every tyrannic government, partly through the indirect operation of the
Roman revolution--in the seizure, for instance, of the property of the
soil in the province of Asia by Caius Gracchus, in the Roman tenths and
customs, and in the human hunts which the collectors of revenue added to
their other avocations there--the Roman rule, barely tolerable from the
first, pressed so heavily on Asia, that neither the king’s crown nor the
peasant’s hut there was any longer safe from confiscation, that every
stalk of corn seemed to grow for Roman tribute, and every child of free
parents seemed born for the Roman slave-driver.
It is true that the Asiatic bore even this torture with his
inexhaustible passive endurance; but it was not patience or reflection
that made him bear it peacefully. It was rather the peculiarly Oriental
want of power to take the initiative; and in these peaceful lands, among
these effeminate nations, strange and terrible things might happen if
once there should appear among them a man who knew how to give the
signal for revolt.
There reigned at that time in the kingdom of Pontus Mithridates VI,
surnamed Eupator, who traced back his lineage on the father’s side, in
the sixteenth generation to King Darius, son of Hystaspes, in the eighth
to Mithridates I, the founder of the Pontic Empire, and was on the
mother’s side descended from the Alexandridæ and the Seleucidæ. After
the early death of his father, Mithridates Euergetes, who fell by the
hand of an assassin at Synope, he had received the title of king when a
boy of eleven years old; but the diadem had only brought to him trouble
and danger. It is said that in order to escape from the daggers of his
legal protectors, he became of his own accord a wanderer; and during
seven years, changing his resting-place night after night, a fugitive
in his own kingdom, led the life of a lonely hunter.
Thus the boy grew into a mighty man. Although our accounts regarding him
are in substance traceable to written records of contemporaries, yet the
legendary tradition, which is generated with the rapidity of lightning
in the East, early adorned the mighty king with many of the traits of
its Samson and Rustem. These traits, however, belong to his character
just as the crown of clouds belong to the highest mountain peaks; the
outline of the figure appears in both cases only more colored and
fantastic, not disturbed or essentially altered.
The armor which fitted the gigantic frame of King Mithridates excited
the wonder of the Asiatics, and still more that of the Italians. As a
runner he overtook the swiftest deer; as a rider he broke in the wildest
steed, and was able by changing horses to accomplish one hundred and
twenty miles in a day; as a charioteer he drove with sixteen in hand,
and gained in competition many a prize--it was dangerous, no doubt, in
such sport to carry off victory from the king.
In hunting on horseback he hit the game at full gallop, and never missed
his aim. He challenged competition at the table also; he arranged
banqueting matches and carried off in person the prizes proposed for the
most substantial eater and the hardest drinker. His intellectual wants
he satisfied by the wildest superstition--the interpretation of dreams
and of the Greek mysteries occupied not a few of the king’s hours--and
by a rude adoption of the Hellenic civilization. He was fond of Greek
art and music--that is to say, he collected precious articles, rich
furniture, old Persian and Greek articles of luxury--his cabinet of
rings was famous--he had constantly Greek historians, philosophers, and
poets in his train; and proposed prizes at his court festivals, not only
for the greatest eaters and drinkers, but also for the merriest jester
and the best singer.
Such was the man; the sultan corresponded. In the East, where the
relation between the ruler and the ruled bears the relation of natural
rather than of moral law, the subject resembles the dog alike in
fidelity and in falsehood, the ruler is cruel and distrustful. In both
respects Mithridates has hardly been surpassed. By his orders there died
or pined in perpetual captivity, for real or alleged treason, his
mother, his brother, his sister espoused to him, three of his sons, and
as many of his daughters. Still more revolting, perhaps, is the fact
that among his secret papers were found sentences of death, drawn up
beforehand, against his most confidential servants.
