C. Norbanus Balbus were consuls: here also we again find patricians
siding with the democrats. If any one of them had had dictatorial
power, and had known how to make use of it; if therefore the military
resources had been properly managed, Sylla must have been lost: for
against the overwhelming numbers of the opposite party, his success
would have been impossible. But the Roman state was at that time so
disorganized, and the leaders after Marius’ death so incapable; that
it was just as it was in France, in the year 1799, when the Directory
was so helpless, that without Buonaparte’s return it would have been
lost. Under such circumstances, rebellions multiply, as the people
expect more from any change, than from the continuance of the existing
state of things. Sylla reckoned on the incapacity of the chiefs of the
opposite faction, and on the hatred which every one had had for their
leaders: that now happened which the judicious Cælius Rufus writes
to Cicero of the contest of Cæsar and Pompey.[99] Even of the new
citizens, very many were filled with disgust and abhorrence against the
actual government, and ready to go over to Sylla, if they had only a
hope of being maintained in their rights: could the ruling party have
relied on the bulk of the new citizens, and on part of the old ones,
Sylla would certainly never have been victorious. He therefore, even
while his first campaign was still going on, made an alliance with
the new citizens in which he confirmed all their rights. Thus, when
he landed at Brundusium, he was received with open arms. Preparations
for attacking him had been talked of; but those ordered by Carbo,
had miscarried owing to the general opposition. Sylla marched quite
peacefully through Apulia; near Canusium,[100] if a statement which
certainly is very likely, be correct, he had a battle indeed with
the consul Norbanus, although it was but an insignificant one. The
main force of the enemy, however, he found encamped near Capua, quite
close to which city, in the neighbourhood of Mount Tifata, he once
more defeated Norbanus; the very troops arrayed against him already
went over to him by whole sections. When still in Greece, he had
begun to treat, endeavouring to bring about a fair agreement without
any exclusive rights for himself; and now he again entered into
negotiations with the consul Scipio, and an armistice was concluded,
and hostages given. But this truce was broken by Sertorius, because
he saw that Sylla was only temporising that he might deceive the
consuls and tamper with the soldiers: he therefore occupied Suessa
which had declared for Sylla. The soldiers, however, partly from
contempt for their general, and partly because they were dazzled by
the renown of Sylla, went over to him in such numbers that Scipio was
left quite alone. Towards the end of the year, when Sylla was gaining
ground in the south of Italy, several of his partisans took up arms:
Metellus Pius, in what is now the Romagna; Cn. Pompeius (Pompey),--who
afterwards got the surname of Magnus, and was then twenty-three years
of age,--in Picenum, where his influence was great, as that district,
which had been subjected by his father, stood in a kind of clientship
to him; M. Lucullus and several others. Their party and their forces
consisted in some degree of old Romans, but mostly of new citizens;
Metellus, however, may have had with him a greater number of the older
ones from Cisalpine Gaul and the Romagna.
The beginning of the next year was most bloody and decisive. Marius the
younger, said to have been a son or nephew of C. Marius (very likely
an adopted son), a young man about twenty-seven years of age, was
consul with Cn. Papirius Carbo. The latter took the command in northern
Etruria and in the neighbourhood of Ariminum, especially against
Metellus, Pompey, and Lucullus; Marius was stationed at the frontier
of Latium, whither Sylla came from Campania where he had passed the
winter. Here the decisive battle near Sacriportus was fought, probably
on the road from Segni to Palestrina, hard by the latter place: perhaps
there was only a defile. Marius had concentrated thither all the troops
which belonged to him, most of which were Samnites, that he might cover
Rome; and so long as he held this position, Sylla could not march by
the Appian road against the city. All this country, as well as Etruria,
was the stronghold of Cinna’s party, the Latin towns there being most
zealous in the cause: the rest of the Italians, on the other hand,
with the exception of the Samnites and Lucanians, seem to have been
lukewarm, even when they did not keep aloof. Thus at Sacriportus, Sylla
gained a decisive victory, and, it is said, with very little loss to
himself. Marius fled to the strong town of Præneste, which was quite
devoted to him, and was also at that time a very large place; the
Palestrina of the present day, a town of six thousand inhabitants,
is but a part of the ancient _arx_, and lies within the precincts of
the temple of _Fortuna_. Here Sylla hemmed in his conquered foes,
intrusting the siege to Q. Lucretius Ofella, who blockaded and starved
the city in which, besides the Prænestines, there were old Romans, and
Samnites.
