture and refinement and for many years colleagues in the senate, met in personal conference ; they entered upon the several questions; they had already made such progress, that Scipio despatched a messenger to Capua to procure the opinion of his colleague. Meanwhile the soldiers of the two camps mingled; the Sullans, copiously furnished with money by their general, had no great difliculty in
the recruits—not too eager for warfare-over their cups that it was better to have them as comrades than as foes; in vain Sertorius warned the general to put a stop to this dangerous intercourse. The agreement, which had seemed so near, was not effected; it was Scipio who denounced the armistice. But Sulla maintained that it was too late and that the agreement had been already concluded; whereupon Scipio’s soldiers, under the pretext that their general had wrongfully denounced the armistice, passed over en name to the rafis of the enemy. The
persuading
can. 1x CINNA AND SULLA 5 8|
scene closed with an universal embracing, at which the commanding oflicers of the revolutionary army had to look on. Sulla gave orders that the consul should be summoned to resign his office—which he did-—-and should along with his staff be escorted by his cavalry to whatever point they desired; but Scipio was hardly set at liberty when he resumed the insignia of his dignity and began afresh to collect troops, without however executing anything further of moment. Sulla and Metellus took up winter-quarters in Campania and, after the failure of a second attempt to come to terms with Norbanus, maintained the blockade of Capua during the winter.
The results of the first campaign in favour of Sulla were Prepare the submission of Apulia, Picenum, and Campania, the dis- 2232,05“ solution of the one, and the vanquishing and blockading of
the other, consular army. The Italian communities, com
pelled severally to choose between their twofold oppressors,
in numerous instances entered into negotiations with him, and caused the political rights, which had been won from the opposition party, to be guaranteed to them by formal separate treaties on the part of the general of the
already
Sulla cherished the distinct expectation, and intentionally made boast of that he would overthrow the revolutionary government in the next campaign and again march into Rome.
But despair seemed to furnish the revolution with fresh energies. The consulship was committed to two of its most decided leaders, to Carbo for the third time and to Gaius Marius the younger; the circumstance that the latter, wh: was just twenty years of age, could not legally be invested with the consulship, was as little heeded as any other point of the constitution. Quintus Sertorius, who in this and other matters proved an inconvenient critic, was ordered to proceed to Etruria with view to procure new levies, and thence to his province Hither Spain. To
you. rv r06
oligarchy.
a
it,
8a CINNA AND SULLA BOOK iv
replenish the treasury, the senate was obliged to decree the melting down of the gold and silver vessels of the temples in the capital; how considerable the produce was, is clear from the fact that after several months’ warfare there was still on hand nearly £600,000 (14,000 pounds of gold and 6000 pounds of silver). In the considerable portion of Italy, which still voluntarily or under compulsion adhered to the revolution, warlike preparations were prosecuted with vigour. Newly-formed divisions of some strength came from Etruria, where the communities of new burgesses were very numerous, and from the region of the P0. The veterans of Marius in great numbers ranged themselves under the standards at the call of his son. But nowhere were preparations made for the struggle against Sulla with such eagerness as in the insurgent Samnium and some districts of Lucania. It was owing to anything but devotion towards the revolutionary Roman government, that numerous contingents from the Oscan districts rein forced their armies; but it was well understood there that an oligarchy restored by Sulla would not acquiesce, like the lax Cinnan government, in the independence of these lands as now de facto subsisting; and therefore the primitive rivalry between the Sabellians and the Latins was roused afresh in the struggle against Sulla. For Samnium and Latium this war was as much a national struggle as the wars of the fifth century; they strove not for a greater or less amount of political rights, but for the purpose of appeasing long-suppressed hate by the annihilation of their antagonist. It was no wonder, therefore, that the war in
‘this region bore a character altogether different from the ‘conflicts elsewhere, that no compromise was attempted 'there, that no quarter was given or taken, and that the
’pursuit was continued to the very uttermost.
Thus the campaign of 672 was begun on both sides
‘2. ,
with augmented military resources and increased animosity.
can. lx CINNA AND SULLA
83
The revolution in particular threw away the scabbard: at the suggestion of Carbo the Roman comitia outlawed all the senators that should be found in Sulla’s camp. Sulla was silent ; he probably thought that they were pronouncing sentence beforehand on themselves.
