SECOND CIVIL WAR.--SULLA'S DICTATORSHIP, LEGISLATION, AND DEATH, B.C.
83-78.
Sulla landed at Brundisium in the spring of B.C. 83, in the Consulship
of L. Scipio and C. Norbanus. During the preceding year he had written
to the Senate, recounting the services he had rendered to the
commonwealth, complaining of the ingratitude with which he had been
treated, announcing his speedy return to Italy, and threatening to take
vengeance upon his enemies and those of the Republic. The Senate, in
alarm, sent an embassy to Sulla to endeavor to bring about a
reconciliation between him and his enemies, and meantime ordered the
Consuls Cinna and Carbo to desist from levying troops and making farther
preparations for war. Cinna and Carbo gave no heed to this command; they
knew that a reconciliation was impossible, and resolved to carry over an
army to Dalmatia, in order to oppose Sulla in Greece; but, after one
detachment of their troops had embarked, the rest of the soldiers rose
in mutiny, and murdered Cinna. The Marian party had thus lost their
chief leader, but continued nevertheless to make every preparation to
resist Sulla, for they were well aware that he would never forgive them,
and that their only choice lay between victory and destruction. Besides
this the Italians were ready to support them, as these new citizens
feared that Sulla would deprive them of the rights which they had lately
obtained after so much bloodshed. The Marian party had every prospect of
victory, for their troops far exceeded those of their opponent. They had
200,000 men in arms, while Sulla landed at Brundusium with only 30,000,
or at the most 40,000 men. But, on the other hand, the popular party had
no one of sufficient influence and military reputation to take the
supreme command in the war; their vast forces were scattered about
Italy, in different armies, under different generals; the soldiers had
no confidence in their commanders, and no enthusiasm in their cause; and
the consequence was, that whole hosts of them deserted to Sulla on the
first opportunity. Sulla's soldiers, on the contrary, were veterans, who
had frequently fought by each other's sides, and had acquired that
confidence in themselves and in their general which frequent victories
always give. Still, if the Italians had remained faithful to the cause
of the Marian party, Sulla would hardly have conquered, and therefore
one of his first cares after landing at Brundusium was to detach them
from his enemies. For this purpose he would not allow his troops to do
any injury to the towns or fields of the Italians in his march from
Brundusium through Calabria and Apulia, and he formed separate treaties
with many of the Italian towns, by which he secured to them all the
rights and privileges of Roman citizens which they then enjoyed. Among
the Italians the Samnites continued to be the most formidable enemies of
Sulla. They had joined the Marian party, not simply with the design of
securing the supremacy for the latter, but with the hope of conquering
Rome by their means, and then destroying forever their hated oppressor.
Thus this Civil war became merely another phase of the Social war, and
the struggle between Rome and Samnium for the supremacy of the peninsula
was renewed after the subjection of the latter for more than two hundred
years.
Sulla marched from Apulia into Campania without meeting with any
resistance. In Campania he gained his first victory over the Consul
Norbanus, who was defeated with great loss, and obliged to take refuge
in Capua. His colleague Scipio, who was at no great distance, willingly
accepted a truce which Sulla offered him, although Sertorius, the ablest
of the Marian generals, warned him against entering into any
negotiations. His caution was justified by the event. By means of his
emissaries Sulla seduced the troops of Scipio, who at length found
himself deserted by all his soldiers, and was taken prisoner in his
tent. Sulla, however, dismissed him uninjured. On hearing of this, Carbo
is said to have observed "that he had to contend in Sulla both with a
lion and a fox, but that the fox gave him more trouble." Many
distinguished Romans meantime had taken up arms on behalf of Sulla. Cn.