Sulla himself marched upon Rome. As yet, he displayed great moderation;
nay, had it not been for the infatuation of his opponents, he would
perhaps have made up his mind to settle affairs without bloodshed: but
these were quite drunk with rage; for there was a fanaticism among
them, just as there was at the destruction of Jerusalem. Even in the
last days of the rule of Cinna’s party, the prætor Damasippus had
all the partisans of Sylla, whether open or suspected, put to death,
particularly the senators: among those who were thus murdered, was the
venerable _pontifex maximus_, Q. Mucius Scævola, who, being conscious
of his innocence, had not left the city. But as this fury after all
did not give them strength to defend the city, the leaders made their
escape. Rome opened her gates to Sylla, and he promised moderation;
but his moderation had a terrible meaning. He first went to Etruria,
where Carbo was: on the side of the Etruscans, the war was truly a
national one, as Sylla took away from them the rights of citizenship
which had been granted them: the details of this campaign are shrouded
in impenetrable darkness. Carbo had posted himself near Clusium, from
whence he made two vain attempts to relieve Præneste; he also engaged
in other expeditions which were equally unsuccessful, as, for instance,
that against Picenum, in which Carinas was concerned. The troops of the
Marian party dwindled to nothing under his hands, desertion spreading
more and more among them. Of this there were many cases which are quite
inconceivable. Even at the very outset, P. Cethegus, one of the twelve
who were outlawed with Marius, had surrendered himself to the mercy
of Sylla; and Albinovanus, to make his peace with him likewise, now
murdered his colleagues and legates at a banquet.
The last effort was made by Pontius Telesinus, whose brother commanded
with Marius the Samnites in Præneste. He and the Lucanian M. Lamponius,
had tried to relieve Præneste, and had failed; after which, believing
Sylla to be out of the way, they marched in all haste to surprise
Rome: but Sylla heard of it, and came up just in time to ward off
the danger. Had they been successful, they would have destroyed
Rome; but the very fear of this must have roused the Romans to exert
themselves to the utmost. There were said to have been forty thousand
Samnites and Lucanians; the dread of such allies led many a partisan
of Marius to fight under the banners of Sylla. The terrible battle
near the Porta Collina now followed, by which the fate of the world
was decided; and it was only after fortune had long wavered, and had
often been in favour of the Samnites, that Sylla in the evening of the
day broke through the ranks of the enemy: so great was their defeat,
that Telesinus died by his own hand. After such a blow, Marius also,
and the younger Telesinus in Præneste, gave themselves up for lost.
They tried to escape from the town by passages under ground which led
into the open fields; but the outlets were guarded, and so they both
killed each other. Of the son of Marius, we cannot say as we did of
the father, “he was a great man:” he was rather a dreadful man; he had
the faults of his father, without any of his great qualities but that
of perseverance, in which, under such circumstances, there is nothing
so very wonderful. Carbo also soon fled from his men to Africa. Unless
perhaps in Spain, the party had no longer an army; and in Italy,
although single towns still held out, the war was virtually at an end.
Eight thousand Samnites had been taken prisoners in the battle before
the Colline gate; and Sylla had them surrounded with troops in the
Campus Martius, and cut down to a man. When also, after the death of
the younger Marius, Præneste surrendered at discretion, he caused the
Roman citizens, the Prænestines, and the Samnites, to be divided into
three bodies: to the first he granted their lives; but the Prænestines
and Samnites he ordered to be shot down with javelins. The Etruscan
towns yielded to him one after another, and met with the same fate as
Præneste, besides being razed to the ground. Thus also fared Clusium,
Aretium, Populonia, and Volaterræ; the latter after a two years’
siege. So perished likewise all the larger towns of Etruria; with the
exception perhaps of Fæsulæ, which, however, may also have been rebuilt
afterwards.
At Rome, Sylla now held absolute sway, and although until then had
been humane, he all at once showed himself at length a bloodthirsty
monster. For he gave for the first time the example of a proscription;
that is to say, he made out a list of all those whom not only any one
might kill with impunity, but on whose head moreover a price was set.