The army of the Optimates was divided. The pro Sulla pro
consul Metellus undertook, resting on the support of the ceeds to Latium to
Picenian insurrection, to advance to Upper Italy, while oppose the Sulla marched from Campania straight against the capital. younger
Marius. Carbo threw himself in the way of the former; Marius
would encounter the main army of the enemy in Latium. Advancing along the Via Latina, Sulla fell in with the enemy not far from Signia; they retired before him as far as the so-called “Port of Sacer,” between Signia and the chief stronghold of the Marians, the strong Praeneste.
There Marius drew up his force for battle. His army was His victory
about 40,000 strong, and he was in savage fury and personal bravery the true son of his father ; but his troops were not the well-trained bands with which the latter had fought his battles, and still less might this inexperienced young man bear comparison with the old master of war.
His troops soon gave way; the defection of a division even during the battle accelerated the defeat. More than the half of the Marians were dead or prisoners; the remnant, unable either to keep the field or to gain the other bank of the Tiber, was compelled to seek protection in the neighbouring fortresses ; the capital, which they had neglected to provision, was irrecoverably lost. In con sequence of this Marius gave orders to Lucius Brutus
Damasippus, the praetor commanding there, to evacuate but before doing so to put to death all the esteemed
men, hitherto spared, of the opposite party. This in junction, by which the son even outdid the proscriptions of his father, was carried into effect; Damasippus made a pretext for convoking the senate, and the marked men
at Sacri portus.
Demo cratic massacre: in Rome.
it,
Siege of Pneneste.
Occupation of Rome.
were struck down partly in the sitting itself, partly on their flight from the senate-house. Notwithstanding the thorough clearance previously effected, there were still found several victims of note. Such were the former aedile Publius Antistius, the father-in-law of Gnaeus Pompeius, and the former praetor Gaius Carbo, son of the well-known friend and subsequent opponent of the Gracchi (iii. 37:), since the death of so many men of more distinguished talent the two best orators in the judicial courts of the desolated Forum ; the consular Lucius Domitius, and above all the venerable pontzfizx maximur Quintus Scaevola, who had escaped the dagger of Fimbria only to bleed to death during these last throes of the revolution in the vestibule of the temple of Vesta entrusted to his guardianship. With speech less horror the multitude saw the corpses of these last victims of the reign of terror dragged through the streets, and thrown into the river.
The broken bands of Marius threw themselves into the
neighbouring and strong cities of new burgesses Norba and Praeneste : Marius in person with the treasure and the greater part of the fugitives entered the latter. Sulla left an able oflicer, Quintus Ofella, before Praeneste just as he had done in the previous year before Capua, with instructions not to expend his strength in the siege of the strong town, but to enclose it with an extended line of blockade and starve it into surrender. He himself advanced from different sides upon the capital, which as well as the whole surrounding district he found abandoned by the enemy, and occupied without resistance. He barely took time to compose the minds of the people by an address and to make the most necessary arrangements, and im mediately passed on to Etruria, that in concert with Metellus he might dislodge his antagonists from Northern
Italy.
Metellus had meanwhile encountered and defeated
l4
CINNA AND SULLA BOOK IV
CHAP. XX CINNA AND SULLA
85
Carbo’s lieutenant Carrinas at the river Aesis (Esino between Ancona and Sinigaglia), which separated the district of Picenum from the Gallic province ; when Carbo in person came up with his superior army, Metellus had been obliged to abstain from any farther advance. But on the news of the battle at Sacriportus, Carbo, anxious about his communications, had retreated to the Flaminian road, with a view to take up his headquarters at the meeting point of Ariminum, and. from that point to hold the passes of the Apennines on the one hand and the valley of the Po on the other. In this retrograde movement different divisions fell into the hands of the enemy, and not only
Metellus against Carbo in Northern Italy.
so, but Sena Gallica was stormed andliflarbo’s rearguard Carbo
l \
was broken in a brilliant cavalry engagement by nevertheless Carbo attained on the whole his object. T e consular Norbanus took the command in the valley of the Po; Carbo himself proceeded to Etruria. But the march of Sulla with his victorious legions to Etruria altered the position of affairs; soon three Sullan armies from Gaul, Umbria, and Rome established ‘communications with each other. Metellus with the fleet went 'past. Ariminum to Ravenna, and at Faventia cut off the communication between Ariminum and the valley of the Po, into which he sent forward a division along the great road to Placentia under Marcus Lucullus, the quaestor of Sulla and brother of his admiral in the Mithradatic war. The young Pompeius and his contemporary and rival Crassus penetrated from
Picenum by mountaimpaths into Umbria and gained the Flaminian road at Spoletium, where they defeated Carbo’s legate Carrinas and shut him up in the town; he succeeded, however, in escaping from it on a rainy night and making his way, though not without loss, to the army of Carbo. Sulla himself marched from Rome into Etruria with his army in two divisions, one of which advancing along the coast defeated the corps opposed to it at Saturnia (between
assailed on three sides of Etruria.
