SULLA IN ITALY.
[Sidenote: Sulla sets out homewards.] Leaving Murena in Asia with
Fimbria's legions, Sulla, in 84 B.C., with his soldiers in good
humour, and with full coffers, at last set out homewards. Three days
after sailing from Ephesus he reached the Piraeus. Thence he wrote to
the Senate in a different style from that in which he had communicated
his victory over Fimbria, when he had not mentioned his own outlawry.
He now recounted the Senate all that he had done, and contrasted it
with what had been done to him at Rome, how his house had been
destroyed, his friends murdered, and his wife and children forced to
fly for their lives. He was on his way, he said, to punish his enemies
and those who had wronged him. Other men, including the
newly-enfranchised Italians, need be under no apprehension. We do not
know much of what had been going on at Rome beyond what has been
related in a previous chapter. Cinna and Carbo, the consuls, were
making what preparations they could when the letter arrived. But it
struck a cold chill of dread into many of the Senate, and Cinna and
Carbo were told to desist for a time, while an embassy was sent to
Sulla to try and arrange terms, and to ask, if he wished to be assured
of his own safety, what were his demands. But when the ambassadors
were gone, Cinna and Carbo proclaimed themselves consuls for 83, so
that they might not have to come back to Rome to hold the elections;
and Cinna was soon afterwards murdered at Ancona. The tribunes then
compelled Carbo to come back and hold the elections in the regular
manner; and Lucius Cornelius Scipio Asiaticus and Caius Norbanus were
elected.
Meanwhile the ambassadors had found Sulla in Greece, and had received
his answer. [Sidenote: Sulla's response to an embassy from Rome.]
He said that he would never be reconciled to such criminals as his
enemies, though the Romans might, if they chose; and that, as for his
own safety, he had an army devoted to him, and should prefer to secure
the safety of the Senate and his own adherents. He sent back with the
ambassadors some friends to represent him before the Senate, and,
embarking his army at the Piraeus, ordered it to go round the coast to
Patrae in Achaia, and thence to the shores opposite Brundisium. He,
himself, having a fit of gout, went to Euboea, to try the springs of
Aedepsus. [Sidenote: Story of Sulla and some fishermen.] One day,
says Plutarch, while he was walking on the shore there some fishermen
brought him some fine fish. He was much pleased, but when they told
him that they were citizens of Halae, a town which he had destroyed
after the battle of Orchomenos, he said in his grim way, 'What! is
there a man of Halae still alive?' But then he told the men to take
heart, for the fish had pleaded eloquently for them. From Euboea he
crossed to the mainland to rejoin his troops. They were about 40,000
in number, and more than 200,000 men were, he said, in arms against
him in Italy. [Sidenote: Devotion of Sulla's troops to him.] But
Sulla, who had connived at their mutinies, their vices, and their
breaches of discipline, who had always led them to victory, and
had never yet thrown aside that mask of moderation which veiled an
inflexible determination to be revenged--Sulla who had been so long
the sole representative of authority, and to whom they had learned to
look for their ultimate reward, was their hero and hope. They offered
him their money, and of their own accord swore not to disperse or to
ravage the country. Sulla refused their money. Indeed he must have had
plenty of his own. But now, when slowly and still very cautiously he
was unfolding his designs, such devotion must have been very welcome.
[Sidenote: Sulla lands at Brundisium, B.C. 83.] Early in 83 he sailed
from Dyrrhachium to Brundisium, and was at once received by the town.
He was particularly anxious not to rouse against himself the Italians,
with whom his name was anything but popular, and he solemnly swore to
respect their lately-acquired rights. Adherents soon flocked to him.