There were among his victims few indeed who were to be compared to
those whom Marius and Cinna massacred; but in the extent of suffering
inflicted, nothing could surpass the revenge of Sylla, who visited even
whole peoples with his wrath. That proscription affected the lives of
several thousands; two thousand four hundred knights[101] are said to
have been in it: that so many had been on the list, seems doubtful.
Twenty-three (according to another, but probably incorrect statement,
forty-three,) legions had military colonies allotted them. The first
colonies of Rome were settlements, in which one of every _gens_ was
placed to garrison the conquered towns; these men had a third part of
the land, and, of course, they kept themselves under arms. The Latin
colonies were divided between the Romans and Latins: very likely, every
one who belonged to them had served as a soldier; but this was only
an accidental circumstance, that colonisation being no special reward
for military service. After the second Punic war, we meet with the
first instances of the _ager publicus_ being assigned to superannuated
soldiers; and in Bononia alone there are signs of a still continuing
obligation to serve in war, a difference being made there between the
lots given to horsemen, centurions, foot-soldiers, &c. Sylla’s are the
first true military colonies, a system by which the inhabitants of some
particular town were stripped of the whole of their land, and some
legion or other, which was now discharged, was to form the population
there: should the territory of the town not be sufficient, there was
added to it from the adjoining districts as much as was required. Thus
the soldiers gained a right of having land assigned to them, a right
to which in former days plebeianism only could give a title. According
to an old and extremely plausible Florentine tradition,--which cannot
indeed be traced to any classic author, but which is all but proved by
an old reading in the orations of Cicero against Catiline,[102]--we
may say that Florence has risen as such a military colony out of the
old Fæsulæ; thus it was also with New Aretium and several places of
Etruria, with Præneste and other towns, of which, however, few only
can be ascertained by satisfactory evidence; in these cases, the
inhabitants had almost everywhere been murdered. These legions were the
corner-stone of Sylla’s power. Something of the same kind was done in
places where the old inhabitants were not exterminated: the new comers
became κληροῦχοι, whilst the old residents had to pay a land tax for
the allotments which they still retained. This was especially the fate
of the old Latin colonies. Those which did not fare thus, had by the
_lex Julia_ become _municipia_, and remained as such; those, on the
other hand, which Sylla had proscribed, were now called _coloniæ_,
not, however _Latinæ_, but _Romanæ militares_,--Sylla’s military
colonies. These are the _coloniæ_ of which Pliny[103] speaks, and
which always have been mistaken. This matter was an obscure one even
for the ancients: Asconius Pedianus, a writer of first-rate historical
learning, did not in his time understand how Cicero could have called
Placentia a colony, when it had become a _municipium_.[104] Nearly the
whole of Etruria became a wilderness, and the towns which had not been
turned into military colonies, lay in ruins as late as in the days of
Augustus. The Samnite nation he had all but rooted out, the whole of
the Hirpinian country being laid waste: all that had been made _ager
publicus_, was left by him to his favourites.
A marked feature of Sylla is a sort of fantastic activity. He looked
upon himself as born to be the achiever of great things, especially as
a reformer: he was aware of the disorganized condition of the nation;
but he did not know that when what is old is worn out, the only thing
to be done, is to create, in the spirit of the ancient institutions,
new ones which are suited to the age. What Sylla wanted to do, could
have been of no avail whatever: it was the restoring of what was dead,
the return to a state of things which had fallen away because the life
had fled from it;--he recalled the old forms of the republic into
existence, and believed that they had strength enough to stand. He
thought (as in Tieck’s World Turned Upside Down) that he could push
the world back to the point at which in his opinion it ought to have
stopped. Moreover, he deemed himself called upon to rule; and therefore
he stuck at nothing, as he held that he was above all these forms, so
that they did not affect him in the least.