Pompeité?
Conflicts about Praeneste.
checked.
In the vicinity of Rome also events appeared to assume
a more favourable turn for the revolutionary party, and the war seemed as if it would again be drawn chiefly towards this region. For, while the oligarchic party were concen trating all their energies on Etruria, the democracy every where put forth the utmost efforts to break the blockade of Praeneste. Even the governor of Sicily Marcus Perpenna set out for that purpose ; it does not appear, however, that he reached Praeneste. Nor was the very considerable corps under Marcius, detached by Carbo, more successful in this ; assailed and defeated by the troops of the enemy which were at Spoletium, demoralized by disorder, want of supplies, and mutiny, one portion went back to Carbo, another to Ariminum; the rest dispersed. Help in earnest on the other hand came from Southern Italy. There the Samnites under Pontius of Telesia, and the Lucanians under their experienced general Marcus Lamponius, set out without its
86 CINNA AND SULLA
IOOK rv
the rivers Ombrone and Albegna) ; the second led by Sulla in person fell in with the army of Carbo in the valley of the Clanis, and sustained a successful conflict with his Spanish cavalry. But the pitched battle which was fought between Carbo and Sulla in the region of Chiusi, although it ended without being properly decisive, was so far at any rate in favour of Carbo that Sulla’s victorious
being possible Campania
behind a corps against Carbo, returned to Latium and took up a well-chosen position in the defiles in front of Praeneste, where he barred the route of the In vain the garrison attempted to break
himself, leaving
relieving army. 1
1 It a stated, that Sulla occupied the defile by which alone Praenate was accessible (App. 1, 9o) ; and the further events showed that the road
advance was
to prevent their departure, were joined in where Capua still held out by a division of the garrison under Gutta, and thus to the number, it was said, of 70,000 marched upon Praeneste.
Thereupon Sulla
can. rx CINNA AND SULLA
37
through the lines of Ofella, in vain the relieving army
to dislodge Sulla ; both remained immoveable in their strong positions, even after Damasippus, sent by Carbo, had reinforced the relieving army with two legions.
attempted
But while the war stood still in Etruria and in Latium, matters came to a decision in the valley of the Po. There
the general of the democracy, Gaius Norbanus, had hitherto Upper maintained the upper hand, had attacked Marcus Lucullus Italy. the legate of Metellus with superior force and compelled
him to shut himself up in Placentia, and had at length
turned against Metellus in person. He encountered the
latter at Faventia, and immediately made his attack late in
the afternoon with his troops fatigued by their march; the consequence was a complete defeat and the total breaking
up of his corps, of which only about 1000 men returned to Etruria. On the news of this battle Lucullus sallied from Placentia, and defeated the division left behind to oppose
him at Fidentia (between Piacenza and Parma). The Lucanian troops of Albinovanus deserted in a body : their
leader made up for his hesitation at first by inviting the
chief oflicers of the revolutionary army to banquet with
him and causing them to be put to death; in general
every one, who at all could, now concluded his peace. Ariminum with all its stores and treasures fell into the
power of Metellus ; Norbanus embarked for Rhodes; the
whole land between the Alps and Apennines acknowledged
the government of the Optimates. The troops hitherto Etrurla
employed
Etruria, the last province where their antagonists still kept Sullans. the field. When Carbo received this news in the camp
to Rome was open to him as well as to the relieving army. Beyond doubt Sulla posted himself on the cross road which turns off from the Via Latina, along which the Samnites advanced, at Valmontone towards Palestrina ; in this case Sulla communicated with the capital by the
Praenestine, and the enemy by the Latin or Labican, road
Successes of the Sullans in
there were enabled to turn to the attack of occupied by the
The Samnites and democrats attack Rome.
B8 CINNA AND SULLA BOOK IV
at Clusium, he lost his self-command; although he had still a considerable body of troops under his orders, he secretly escaped from his headquarters and embarked for Africa. Part of his abandoned troops followed the
which their general had set, and went home; part of them were destroyed by Pompeius : Carrinas gathered together the remainder and led them to Latium to join the army of Praeneste. There no change had in the meanwhile taken place; and the final decision drew nigh. The troops of Carrinas were not numerous enough to shake Sulla’s position; the vanguard of the army of the oligarchic party, hitherto employed in Etruria, was approaching under Pompeius ; in a'few days the net would be drawn tight around the army of the democrats and the Samnites.