In like manner it was a genuine trait of the sultan that he afterward,
for the mere purpose of depriving his enemy of trophies of victory,
caused his whole harem to be killed, and distinguished his favorite
concubine, a beautiful Ephesian, by allowing her to choose the mode of
death. He prosecuted the experimental studies of poisons and antidotes
as an important branch of the business of government, and tried to inure
his body to particular poisons. He had early learned to look for treason
and assassination at the hands of everybody, especially his nearest
relations, and he had early learned to practice them against everybody,
and most of all against those nearest him; of which the necessary
consequence--attested by history--was that all his undertakings finally
miscarried through the perfidy of those whom he trusted.
At the same time we meet with isolated traits of high-minded justice.
When he punished traitors, he ordinarily spared those who were involved
in the crime solely through their personal relations with the leading
culprits; but such fits of equity are to be met with in every barbarous
tyrant. What really distinguishes Mithridates amid the multitude of
similar sultans is his boundless activity. He disappeared one fine
morning from his palace, and remained unheard of for months, so that he
was given over as lost; when he returned, he had wandered _incognito_
through all anterior Asia, and reconnoitered everywhere the country and
the people.
In like manner he was not only generally fluent in speech, but he
administered justice to each of the twenty-two nations over which he
ruled in its own language, without needing an interpreter--a trait
significant of the versatile East. His whole activity as a ruler bears
the same character. So far as we know, his energies, like those of every
other sultan, were spent in collecting treasures, in assembling
armies--which were usually, in his earlier years at least, led against
the enemy not by the king in person, but by some Greek _condottiere_--in
efforts to add new satrapies to the old.
Of higher elements--desire to advance civilization, earnest leadership
of the national opposition, special gifts of genius--there are found, in
our traditional accounts at least, no distinct traces in Mithridates,
and we have no reason to place him on a level even with the great rulers
of the Osmans, such as Mohammed II and Suleiman. Notwithstanding his
Hellenic culture, which sat on him not much better than his Roman armor
on his Cappadocians, he was throughout an Oriental of the ordinary
stamp, coarse, full of the most sensual appetites, superstitious, cruel,
perfidious, and unscrupulous, but so vigorous in organization, so
powerful in physical endowments, that his defiant laying about him and
his unshaken courage in resistance frequently look like talent,
sometimes even like genius.
Granting even that during the death-struggle of the republic it was
easier to offer resistance than in the times of Scipio or Trajan, and
that it was only in the complication of the Asiatic events with the
internal commotions of Italy that rendered it possible for Mithridates
to resist the Romans twice as long as Jugurtha did, it nevertheless
remains true that before the Parthian war he was the only enemy who gave
serious trouble to the Romans in the East, and that he defended himself
as the lion of the desert defends himself against the hunter.
But whatever judgment we may form as to the individual character of the
king, his historical position remains in a high degree significant. The
Mithridatic wars formed at once the last movement of the political
opposition offered by Hellas to Rome and the beginning of a revolt
against the Roman supremacy resting on very different and far deeper
grounds of antagonism--the national reaction of the Asiatics against the
Occidentals, a new passage in the huge duel between the West and the
East which has been transmitted from the struggle of Marathon to the
present generation, and will, perhaps, reckon its future by thousands of
years as it has reckoned its past.
LUCIUS SYLLA.
BY JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE.
[Lucius Cornelius Sulla or Sylla (Felix) dictator of Rome, born 138
B.C., died in 78. Leader of the aristocratic party in the state, he
destroyed the party of popular reform, became dictator, and
proscribed thousands of the best citizens of the republic, who were
hunted down like wild beasts. In the Social and the Samnite war, as
in the first war against Mithridates, he displayed the genius of a
great soldier, surpassing even that of his able rival Marius. He
reorganized the Roman Constitution, concentrated all power in the
hands of the senatorial oligarchy, and paved the way for Julius
Cæsar to overthrow the liberties of the republic, though the latter
belonged to the opposite party. References: Froude’s “Life of
Cæsar,” Plutarch’s “Lives,” Mommsen’s “History of Rome.”]
Lucius Sylla, a patrician of the purest blood, had inherited a moderate
fortune, and had spent it like other young men of rank, lounging in
theatres and amusing himself with dinner-parties. He was a poet, an
artist, and a wit, but each and everything with the languor of an
amateur. His favorite associates were actresses, and he had neither
obtained nor aspired to any higher reputation than that of a cultivated
man of fashion.