Pompey, the son of Cn. Pompeius Strabo, then only twenty-three years of
age, levied three legions in Picenum and the surrounding districts; and
Q. Metellus Pius, M. Crassus, M. Lucullus, and several others, offered
their services as legates. It was not, however, till the following year
(B.C. 82) that the struggle was brought to a decisive issue. The Consuls
of this year were Cn. Papirius Carbo and the younger Marius, the former
of whom was intrusted with the protection of Etruria and Umbria, while
the latter had to guard Rome and Latium. Sulla appears to have passed
the winter at Campania. At the commencement of spring he advanced
against the younger Marius, who had concentrated all his forces at
Sacriportus, and defeated him with great loss. Marius took refuge in
Præneste; and Sulla, after leaving Q. Lucretius Ofella with a large
force to blockade the town, marched with the main body of his army to
Rome. Marius was resolved not to perish unavenged, and accordingly,
before Sulla could reach Rome, he sent orders to L. Damasippus, the
Prætor, to put to death all his leading opponents. His orders were
faithfully obeyed. Q. Mucius Scævola, the Pontifex Maximus and jurist,
P. Antistius, L. Domitius, and many other distinguished men, were
butchered, and their corpses thrown into the Tiber. Sulla entered the
city without opposition, and marched against Carbo, who had been
previously opposed by Pompey and Metellus. The history of this part of
the war is involved in great obscurity. Carbo made two efforts to
relieve Præneste, but failed in each; and, after fighting with various
fortune against Pompey, Metellus, and Sulla, he at length embarked for
Africa, despairing of farther success in Italy. Meantime Rome had nearly
fallen into the hands of the enemy. The Samnites and Lucanians, under
Pontius Telesinus and L. Lamponius, after attempting to relieve
Præneste, resolved to march straight upon Rome, which had been left
without an army for its protection. Sulla arrived barely in time to save
the city. The battle was fought before the Colline Gate; it was long and
obstinately contested; the combat was not simply for the supremacy of a
party; the very existence of Rome was at stake, for Pontius had declared
that he would raze the city to the ground. The left wing, where Sulla
commanded in person, was driven off the field by the vehemence of the
enemy's charge; but the success of the right wing, which was commanded
by Crassus, enabled Sulla to restore the battle, and at length gain a
complete victory. Fifty thousand men were said to have fallen on each
side. All the most distinguished leaders of the Marian party either
perished in the engagement, or were taken prisoners and put to death.
Among these was the brave Samnite Pontius, whose head was cut off and
carried under the walls of Præneste, thereby announcing to the young
Marius that his last hope of succour was gone. To the Samnite prisoners
Sulla showed no mercy. He was resolved to root out of the peninsula
those heroic enemies of Rome. On the third day after the battle he
collected all the Samnite and Lucanian prisoners in the Campus Martius,
and ordered his soldiers to cut them down. The dying shrieks of so many
victims frightened the Senators, who had been assembled at the same time
by Sulla in the temple of Bellona; but he bade them attend to what he
was saying, and not mind what was taking place outside, as he was only
chastising some rebels. Præneste surrendered soon afterward. The Romans
in the town were pardoned; but all the Samnites and Prænestines were
massacred without mercy. The younger Marius put an end to his own life.
The war in Italy was now virtually at an end, for the few towns which
still held out had no prospect of offering any effectual opposition, and
were reduced soon afterward. In other parts of the Roman world the war
continued still longer, and Sulla did not live to see its completion.
The armies of the Marian party in Sicily and Africa were subdued by
Pompey in the course of the same year; but Sertorius in Spain continued
to defy all the attempts of the Senate till B.C. 72.
Sulla was now master of Rome. He had not commenced the Civil war, but
had been driven to it by the mad ambition of Marius. His enemies had
attempted to deprive him of the command in the Mithridatic war, which
had been legally conferred upon him by the Senate; and while he was
righting the battles of the Republic they had declared him a public
enemy, confiscated his property, and murdered the most distinguished of
his friends and adherents. For all these wrongs Sulla had threatened to
take the most ample vengeance; and he more than redeemed his word. He
resolved to extirpate the popular party root and branch. One of his
first acts was to draw up a list of his enemies who were to be put to
death, which list was exhibited in the forum to public inspection, and
called a _Proscriptio_. It was the first instance of the kind in Roman
history. All persons in this list were outlaws who might be killed by
any one with impunity; their property was confiscated to the state;
their children and grandchildren lost their votes in the comitia, and
were excluded from all public offices. Farther, all who killed a
proscribed person, or indicated the place of his concealment, received
two talents as a reward, and whoever sheltered such a person was
punished with death. Terror now reigned not only at Rome, but throughout
Italy. Fresh lists of the proscribed constantly appeared. No one was
safe; for Sulla gratified his friends by placing in the fatal lists
their personal enemies, or persons whose property was coveted by his
adherents. An estate, a house, or even a piece of plate, was to many a
man, who belonged to no political party, his death-warrant; for,
although the confiscated property belonged to the state, and had to be
sold by public auction, the friends and dependents of Sulla purchased it
at a nominal price, as no one dared to bid against them. Oftentimes
Sulla did not require the purchase-money to be paid at all, and in many
cases he gave such property to his favorites without even the formality
of a sale. The number of persons who perished by the proscriptions
amounted to many thousands. At the commencement of these horrors Sulla
had been appointed Dictator. As both the Consuls had perished, he caused
the Senate to elect Valerius Flaccus interrex, and the latter brought
before the people a rogatio, conferring the Dictatorship upon Sulla, for
the purpose of restoring order to the Republic, and for as long a time
as he judged to be necessary. Thus the Dictatorship was revived after
being in abeyance for more than 120 years, and Sulla obtained absolute
power over the lives and fortunes of all the citizens. This was toward
the close of B.C. 81. Sulla's great object in being invested with the
Dictatorship was to carry into execution in a legal manner the great
reforms which he meditated in the constitution and the administration of
justice, by which he hoped to place the government of the Republic on a
firm and secure basis. He had no intention of abolishing the Republic,
and consequently he caused Consuls to be elected for the following year,
B.C. 81, and was elected to the office himself in B.C. 80, while he
continued to hold the Dictatorship.