Its leaders then determined to desist from the relief of Praeneste and to throw themselves with all their united strength on Rome, which was only a good day’s march distant. By so doing they were, in a military point of view, ruined; their line of retreat, the Latin road, would by such a movement fall into Sulla’s hands; and, even if they got possession of Rome, they would be infallibly crushed there, enclosed within a city by no means fitted for defence, and wedged in between the far superior armies of Metellus and
Sulla. Safety, however, was no longer thought of; revenge alone dictated this march to Rome, the last outbreak of fury in the passionate revolutionists and especially in the despair ing Sabellian nation. Pontius of Telesia was in earnest, when he called out to his followers that, in order to get rid of the wolves which had robbed Italy of freedom, the forest in which they harboured must be destroyed. Never was Rome in a more fearful peril than on the rst November
example
82. 672, when Pontius, Lamponius, Carrinas, Damasippus ad- vanced along the Latin road towards Rome, and encamped about a mile from the Colline gate. It was threatened with
CHAP. IX ClNNA AND SULLA
89
a day like the zoth July 365 u. c. or the 15th June 455 889. A. D. —tl16 days of the Celts and the Vandals. The time
was gone by when a coup de main against Rome was a foolish enterprise, and the assailants could have no want of connections in the capital. The band of volunteers which sallied from the city, mostly youths of quality, was scattered
like chaff before the immense superiority of force. The
only hope of safety rested on Sulla. The latter, on receiv Battle at
ing accounts of the departure of the Samnite army in the direction of Rome, had likewise set out in all haste to the assistance of the capital. The appearance of his foremost horsemen under Balbus in the course of the morning revived the sinking courage of the citizens; about midday he appeared in person with his main force, and immediately drew up his ranks for battle at the temple of the Erycine Aphrodite before the Colline gate (not far from Porta Pia). His lieutenants adjured him not to send the troops exhausted
‘by the forced march at once into action; but Sulla took into consideration what the night might bring on Rome, and, late as it was in the afternoon, ordered the attack. The battle was obstinately contested and bloody. The left wing of Sulla, which he led in person, gave way as far as the city wall, so that it became necessary to close the city gates; stragglers even brought accounts to Ofella that the battle was lost. But on the right wing Marcus Crassus overthrew the enemy and pursued him as far as Antemnae ; this somewhat relieved the left wing also, and an hour after sunset it in turn began to advance. The fight continued the whole night and even on the following morning; it was only the defection of a division of 3000 men, who immedi ately turned their arms against their former comrades, that put an end to the struggle. Rome was saved. The arm) of the insurgents, for which there was no retreat, was completely
the Colline
gate.
extirpated.
The prisoners taken in the battle—between Slaughter
3000 and 4000 in number, including the generals Dama- of the prisoners.
Slegu. "t Praeneste.
sippus, Carrinas, and the severely-wounded Pontius--were by Sulla’s orders on the third day after the battle brought to the Villa Publica in the Campus Martius and there massacred to the last man, so that the clatter of arms and the groans of the dying were distinctly heard in the neighbouring temple of Bellona, where Sulla was just holding a meeting of the senate. It was a ghastly execu tion, and it ought not to be excused ; but it is not right to forget that those very men who perished there had fallen like a band of robbers on the capital and the burgesses, and, had they found time, would have destroyed them as far as
fire and sword can destroy a city and its citizens.
With this battle the war was, in the main, at an end. The garrison of Praeneste surrendered, when it learned the issue of the battle of Rome from the heads of Carrinas and
other oflicers thrown over the walls. The leaders, the con sul Gaius Marius and the son of Pontius, after having failed in an attempt to escape, fell on each other’s swords. The multitude cherished the hope, in which it was confirmed by Cethegus, that the victor would even now have mercy upon them. But the times of mercy were past. The more un conditionally Sulla had up to the last moment granted full pardon to those who came over to him, the more inexorable he showed himself toward the leaders and communities that had held out to the end. Of the Praenestine prisoners, 12,000 in number, most of the Romans and individual Praenestines as well as the women and children were re leased, but the Roman senators, almost all the Praenestines and the whole of the Samnites, were disarmed and cut to pieces; and the rich city was given up to pillage. It was natural that, after such an occurrence, the cities of new bur gesses which had not yet passed over should continue their resistance with the utmost obstinacy. In the Latin town of Norba for instance, when Aemilius Lepidus got into it by treason, the citizens killed each other and set fire them
90
CINNA AND SULLA BOOK W
Norba.