His distinguished birth was not apparent in his person. He had red hair,
hard blue eyes, and a complexion white and purple, with the colors so
ill-mixed, that his face was compared to a mulberry sprinkled with
flour. Ambition, he appeared to have none, and when he exerted himself
to be appointed quæstor[11] to Marius on the African expedition, Marius
was disinclined to take him as having no recommendation beyond
qualifications which the consul of the plebeians disdained and disliked.
Marius, however, soon discovered his mistake. Beneath his constitutional
indolence Sylla was by nature a soldier, a statesman, a diplomatist. He
had been too contemptuous of the common objects of politicians to
concern himself with the intrigues of the forum, but he had only to
exert himself to rise with easy ascendancy to the command of every
situation in which he might be placed.
The war of factions which exiled Marius, placed Sylla at the head of the
expedition against the King of Pontus. He defeated Mithridates, he drove
him back out of Greece and pursued him into Asia. He left him still in
possession of his hereditary kingdom; but he left him bound, so far as
treaties could bind so ambitious a spirit, to remain thenceforward on
his own frontiers. He recovered Greece, the islands, and the Roman
provinces in Asia Minor. He extorted an indemnity of five millions, and
executed many of the wretches who had been active in the murders. He
raised a fleet in Egypt with which he drove the pirates out of the
archipelago back into their own waters. He restored the shattered
prestige of Roman authority, and he won for himself a reputation which
his later cruelties could stain but not efface. During his Eastern
campaign, a period of more than four years, the popular party had
recovered ascendancy at Rome.
The time was come when Sylla was to demand a reckoning for what had been
done in his absence. No Roman general had deserved better of his
country; his task was finished. He had measured the difficulty of the
task which lay before him, but he had an army behind him accustomed to
victory, and recruited by thousands of exiles who had fled from the rule
of the democracy. He intended to re-enter Rome with the glories of his
conquests about him, for revenge, and a counter-revolution. Sylla had
lingered at Athens, collecting paintings and statues and
manuscripts--the rarest treasures on which he could lay his hands--to
decorate his Roman palace. On receiving the consul’s answer he sailed
for Brindisi in the spring of 83 with forty thousand legionaries and a
large fleet.
The war lasted for more than a year. At length the contest ended in a
desperate fight under the walls of Rome itself on the first of November,
B.C., 82. The popular army was at last cut to pieces, a few thousand
prisoners taken, but they were murdered afterward in cold blood. Young
Marius killed himself. Sertorius fled to Spain, and Sylla and the
aristocracy were masters of Rome and Italy. Sylla was under no
illusions. He understood the problem which he had in hand. He knew that
the aristocracy were detested by nine tenths of the people; he knew that
they deserved to be detested, but they were at least gentlemen by birth
and breeding.
The democrats, on the other hand, were insolent upstarts who, instead of
being grateful for being allowed to live and work and pay taxes and
serve in the army, had dared to claim a share in the government, had
turned against their masters, and had set their feet upon their necks.
They were ignorant, and without leaders could be controlled easily. The
guilt and danger lay with the men of wealth and intellect, the country
gentlemen, the minority of knights and patricians like Cinna,[12] who
had taken the popular side and deserted their own order. There was no
hope for an end of agitation till every one of these men had been rooted
out.
Appointed dictator, at his own direction, by the senate, he at once
outlawed every magistrate, every public servant, civil or municipal, who
had held office under the rule of Cinna. It mattered little to Sylla who
were included if none escaped who were really dangerous to him; and an
order was issued for a slaughter of the entire number, the confiscation
of their property, and the division of it between the informers and
Sylla’s friends and soldiers. It was one of those deliberate acts,
carried out with method and order, which are possible only in countries
in an advanced stage of civilization, and which show how thin is the
film spread over human ferocity by what is called progress and culture.