At the beginning of B.C. 81 Sulla celebrated a splendid triumph on
account of his victory over Mithridates. In a speech which he delivered
to the people at the close of the gorgeous ceremony, he claimed for
himself the surname of _Felix_, as he attributed his success in life to
the favor of the gods. All ranks in Rome bowed in awe before their
master; and among other marks of distinction which were voted to him by
the obsequious Senate, a gilt equestrian statue was erected to his honor
before the Rostra, bearing the inscription "Cornelio Sullæ Imperatori
Felici."
During the years B.C. 80 and 79 Sulla carried into execution his various
reforms in the constitution, of which an account is given at the end of
this chapter. At the same time he established many military colonies
throughout Italy. The inhabitants of the Italian towns which had fought
against Sulla were deprived of the full Roman franchise which had been
lately conferred upon them; their lands were confiscated and given to
the soldiers who had fought under him. A great number of these colonies
were settled in Etruria. They had the strongest interest in upholding
the institutions of Sulla, since any attempt to invalidate the latter
would have endangered their newly-acquired possessions. But, though they
were a support to the power of Sulla, they hastened the fall of the
commonwealth; an idle and licentious soldiery supplanted an industrious
agricultural population; and Catiline found nowhere more adherents than
among the military colonies of Sulla. While Sulla thus established
throughout Italy a population devoted to his interests, he created at
Rome a kind of body-guard for his protection by giving the citizenship
to a great number of slaves belonging to those who had been proscribed
by him. The slaves thus rewarded are said to have been as many as
10,000, and were called Cornelii after him as their patron.
Sulla had completed his reforms by the beginning of B.C. 79; and as he
longed for the undisturbed enjoyment of his pleasures, he resigned his
Dictatorship, and declared himself ready to render an account of his
conduct while in office. This voluntary abdication by Sulla of the
sovereignty of the Roman world has excited the astonishment and
admiration of both ancient and modern writers. But it is evident that
Sulla never contemplated, like Julius Cæsar, the establishment of a
monarchical form of government; and it must be recollected that he could
retire into a private station without any fear that attempts would be
made against his life or his institutions. The ten thousand Cornelii at
Rome and his veterans stationed throughout Italy, as well as the whole
strength of the aristocratical party, secured him against all danger.
Even in his retirement his will was law, and shortly before his death he
ordered his slaves to strangle a magistrate of one of the towns in Italy
because he was a public defaulter.
After resigning his Dictatorship, Sulla retired to his estate at
Puteoli, and there, surrounded by the beauties of nature and art, he
passed the remainder of his life in those literary and sensual
enjoyments in which he had always taken so much pleasure. He died in
B.C. 78, in the sixtieth year of his age. The immediate cause of his
death was the rupture of a blood-vessel, but some time before he had
been suffering from the disgusting disease which is known in modern
times by the name of Morbus Pediculosus. The Senate, faithful to the
last, resolved to give him the honor of a public funeral. This was,
however, opposed by the Consul Lepidus, who had resolved to attempt the
repeal of Sulla's laws; but the Dictator's power continued unshaken
even after his death. The veterans were summoned from their colonies,
and Q. Catulus, L. Lucullus, and Cn. Pompey placed themselves at their
head. Lepidus was obliged to give way, and allowed the funeral to take
place without interruption. It was a gorgeous pageant. The Magistrates,
the Senate, the Equites, the Priests, and the Vestal virgins, as well as
the veterans, accompanied the funeral procession to the Campus Martius,
where the corpse was burnt according to the wish of Sulla himself, who
feared that his enemies might insult his remains, as he had done those
of Marius, which had been taken out of the grave and thrown into the
Anio at his command. It had been previously the custom of the Cornelia
gens to bury and not burn their dead. A monument was erected to Sulla in
the Campus Martius, the inscription on which he is said to have composed
himself. It stated that none of his friends ever did him a kindness, and
none of his enemies a wrong, without being fully repaid.
* * * * *
All the reforms of Sulla were effected by means of _Leges_, which were
proposed by him in the Comitia Centuriata, and bore the general name of
_Leges Corneliæ_. They may be divided into four classes: laws relating
to the constitution, to the ecclesiastical corporations, to the
administration of justice, and to the improvement of public morals.
Their general object and design was to restore, as far as possible, the
ancient Roman Constitution, and to give again to the Senate and the
Nobility that power of which they had been gradually deprived by the
leaders of the popular party. His Constitution did not last, because the
aristocracy were thoroughly selfish and corrupt, and exercised the power
which Sulla had intrusted to them only for their own aggrandizement.