can. ix CINNA AND SULLA
9r
selves to their town, solely in order to deprive their execu
tioners of vengeance and of booty. In Lower Italy Neapolis
had already been taken by assault, and Capua had, as it would seem, been voluntarily surrendered; but Nola was‘ Noll. only evacuated by the Samnites in 674. On his flight from $0. Nola the last surviving leader of note among the Italians,
the consul of the insurgents in the hopeful year 664, 90. Gaius Papius Mutilus, disowned by his wife to whom he had stolen in disguise and with whom he had hoped to find
an asylum, fell on his sword in Teanum before the door of his own house. As to the Samnites, the dictator declared that Rome would have no rest so long as Samnium existed, and that the Samnite name must therefore be extirpated from the earth; and, as he verified these words in terrible fashion on the prisoners taken before Rome and in Prae neste, so he appears to have also undertaken a raid for the purpose of laying waste the country, to have captured Aesernia1 (674 and to have converted that hitherto flou- 80. rishing and populous region into the desert which has since remained. In the same manner Tuder in Umbria was stormed by Marcus Crassus. A longer resistance was offered in Etruria by Populonium and above all by the im pregnable Volaterrae, which gathered out of the remains of the beaten party an army of four legions, and stood two years’ siege conducted first by Sulla in person and then by
the former praetor Gaius Carbo, the brother of the demo cratic consul, till at length in the third year after the battle
at the Colline gate (675) the garrison capitulated on 79. condition of free departure. But in this terrible time neither military law nor military discipline was regarded the soldiers raised cry of treason and stoned their too com pliant general; troop of horse sent by the Roman govern ment cut down the garrison as withdrew terms of the
Hardly any other name can well be ooncmled under the corrupt lending in Liv. 89 miam in Samnia; comp. Strabo, v. 3, 1o.
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; a it
CINNA AND SULLA BOOK 1?
The victorious army was distributed through out Italy, and all the insecure townships were furnished with strong garrisons : under the iron hand of the Sullan oflicers the last palpitations of the revolutionary and national opposition slowly died away.
There was still work to be done in the provinces. Sar dinia had been speedily wrested by Lucius Philippus from
the governor of the revolutionary government
Antonius (672), and Transalpine Gaul offered little or no resistance; but in Sicily, Spain, and Africa the cause of the party defeated in Italy seemed still by no means lost. Sicily was held for them by the trustworthy governor Marcus Perpenna. Quintus Sertorius had the skill to attach to him- self the provincials in Hither Spain, and to form from among the Romans settled in that quarter a not inconsider able army, which in the first instance closed the passes of the Pyrenees : in this he had given fresh proof that, wherever he was stationed, he was in his place, and amidst all the incapables of the revolution was the only man practically useful. In Africa the governor Hadrianus, who followed out the work of revolutionizing too thoroughly and began to give liberty to the slaves, had been, on occasion of a tumult instigated by the Roman merchants of Utica, attacked in his
82. oflicial residence and burnt with his attendants (672) ; never theless the province adhered to the revolutionary govern— ment, and Cinna’s son-in-law, the young and able Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus, was invested with the supreme command there. Propagandism had even been carried from thence into the client-states, Numidia and Mauretania. Their legitimate rulers, Hiempsal II. son of Gauda, and Bogud son of Bocchus, adhered doubtless to Sulla ; but with the aid of the Cinnans the former had been dethroned by the democratic pretender Hiarbas, and similar feuds agitated the Mauretanian kingdom. The consul Carbo who had fled from Italy tarried on the island Cossyra (Pantellaria) between
92
capitulation.
Quintus
can. 1x CINNA AND SULLA
93
Africa and Sicily, at a loss, apparently, whether he should flee to Egypt or should attempt to renew the struggle in one of the faithful provinces.