He reorganised the senate, which was fearfully diminished after the
many executions. It might have been expected that he would have tried
to restore it from the ranks of the old nobility; yet instead of doing
so, he selected the new senators--with a remarkable inconsistency,
which shows that notwithstanding all his arbitrary rule, he was swayed
by circumstances--not only from the knights, but also from his own
low-born centurions, who were ready, it is true, to lay down their
lives for him. He had not the elements of an aristocracy at hand: the
party, which really had vitality, influence, and refinement of mind and
manners, being that of the monied classes, the knights and the Italian
_municipia_. These he hated and wanted to crush; and as in such cases,
one has usually recourse to the rabble, thus Sylla, true to the example
of all oligarchs and counter-revolutionists, filled up with the lowest
of the people his senate which was a mere skeleton, and ought most
naturally to have been recruited from the rich class of the _equites_;
this was just as in the year 1799 at Naples, when the dregs of the
populace were armed. Whilst wishing to save the republic by forms, he
began by departing from them himself.
As long as his influence lasted, even for four years running, a
patrician and a plebeian were regularly made consuls; before that
plebeians alone had often been chosen for four or five years in
succession: beyond this Sylla durst not go, as all the leaders of his
party were plebeians. This was indeed quite a childish arrangement.
The tribuneship he brought back to its original state, as it was before
the Publilian law of the year 283; which was as much as going back
four hundred years. For he took away from the tribunes the right of
bringing bills into the assembly of the people, and revived the old
way of making laws: these were now proposed by the consuls, and passed
by the senate and the centuries. One might wonder at his not having
restored the curies; yet he could not do this, as they were so changed
that he would have had in them a democratical assembly. As he neglected
every means which ought to have been tried for raising the state again
to a healthy condition, he despaired of all gradual improvement, and
therefore he rushed headlong into violent measures and all kinds of
makeshifts. Much might be said for his changes in the tribuneship, as
at that time the office could no longer be made available for good:
it had become a nuisance, every one cried out against it; and so
the tribunes were henceforth to be only _ad auxilium ferendum_. No
tribune of old could have been allowed to have a curule office, as he
was a plebeian; and therefore Sylla, wishing in this respect also to
retrograde, lessened the influence of the tribunes by enacting that no
tribune, after having laid down his magistracy, should fill any office
which was a stepping-stone to the senate.
To secure himself still further, he deprived the children of those
who had been proscribed, of part of their rights as citizens, that is
to say, of eligibility to hold office. This unjust law remained many
years in force until Cæsar repealed it.
The administration of justice he gave back to the senators. The knights
had employed the power which they had acquired by the exercise of such
jurisdiction, entirely against the nobility. The senators should now
have taken some care to do away with the old reproaches made against
them, by judging righteously; but the courts were never as venal as
they were then. Sylla’s faction so basely and infamously abused the
advantages which they had gained, that they cut their own throats; and
had it not been for the military colonies, a heavy vengeance would soon
have been wreaked upon them.
Sylla was a very active legislator, nor are every one of his enactments
to be found fault with. For though he showed great want of sense in
his constitutional measures, in those which were administrative, as in
criminal legislation, he did things which prove that he had excellent
advisers; in fact, he was the first who placed these matters on even a
tolerable footing. And for the management also of criminal trials, his
regulations were real improvements. He likewise made a _lex annalis_ to
settle the order in which the different offices were to be held.
Moreover, it is one of Sylla’s changes that there was a considerable
increase in the number of the magistracies and priesthoods. In the
earliest times, the pontificate consisted of four members, two from
each of the oldest tribes, besides the _pontifex maximus_: so it was
with the augurs. Afterwards, the number of the pontiffs was, by the
addition of four plebeian ones,[105] raised to nine, in which the
_Pontifex Maximus_ was included, his office being common to both
orders; the augurs were also increased, as it was still intended in
those days that the two orders should share the priestly dignities
alike. It cannot be stated with certainty, when this was no longer
done; yet it must have been before the _Lex Domitia_. Sylla himself
thought no more of dividing these between the patricians and plebeians;
so much did the power of circumstances prevail over the crotchets which
he otherwise used to form! He suspended the _lex Domitia_; restored to
the priestly colleges the right of co-optation; and raised the number
of the pontiffs[106] and augurs to fifteen.