Their shameless conduct soon disgusted the provinces as well as the
capital; the people again regained their power, but the consequence was
an anarchy and not a government; and as neither class was fit to rule,
they were obliged to submit to the dominion of a single man. Thus the
empire became a necessity to the exhausted Roman world.
* * * * *
I. _Laws relating to the Constitution._--Sulla deprived the Comitia
Tributa of their legislative and judicial powers; but he allowed them to
elect the Tribunes, Ædiles, Quæstors, and other inferior magistrates.
This seems to have been the only purpose for which they were called
together. The Comitia Centuriata, on the other hand, were allowed to
retain their right of legislation unimpaired. He restored, however, the
ancient regulation, which had fallen into desuetude, that no matter
should be brought before them without the previous sanction of a senatus
consultum.
The Senate had been so much reduced in numbers by the proscriptions of
Sulla, that he was obliged to fill up the vacancies by the election of
three hundred new members. But he made no alteration in their duties and
functions, as the whole administration of the state was in their hands;
and he gave them the initiative in legislation by requiring a previous
senatus consultum respecting all measures that were to be submitted to
the Comitia, as already stated.
With respect to the magistrates, Sulla increased the number of Quæstors
from eight to twenty, and of Prætors from six to eight. He renewed the
old law that no one should hold the Prætorship before he had been
Quæstor, nor the Consulship before he had been Prætor. He also renewed
the law that no one should be elected to the same magistracy till after
the expiration of ten years.
One of the most important of Sulla's reforms related to the Tribunate,
which he deprived of all real power. He took away from the Tribunes the
right of proposing a rogation of any kind to the Tribes, or of
impeaching any person before them; and he appears to have limited the
right of intercession to their giving protection to private persons
against the unjust decisions of magistrates, as, for instance, in the
enlisting of soldiers. To degrade the Tribunate still lower, Sulla
enacted that whoever had held this office forfeited thereby all right to
become a candidate for any of the higher curule offices, in order that
all persons of rank, talent, and wealth might be deterred from holding
an office which would be a fatal impediment to rising any higher in the
state. He also required persons to be Senators before they could become
Tribunes.
* * * * *
II. _Laws relating to the Ecclesiastical Corporations._--Sulla repealed
the Lex Domitia, which gave to the Comitia Tributa the right of electing
the members of the great ecclesiastical corporations, and restored to
the latter the right of co-optatio, or self-election. At the same time,
he increased the number of Pontiffs and Augurs to fifteen respectively.
* * * * *
III. _Laws relating to the Administration of Justice._--Sulla
established permanent courts for the trial of particular offenses, in
each of which a Prætor presided. A precedent for this had been given by
the Lex Calpurnia of the Tribune L. Calpurnius Piso, in B.C. 149, by
which it was enacted that a Prætor should preside at all trials for
Repetundæ during his year of office. This was called a _Quæstio
Perpetua_, and nine such _Quæstiones Perpetuæ_ were established by
Sulla, namely, De Repetundis, Majestatis, De Sicariis et Veneficis, De
Parricidio, Peculatus, Ambitus, De Nummis Adulterinis, De Falsis or
Testamentaria, and De Vi Publica. Jurisdiction in civil cases was left
to the Prætor Peregrinus and the Prætor Urbanus as before, and the other
six Prætors presided in the Quæstiones; but as the latter were more in
number than the Prætors, some of the Prætors took more than one Quæstio,
or a Judex Quæstionis was appointed. The Prætors, after their election,
had to draw lots for their several jurisdictions. Sulla enacted that the
Judices should be taken exclusively from the Senators, and not from the
Equites, the latter of whom had possessed this privilege, with a few
interruptions, from the law of C. Gracchus, in B.C. 123. This was a
great gain for the aristocracy, since the offenses for which they were
usually brought to trial, such as bribery, malversation, and the like,
were so commonly practiced by the whole order, that they were, in most
cases, nearly certain of acquittal from men who required similar
indulgence themselves.
Sulla's reform in the criminal law, the greatest and most enduring part
of his legislation, belongs to a history of Roman law, and can not be
given here.
* * * * *
IV. _Laws relating to the Improvement of Public Morals._--Of these we
have very little information. One of them was a Lex Sumtuaria, which
enacted that not more than a certain sum of money should be spent upon
entertainments, and also restrained extravagance in funerals. There was
likewise a law of Sulla respecting marriage, the provisions of which are
quite unknown, as it was probably abrogated by the Julian law of
Augustus.
[Illustration: Coin of Sulla.
On the obverse is the head of Sulla; on the reverse that of Q. Pompeius
Rufus, his colleague in his first Consulship.]
[Illustration: Cn. Pompeius Magnus.]