Sulla sent to Spain Gaius Annius and Gaius Valerius Spain. Flaccus, the former as governor of Further Spain, the latter
as governor of the province of the Ebro. They were
spared the diflicult task of opening up the passes of the Pyrenees by force, in consequence of the general who was
sent thither by Sertorius having been killed by one of his
oflicers and his troops having thereafter melted
Sertorius, much too weak to maintain an equal struggle,
hastily collected the nearest divisions and embarked at embark-It New Carthage—for what destination he knew not himself,
for the coast of Africa, or for the Canary Islands —it mattered little whither, provided only Sulla’s arm did not reach him. Spain then willingly submitted to the Sullan magistrates (about 673) and Flaccus fought success 81. fully with the Celts, through whose territory he marched,
perhaps
the Spanish Celtiberians (674). so. )Gnaeus Pompeius was sent as propraetor to Sicily, and, Sicily.
andmwith
on the coast with no sail and six legions, the island was evacuated by Perpenna without resistance. kwompeius sent a squadron thence to Cossyra,
which captured the Marian oflicers sojourning there. Marcus Brutus and the others were immediately executed; but Pompeius had enjoined that the consul Carbo should be brought before himself at Lilybaeum in order that, un— mindful of the protection accorded to him in a season of peril by that very man (p. 78), he might personally hand him over to the executioner (672D 82.
Having been ordered to go on to Africa, Pompeius with Africa. his army, which was certainly far more numerous, defeated
the not inconsiderable forces collected by Ahenobarbus
and Hiarbas, and, declining for the time to be saluted as im
perator, he at once gave the signal for assault on the hostile
wh'éF"Eé"£isi§éared
away.
Sertoriul
Fresh difficulties with [83 Mithra dates.
not perhaps without touch of irony, saluted the youth on
his return from these easy exploits gagswthg“lf . Great. ”w
In the east also, after the embarkation of Sulla in the
spring of 671, there had been no cessation of warfare. The restoration of the old state of things and the subjugation of individual towns cost in Asia as in Italy various bloody struggles. Against the free city of Mytilene in particular Lucius Lucullus was obliged at length to bring up troops, after having exhausted all gentler measures; and even victory in the open field did not put an end to the obstinate resistance of the citizens.
Meanwhile the Roman governor of Asia, Lucius Murena, had fallen into fresh difficulties with king Mithradates. The latter had since the peace busied himself in strength_ ening anew his rule, which was shaken even in the northern provinces; he had pacified the Colchians by appointing his
94
CINNA AND SULLA noox rv
camp. Hi thus became master of the enemyinwone day; Ahenobarbus was among the fallen: with the ai 0 kn Bogud, Hiarbas'was seized and slain at Bulla, and Hiempsal was“reinstated in his hereditary kingdom’; a great razzia against the inhabitants of the desert, among whom a number of Gaetulian tribes recognized as free by Marius were made subject to Hiempsal, revived in Africa also the fallen repute of the Roman name: in gfortyjgyggfter~tbe
80. laHnding of Pompeius in Africa all ‘was, end atmanu v. w‘ (674
The senate instructed him to break up his army—an implied hint that he wasvrmt to be allowed triumph, to which as an extraordinary magistrate he could according to precedent make no claim. The general murmuredv secretly,
31. 5mm 1Qudhi. '. . iFs¢emed for. meant as
the African army would revolt against the senate and Sulla would ‘have ‘take the field against his son-in-law. But
stiller-flamed, and allowed the young man to boast of being
the only Roman who had become triumphator before he 79 wasgaisenator (12 March affect’ theazfli‘b'rtiiriate,”
a
i’).
to a
67
a
a
if
a
can. 1x CINNA AND SULLA
95
able son Mithradates as their governor; he had then made away with that son, and was now preparing for an ex pedition into his Bosporan kingdom. The assurances of Archelaus who had meanwhile been obliged to seek an asylum with Murena 50), that these preparations were directed against Rome, induced Murena, under the pretext that Mithradates still kept possession of Cappadocian frontier districts, to move his troops towards the Cappa
docian Comana and thus to violate the Pontic frontier (671). Mithradates contented himself with complaining to Murena and, when this was in vain, to the Roman government. In fact commissioners from Sulla made their appearance to dissuade the governor, but he did not submit; on the contrary he crossed the Halys and entered on the undis puted territory of Pontus, whereupon Mithradates re solved to repel force by force. His general Gordius had to detain the Roman army till the king came up with far superior forces and compelled battle; Murena was vanquished and with great loss driven back over the Roman frontier to Phrygia, and the Roman garrisons were expelled from all Cappadocia. Murena had the effrontery, no doubt, to call himself the victor and to assume the title of z'mperator on account of these events (67 2); but the sharp lesson and second admonition from Sulla induced him at last to push the matter no farther; the peace between Rome and Mithradates was renewed (673).
This foolish feud, while lasted, had postponed the reduction of the Mytilenaeans was only after long siege by land and sea, in which the Bithynian fleet rendered good service, that Murena’s successor succeeded in taking the city storm (675).