Four thousand seven hundred persons fell in the proscription of Sylla,
all men of education and fortune. Common report or private information
was at once indictment and evidence, and accusation was in itself
condemnation.
The political reform enforced by the dictator gave the senate complete
restrictive control over legislation and administration. All
constitutional progress which had been made in the interests of the
people was utterly swept away. The senate was made omnipotent and
irresponsible. Sylla’s career was drawing to its close, and the end was
not the least remarkable feature of it. He resigned the dictatorship and
became a private citizen again, amusing the leisure of his age, as he
had abused the leisure of his youth, with theatres and actresses and
dinner-parties.
He too, like so many of the great Romans, was indifferent to life; of
power for the sake of power he was entirely careless; and if his
retirement had been more dangerous to him than it really was, he
probably would not have postponed it. He was a person of singular
character, and not without many qualities which were really admirable.
He was free from any touch of charlatanry. He was true, simple, and
unaffected, and even without ambition in the mean and personal sense.
His fault, which he would have denied to be a fault, was that he had a
patrician disdain of mobs and suffrages and the cant of popular liberty.
The type repeats itself era after era. Sylla was but Graham of
Claverhouse in a Roman dress and with an ampler stage. His courage in
laying down his authority has often been commented on, but the risk
which he incurred was insignificant. Of assassination he was in no
greater danger than when dictator, while the temptation to assassinate
him was less. His influence was practically undiminished, and as long as
he lived he remained, and could not but remain, the first person in the
republic. He lived a year after his retirement and died 78 B.C., being
occupied at the time in writing his memoirs, which have been
unfortunately lost. He was buried gorgeously in the Campus Martius,
among the old kings of Rome.
POMPEY.
BY THOMAS KERCHEVER ARNOLD.
[Known as Cneius Pompeius Magnus (or the Great), born 106 B.C.,
assassinated in Egypt by one of his own officers in 48. Best known
as the most formidable rival of Julius Cæsar; his career was
eminently fortunate till he sunk before the ascendancy of a greater
man. He achieved brilliant victories for Rome, and was honored with
three triumphs. Pompey was identified in the factional wars of
Italy, with the party led by Sulla. He finally became triumvir in
the division of power with Cæsar and Crassus. In the civil war
which ensued Pompey was defeated by Cæsar at the battle of
Pharsalia in Thessaly. After this defeat he fled to Egypt, where,
as he was leaving the boat for the shore, he was stabbed in the
back.]
The tears shed for Pompey were not only those of domestic infliction;
his fate called forth a more general and honorable mourning. No man had
ever gained at so early an age the affections of his countrymen; none
had enjoyed them so largely, or preserved them so long with so little
interruption; and at the distance of eighteen centuries the feeling of
his contemporaries may be sanctioned by the sober judgment of history.
He entered upon life as a distinguished member of an oppressed party,
which was just arriving at its hour of triumph and retaliation; he saw
his associates plunged into rapine and massacre, but he preserved
himself pure from the contagion of their crimes; and when the death of
Sylla left him almost at the head of the aristocratical party, he served
them ably and faithfully with his sword, while he endeavored to mitigate
the evils of their ascendancy by restoring to the commons of Rome, on
the earliest opportunity, the most important of those privileges and
liberties which they had lost under the tyranny of their late master.
He received the due reward of his honest patriotism in the unusual
honors and trusts that were conferred on him; but his greatness could
not corrupt his virtue; and the boundless powers with which he was
repeatedly invested he wielded with the highest ability and uprightness
to the accomplishment of his task, and then, without any undue attempts
to prolong their duration, he honestly resigned them. At a period of
general cruelty and extortion toward the enemies and subjects of the
commonwealth, the character of Pompey in his foreign commands was marked
by its humanity and spotless integrity.