[Sidenote: He is joined by Crassus;] Marcus Licinius Crassus came from
Africa, and was sent to raise troops among the Marsi. He asked for an
escort, for he had to go through territory occupied by the enemy. 'I
give thee,' said Sulla hotly, 'thy father, thy brother, thy friends
and thy kinsmen, who were cut off by violence and lawlessness, and
whose murderers I am now hunting down.' [Sidenote: by Metellus Pius;]
Quintus Metellus Pius came from Liguria, whither he had escaped from
Africa, after holding out there against the Marians as long as he
could. [Sidenote: by Ofella;] Quintus Lucretius Ofella also came, soon
to find to his cost that he had chosen a master who could as readily
forget as accept timely service. [Sidenote: by Cn. Pompeius;] Most
welcome of all was Cneius Pompeius, welcome not only for his talents,
energy, and popularity, but because he did not come empty-handed. He
had taken service under Cinna, but had been looked on with distrust,
and an action had been brought against him to make him surrender
plunder which his father, Cneius Pompeius Strabo, was said to have
appropriated when he took Auximum. Carbo had pleaded for him, and he
had been acquitted. But, as soon as Sulla was gaining ground in Italy,
he went to Picenum where he had estates, and expelled from Auximum the
adherents of Carbo, and then passing from town to town won them one by
one from his late protector's interests, and got together a corps of
three legions, with all the proper equipment and munitions of war.
Three officers were sent against him at the head of three divisions;
but they quarrelled, and Pompeius, who is said to have slain with his
own hand the strongest horseman in the enemy's ranks, defeated one of
them and effected a junction with Sulla somewhere in Apulia. Sulla's
soldierly eye was pleased at the sight of troops thus successful, and
in good martial trim; and when Pompeius addressed him as Imperator,
he hailed him by the same title in return. Or, perhaps, he was only
playing on the youth's vanity, for Pompeius, who was for his courage
and good looks the darling of the soldiers and the women, was very
vain, and flattery was a potion which it seems to have been one
of Sulla's cynical maxims always to administer in strong doses.
[Sidenote: by Philippus;] Later on he was joined by Philippus, the foe
of Drusus, who for shifty and successful knavery seems to have been
another Marcus Scaurus; [Sidenote: by Cethegus;] by Cethegus, who
had been one of his bitterest enemies, which to a man of Sulla's
business-like disposition would not be an objection, so long as he
could make himself useful at the time; [Sidenote: by Verres.] and by
Caius Verres, a late quaestor of Carbo, who had embezzled the public
money in that capacity, and thus began by tergiversation and theft a
notorious career.
Sulla marched northwards through Apulia, gaining friends by committing
no devastation, and sending proposals of peace to the consul Norbanus,
which were as hypocritical as was his abstinence from ravaging the
country. He meant to deal with these Samnites through whose country he
was marching at some other time. At present it was most politic not to
provoke them. According to Appian, he met the consul at Canusium, on
the Aufidus. [Sidenote: Battle of Mount Tifata. Defeat of Norbanus.]
But it is probable that this is a mistake, and that the first battle
was fought at Mount Tifata, a spur of the Apennines, near Capua.
Norbanus had seized Sulla's envoys, and this so enraged the soldiers
of the latter that they charged down the hill with irresistible
impetuosity, and killed 6000 of the foe. Norbanus fled to Capua. Only
seventy of the Sullans were killed. Sulla now crossed the Volturnus,
and marching along the Appian Road met the other consul, Scipio, at
Teanum, with whom he opened negotiations. Scipio sent Sertorius to
Norbanus, who was blockaded in Capua, to consult him on the terms
proposed. Sertorius, who had guessed what was coming and hoped to
prevent it by something more efficacious than the advice of Norbanus,
went out of his way and seized Suessa. This would interrupt Sulla's
immediate communications with the sea, of which he was master. Sulla
complained; but all the while he was, as Sertorius had warned Scipio,
corrupting the Consul's troops. [Sidenote: Scipio's troops desert to
Sulla.] They murmured when Scipio returned the hostages which Sulla
had given; and, when the latter on their invitation approached their
lines they went over to him in a body. On hearing of this Carbo said,
that in contending with Sulla he had to contend with a lion and a fox,
and that the fox gave him most trouble.