The ten years’ revolution and insurrection were at an end in the west and in the east the state had once more unity of government and peace without and within. After the terrible convulsions of the last years even this rest was
I’.
82.
Second peace.
81.
Capture of Mytilene.
79
General pm
;
it ;
by
by
(p.
it
a
a
96
CINNA AND SULLA noox IV
a relief. Whether it was to furnish more than a mere relief; whether the remarkable man, who had succeeded in the diflicult task of vanquishing the public foe and in the more diflicult work of subduing the revolution, would
be able to meet satisfactorily the most difficult task of all the re-establishing of social and political order shaken to its very foundations—could not but be speedily decided.
CRAP. X THE SULLAN CONSTITUTION
CHAPTER X
‘I! ! ! SULLAN CONSTITUTION
ABOUT the time when the first pitched battle was fought between Romans and Romans, in the night of the 6th July
67 r, the venerable temple, which had been erected by the 8! . kings, dedicated by the youthful republic, and spared by the storms of five hundred. years—the temple of the Roman Jupiter in the Capitol—perished in the flames. It was no augury, but it was an image of the state of the Roman constitution. This, too, lay in ruins and needed reconstruc- tion. The revolution was no doubt vanquished, but the victory was far from implying as a matter of course the restoration of the old government. The mass of the aris tocracy certainly was of opinion that now, after the death
of the two revolutionary consuls, it would be suflicient to make arrangements for the ordinary supplemental election and to leave it to the senate to take such steps as should seem farther requisite for the rewarding of the victorious army, for the punishment of the most guilty revolutionists,
and possibly also for the prevention of similar outbreaks.
But Sulla, in whose hands the victory had concentrated for the moment all power, formed a more correct judgment of affairs and of men. The aristocracy of Rome in its best epoch had not risen above an adherence—partly noble and partly narrow—to traditional forms ; how should the clumsy collegiate government of this period be in a position to
The restoration.
Vol. IV
107
i \.
’prise were less than ever to be found there. How thoroughly useless was the pure aristocratic blood, and how little doubt Sulla had as to its worthlessness, is shown by the fact that,
98 THE SULLAN CONSTITUTION BOOK IV
carry out with energy and thoroughness a comprehensive reform of the state i’ And at the present moment, when the last crisis had swept away almost all the leading men of the senate, the vigour and intelligence requisite for such an enter
\
iv with the exception of Quintus Metellus who was related to
Sulla regent of Rome.
I.
him by marriage, he selected all his instruments out of what was previously the middle party and the deserters from the democratic camp—such as Lucius Flaccus, Lucius Philippus,
i‘ \ Quintus Ofella, Gnaeus Pompeius. Sulla was as much in earnest about the re-establishment of the old constitution as the most vehement aristocratic emigrant; he understood however, not perhaps to the full extent—for how in that case could he have put hand to the work at all ? —but better at any rate than his party, the enormous difliculties which attended this work of restoration. Comprehensive con cessions so far as concession was possible without affecting the essence of oligarchy, and the establishment of an ener getic system of repression and prevention, were regarded by him as unavoidable ; and he saw clearly that the senate as it stood would refuse or mutilate every concession, and would parliamentarily ruin every systematic reconstruction. If Sulla had already after the Sulpician revolution carried out what he deemed necessary in both respects without asking much of their advice, he was now determined, under circumstances of far more severe and intense excitement, to
restore the oligarchy--not with the aid, but in spite, of the
(oligarchs—by his own hand.
Sulla, however, was not now consul as he had been then,
but was furnished merely with proconsular, that is to say, purely military power: he needed an authority keeping as near as possible to constitutional forms, but yet extraordinary, in order to impose his reform on friends and foes. In a
cm. it THE SULLAN CONSTITUTION
99
letter to the senate he announced to them that it seemed to him indispensable that they should place the regulation of the state in the hands of a single man equipped with unlimited plenitude of power, and that he deemed himself qualified to fulfil this difficult task. This proposal, disagree able as it was to many, was under the existing circumstances a command. By direction of the senate its chief, the in terrex Lucius Valerius Flaccus the father, as interim holder of the supreme power, submitted to the burgesses the proposal that the proconsul Lucius Cornelius Sulla should receive for the past a supplementary approval of all the oflicial acts performed by him as consul and proconsul, and should for the future be empowered to adjudicate without appeal on the life and property of the burgesses, to deal at his pleasure with the state-domains, to shift discretion the boundaries of Rome, of Italy, and of the state, to dissolve or establish urban communities in Italy, to dispose of the provinces and dependent states, to confer the supreme imperz'um instead of the people and to nominate proconsuls
and propraetors, and lastly to regulate the state for the future means of new laws; that should be left to his own judgment to determine when he had fulfilled his task and might deem time to resign this extraordinary magis tracy and, in fine, that during its continuance should depend on his pleasure whether the ordinary supreme magistracy should subsist side by side with his own or should remain in abeyance. As matter of course, the proposal
was adopted without opposition (Nov. 672); and now the 82. new master of the state, who hitherto had as proconsul avoided entering the capital, appeared for the first time within the walls of Rome. This new oflice derived its name from the dictatorship, which had been practically abolished since the Hannibalic war 56) but, as besides his armed retinue he was preceded by twice as many lictors as the dictator of earlier times, this new “dictatorship for the
;
it a
;
by
it
it
atv
Execu tions.