His conquest of the pirates was effected with wonderful rapidity, and
cemented by a merciful policy, which, instead of taking vengeance for
the past, accomplished the prevention of evil for the future. His
presence in Asia, when he conducted the war with Mithridates, was no
less a relief to the provinces from the tyranny of their governors, than
it was their protection against the arms of the enemy. It is true that
wounded vanity led him, after his return from Asia, to unite himself for
a time with some unworthy associates; and this connection, as it
ultimately led to all his misfortunes, so did it immediately tempt him
to the worst faults of his political life, and involved him in a career
of difficulty, mortification, and shame.
But after this disgraceful fall, he again returned to his natural
station, and was universally regarded as the fit protector of the laws
and liberties of his country when they were threatened by Cæsar’s
rebellion. In the conduct of the civil war he showed something of
weakness and vacillation; but his abilities, though considerable, were
far from being equal to those of his adversary. His inferiority was most
seen in that want of steadiness in the pursuit of his own plans which
caused him to abandon a system already sanctioned by success, and to
persuade himself that he might yield with propriety to the ill-judged
impatience of his followers for battle.
His death is one of the few tragical events of those times which may be
regarded with unmixed compassion. It was not accompanied, like that of
Cato and Brutus, with the rashness and despair of suicide; nor can it be
regarded like that of Cæsar, as the punishment of crimes, unlawfully
inflicted, indeed, yet suffered deservedly. With a character of rare
purity and tenderness in his domestic relations, he was slaughtered
before the eyes of his wife and son; while flying from the ruin of a
most just cause he was murdered by those whose kindness he was entitled
to claim.
His virtues have not been transmitted to posterity with their deserved
fame; and while the violent republican writers have exalted the memory
of Cato and Brutus; while the lovers of literature have extolled
Cicero; and the admirers of successful ability have lavished their
praises on Cæsar; Pompey’s many and rare merits have been forgotten in
the faults of his triumvirate, and in the weakness of temper which he
displayed in conduct of the last campaign.
But he must have been in no ordinary degree good and amiable for whom
his countrymen professed their enthusiastic love, unrestrained by
servility and unimpelled by faction; and though the events of his life
must now be gathered for the most part from unfriendly sources, yet we
think that they who read them impartially will continually cherish his
memory with a warmer regard.
SERTORIUS.
BY PLUTARCH.
[Quintus Sertorius, a Roman general of Sabine extraction, born
about 121 B.C., assassinated in Spain in 72. A prominent chief of
the Marian party, he fled to Spain and held possession of the
province against the dominant party at Rome for more than ten
years. He was the one leader among the adherents of Marius, as
Pompey was the one general among the followers of Sylla, who showed
moderation and the spirit of clemency. His greatness was chiefly
shown in his career in Spain. He displayed consummate generalship
and skill in holding all the armies of Rome at bay till he was
assassinated by one of his own officers.]
Sertorius at last utterly despaired of Rome, and hastened into Spain,
that by taking possession there beforehand he might secure a refuge to
his friends from their misfortunes at home. He armed all the Romans who
lived in those countries that were of military age, and undertook the
building of ships and the making of all sorts of warlike engines, by
which means he kept the cities in due obedience, showing himself gentle
in all peaceful business, and at the same time formidable to his
enemies by his great preparations for war.
When Sertorius was called to Mauritania to assist the enemies of Prince
Ascalis, and had made himself absolute master of the whole country, he
acted with great fairness to those who had confided in him, and who
yielded to his mercy. He restored to them their property, cities, and
government, accepting only of such acknowledgments as they themselves
freely offered. While he considered which way next to turn his arms, the
Lusitanians sent ambassadors to desire him to be their general. For
being terrified with the Roman power, and finding the necessity of
having a commander of great authority and experience in war; being also
sufficiently assured of his worth and valor by those who formerly had
known him, they were desirous to commit themselves specially to his
care.
In fact, Sertorius is said to have been of a temper unassailable either
by fear or pleasure, in adversity and dangers undaunted, and no ways
puffed up with prosperity. In straightforward fighting no commander of
his time was more bold and daring; and in whatever was to be performed
in war by stratagem, secrecy, or surprise, if any strong place was to be
secured, any pass to be gained speedily, for deceiving and overreaching
an enemy, there was no man equal to him in subtlety and skill.