It may be noted here that Sulla, whose calculated moderation was
paying him well--the more pleasantly because he knew that he could
wreak his revenge afterwards at his leisure--never scrupled to employ
every kind of subterfuge and lie. [Sidenote: Sulla's mendacity.] He
tricked and lied on his march to Rome in 88. He lied foully to the
Samnites after the battle of the Colline Gate. And he lied in his
Memoirs, when he said that he only lost four at Chaeroneia, and
twenty-three at Sacriportus, where he also said that he killed 20,000
of the foe. Absurd assertions like these may have been dictated as a
sort of lavish acknowledgment paid to fortune, of whom he liked to be
thought the favourite--lies that no one believed or was expected to
believe, but keeping up a fiction of which it was his foible to be
proud. [Sidenote: His success due greatly to desertions.] Another
thing we may note is, that this was only the first of a long series
of treasons to which, as much almost as to his own generalship, Sulla
owed his final success. Five cohorts deserted at Sacriportus. Five
more went over from Carbo to Metellus. Two hundred and seventy cavalry
went over from Carbo to Sulla in Etruria. A whole legion, despatched
by Carbo to relieve Praeneste, joined Pompeius. At the battle of
Faventia 6000 deserted, and a Lucanian legion did the same directly
afterwards. Naples and Narbo were both banded over by treachery. We
hear also of commanders deserting. On the other hand, nothing is said
of anyone deserting from Sulla, so that from the very beginning the
contest could never have been really considered doubtful.
[Sidenote: Sertorius sent to Spain. No capable man left to oppose
Sulla.] After this signal success at Teanum Sertorius was sent to
Spain, either because, as is likely, he made bitter comments on the
consul's incompetence, or because it was important to hold Spain as a
place for retreat. Carbo hastened to Rome to and at his instigation
the Senate outlawed all the senators who had joined Sulla--a suicidal
step, which would contrast fatally with Sulla's crafty moderation.
[Sidenote: Burning of the Capitol.] It was about this time that the
Capitol, and in it the Sibylline books, were burnt. Some people said
that Carbo burnt it, though what his motive could be is difficult to
conjecture. Sulla very likely regretted the loss of the Sibylline
books as much as any man. [Sidenote: Sulla's situation at the close of
83 B.C.] With this the first year of the civil war ended. Sulla was
master of Picenum, Apulia, and Campania; had disposed of two consuls
and their armies; and had, by conciliation and swearing to respect
their rights, made friends of some of the newly-enfranchised Italian
towns.
The consuls for the next year (82) were Carbo and young Marius. The
Marian governor in Africa was suspected of wishing to raise the slaves
and to make himself absolute in the province. Consequently the Roman
merchants stirred up a tumult, in which he was burnt alive in his
house. In Sardinia the renegade Philippus did some service by
defeating the Marian praetor, and so securing for Sulla the corn
supply of the islands. In the spring Sulla seized Setia, a strong
position on the west of the Volscian Mountains. Marius was in the same
neighbourhood, and he retreated to Sacriportus on the east of the same
range. [Sidenote: Battle of Sacriportus.] Sulla followed him, his aim
being to get to Rome. A battle took place at Sacriportus. Marius was
getting the worst of it on the left wing, when five cohorts and two
companies of cavalry deserted him. The rest fled with great slaughter,
and Sulla pressed so hard on them that the gates of Praeneste were
shut, to hinder him getting in with the fugitives. Marius was thus
left outside, and, like Archelaus at Piraeus, had to be hoisted over
the walls by ropes. [Sidenote: Sulla wins the battle and besieges
Praeneste.] Sulla captured 8000 Samnites in the battle, and now, for
the first time, when the road to Rome was opened and victory seemed
secure, showed himself in his true colours, and slew all of them to a
man. [Sidenote: Massacre at Rome by order of young Marius.] An equally
savage butchery had been going on in Rome, where Marius, before he was
blockaded in Praeneste, had given orders to massacre the leaders of
the opposite faction. The Senate was assembled as if to despatch
business in the Curia Hostilia, and there Carbo's cousin and the
father-in-law of Pompeius were assassinated. The wife of the latter
killed herself on hearing the news. Quintus Mucius Scaevola, the chief
pontiff, and the first jurist who attempted to systematise Roman law,
fled to the temple of Vesta, and was there slain. The corpses of those
who had been killed were thrown into the Tiber, and Marius had the
ferocious satisfaction of feeling that his enemies would not be able
to exult over his own imminent ruin. [Sidenote: Sulla comes to Rome.]
Sulla, leaving Ofella to blockade Praeneste, hastened to Rome, but
there was no one on whom to take vengeance, for his foes had fled.