:00 THE SULLAN CONSTITUTION BOOK iv
making of laws and the regulation of the commonwealth,” as its official title ran, was in fact altogether different from the earlier magistracy which had been limited in point of dura tion and of powers, had not excluded appeal to the burgesses, and had not annulled the ordinary magistracy. It much more resembled that of the deamviri legibur . rm'bundir, who likewise came forward as an extraordinary government with unlimited fulness of powers superseding the ordinary magis tracy, and practically at least administered their oflice as one which was unlimited in point of time. Or, we should rather say, this new oflice, with its absolute power based on a decree of the people and restrained by no set term or col league, was no other than the old monarchy, which in fact just rested on the free engagement of the burgesses to obey one of their number as absolute lord. It was urged even by contemporaries in vindication of Sulla that a king is better than a bad constitution,1 and presumably the title of dictator was only chosen to indicate that, as the former dictatorship implied a reassumption with various limitations
325, 368, 401), so this new dictatorship involved com. plete reassumption, of the regal power. Thus, singularly enough, the course of Sulla here also coincided with that on
/which Gaius Gracchus had entered with so wholly different design. In this respect too the conservative party had to borrow from its opponents; the protector of the oligarchic
constitution had himself to come forward as tyrant, in
order to avert the ever-impending granm'r. There was not \a little of defeat in this last victory of the oligarchy.
Sulla had not sought and had not desired the diflicult and dreadful labour of the work of restoration; but, as no other choice was left to him but either to leave to utterly incapable hands or to undertake in person, he set himself to with remorseless energy. First of all settlement had to be effected in respect to the guilty. Sulla was personally
Satiur ert uti reg‘ibur guzzm uti malir Ieg‘ibur (Ad Hermit. 26).
'
it
ii.
a
it
a
it
a
i.
a
(i.
CHAP. it THE SULLAN CONSTITUTION 101
inclined to pardon. Sanguine as he was in temperament, he could doubtless break forth into violent rage, and well might those beware who saw his eye gleam and his cheeks
colour; but the chronic vindictiveness, which characterized Marius in the embitterment of his old age, was altogether foreign to Sulla’s easy disposition. Not only had he borne himself with comparatively great moderation after the revolu tion of 666 (iii. 543); even the second revolution, which 88 had perpetrated so fearful outrages and had affected him in person so severely, had not disturbed his equilibrium. At the same time that the executioner was dragging the bodies
of his friends through the streets of the capital, he had sought to save the life of the blood-stained Fimbria, and, when the latter died by his own hand, had given orders for his decent burial. 0n landing in Italy he had earnestly offered to forgive and to forget, and no one who came to make his peace had been rejected. Even after the first successes he had negotiated in this spirit with Lucius Scipio ; it was the revolutionary party, which had not only broken off these
but had subsequently, at the last moment before their downfall, resumed the massacres afresh and more fearfully than ever, and had in fact conspired with the inveterate foes of their country for the destruction of the city of Rome. The cup was now full. By virtue of his new official authority Sulla, immediately after assuming the
regency, outlawed as enemies of their country all the civil and military oflicials who had taken an active part in favour of the revolution after the convention with Scipio (which according to Sulla’s assertion was validly concluded), and such of the other burgesses as had in any marked manner aided its cause. Whoever killed one of these outlaws was not only exempt from punishment like an executioner duly
fulfilling his oflice, but also obtained for the execution a compensation of 12,000 denarz'i (£480) ; any one on the contrary who befriended an outlaw, even the nearest relative,
negotiations,
Prescrip Lion-lists.
99. 95. 90.
87-4. 87. 85.