This had no material influence on the state; but certainly the great
increase of the prætors and quæstors had. By his reforms of the
criminal law, he assigned to the prætors the _quæstiones perpetuæ_;
and because the vast extent of the commonwealth had now made many
more accountants necessary, he raised the establishment of quæstors
to twenty. Thus there was a considerable multiplication of curule and
other dignities. The senate he enlarged to six hundred;[107] and now
every year, more as a matter of course than by any wish of his, the
twenty quæstors came into it, forming the thirtieth part of the whole
body. As no one was quæstor more than once, its numbers were almost
always full, and thus the censors all but lost their power of choosing
the members. Thus the question whether the senate was elective, is
placed in quite a different light. The senate is never to be looked
upon as a representative body, unless it were in the very earliest
times, when it was elected directly by the curies; its being filled up
by the quæstors, makes it indeed an elective assembly.
Sylla had a body-guard of freedmen whom he called Cornelians, and
these soon became most powerful people. That at that time, anybody in
the country towns who had either interest or connexions with these
Cornelians, especially with Chrysogonus, Sylla’s favourite, might
do whatever he listed, and even commit murder; is borne out by the
evidence of Cicero’s orations _pro Sexto Roscio Amerino_ and _pro
Cluentio_. The state of things in those days, was horrible and shocking
beyond description.
Sylla gave all these laws as dictator, which, after the deaths of
Marius and Carbo, he had caused himself to be made for an indefinite
period by the interrex L. Valerius Flaccus. It was thought that he
would never again lay down the dictatorship; but he held it only
two years. He was tired of every thing around him: he would either
have had to wage wars abroad, for which perhaps he felt that he was
too old, and for which he had no longer any taste; or he must have
gone on with reforms at home, though he thought that this had been
done already as far as it was practicable.[108] For this reason he
resigned the dictatorship, a step which was not by any means so very
bold as it would seem; for the condition of the republic, the utter
prostration of the enemy, and his military colonies insured his safety.
He went to Puteoli, where he was attacked by that most dreadful of all
diseases, the phthiriasis: his whole body became full of boils which
bred vermin. This in all likelihood is no romance: the chief cases of
this disorder are those of tyrants, like Philip II., Herod the king
of the Jews, Antiochus Epiphanes, and of land-owners who have ground
down their peasants; but the philosopher Pherecydes likewise had it.
Though Sylla’s strength was wasted away by this sickness, his death was
brought on by an accident, and it was most lucky for him that he died
before the whole of the machinery which he had created fell to pieces.
He thought, that in Puteoli he might even lead history astray, and make
posterity believe that all his measures had only been overthrown by
the bad management of those who came after him; yet he still ruled the
state, even from thence, by means of his trembling creatures who could
not do without him. He amused himself at Puteoli with the legislation
of the place, wishing to seem as if he were nothing more than a plain
citizen, yet for all that his will was to be law: being contradicted
one day, he got into such a rage that he broke a blood vessel and
died, at the age of sixty. Even if his death had happened ten years
later, his last days would have been peaceful: the party against him
was crushed, the tribunes were paralysed, and the whole of Italy was
occupied by military colonies on whose devotion he could rely. His body
was brought to Rome; and the pomp of his burial, which was not inferior
to that of Augustus, shows that his rule was not dependent on his
person, nor on the circumstances of the moment.
LITERATURE. MANNERS AND MODE OF LIVING.
With the consulship of Lepidus and Catulus began the History of
Sallust, the loss of which, to judge from the fragments, is one of
the most painful of all those which we have to mourn over in Roman
literature, not only on account of the matter in it, but above all,
because of its value as a work of art. The history of the Social
War was written by Sisenna, who was in some measure a forerunner of
Sallust: he was also an earlier acquaintance of Cicero’s, who does not
speak over favourably of the literary merits of his writings. Yet I am
inclined to think that here we should not blindly follow the opinion of
Cicero: for Sisenna’s manner was one which he did not like; it was the
_horridum_ of the ancients, an imitation of Clitarchus.[109] He wrote
quite differently from his predecessors, in reading whose fragments we
can hardly believe that any one could ever have written in such a way.
At that time, the whole style of literature was changed. It was as in
Germany about the period of the Seven Years’ War; and just as there
were then some stragglers in our republic of letters, thus was it also
in Rome. Among these I class Claudius Quadrigrarius, who has still the
stiff, uncouth, quaint manner: the want of refinement in the whole of
his performances is quite astonishing.