He confiscated their property, and tried to quiet apprehensions by
telling the people that he would soon re-establish the State. But he
could not stay long in the city, for matters looked threatening in the
north.
[Sidenote: Metellus and Carbo in the north.] In this quarter the
contest was more stubborn, because the newly enfranchised towns were
stronger partisans of Marius. Metellus had fought a battle on the
Aesis, the frontier river of Picenum, against Carrinas, one of Carbo's
lieutenants, and after a hard fight had beaten him and occupied the
adjacent country. This brought Carbo against him with a superior army,
and Metellus could do nothing till the news of Sacriportus frightened
Carbo into retreating to Ariminum, that he might secure his
communications and get supplies from the rich valley of the Po.
Metellus immediately resumed the offensive. He defeated in person one
division of Carbo, five of whose cohorts deserted in the battle. His
lieutenant, Pompeius, defeated Censorinus at Sena and sacked the town.
Pompeius is also said to have crossed the Po and taken Mediolanum
(Milan), where his soldiers massacred the senate. Metellus, meanwhile,
had gone by sea along the east coast north of Ariminum, and had thus
cut off Carbo's communications with the valley of the Po. This drove
Carbo from his position, and he marched into Etruria, where he fought
a battle near Clusium with Sulla, who had just arrived from Rome. In a
cavalry fight near the Clanis, 270 of Carbo's Spanish horse went
over to Sulla, and Carbo killed the rest. There was another fight
at Saturnia, on the Albegna, and there, too, Sulla was victorious.
[Sidenote: Indecisive combats.] He was less fortunate in a general
engagement near Clusium, which after a whole day's fighting ended
indecisively. Carbo was, however, now reduced to great straits.
Carrinas was defeated by Pompeius and Crassus near Spoletum, and
retired into the town. Carbo sent a detachment to his aid; but it was
cut to pieces by an ambuscade laid by Sulla. Bad news, too, reached
him from the south, where Marius was beginning to starve in Praeneste.
[Sidenote: Carbo attempts to relieve Praeneste.] He sent a strong
force of eight legions to raise the siege; but Pompeius waylaid and
routed them, and surrounded their officer who had retreated to a hill.
But the latter, leaving his fires alight, marched off by night,
and returned to Carbo with only seven cohorts; for his troops had
mutinied, one legion going off to Ariminum and many men dispersing to
their homes. [Sidenote: A second attempt also fails.] A second attempt
to relieve Praeneste was now made from the south. Lamponius from
Lucania, whom we last heard of in the Social War (p. 120), and Pontius
Telesinus from Samnium, marched at the head of 70,000 men into Latium.
This movement drew Sulla from Etruria. He threw himself between Rome
and the enemy, and occupied a gorge through which they had to pass
before they could get to Praeneste. The Latin Road branches off near
Anagnia, one route leading straight to Rome, the other making a detour
through Praeneste. [Sidenote: The dead lock at Praeneste.] It was
somewhere here that Sulla took his stand; and neither could the
southern army break through his lines, nor Marius break through those
of Ofella, though he made determined attempts to do so.
Meanwhile Carbo and Norbanus, released from the pressure of Sulla's
army, struck across the Apennines to overwhelm Metellus; but their
imprudence ruined them. [Sidenote: Overthrow of Carbo by Metellus.]
Coming on Metellus at Faventia (Faenza) when their troops were weary
after a day's march, they attacked him in the evening, hoping to
surprise him. But the tired men were defeated. Ten thousand were
killed; 6000 surrendered or deserted. The rest fled, and only 1000
effected an orderly retreat to Arretium. Nor did the disaster end
here. A Lucanian legion, coming to join Carbo, deserted to Metellus on
hearing the result of the battle, and the commander sent to offer his
submission to Sulla. Sulla characteristically replied that he must
earn his pardon, and the other, nothing loth, asked Norbanus and his
officers to a banquet and murdered all who came. Norbanus refused the
invitation and escaped to Rhodes; but when Sulla sent to demand that
he should be given up he committed suicide. [Sidenote: Third attempt
to relive Praeneste.] Carbo had still more than 30,000 men at Clusium,
and he made a third attempt to relieve Praeneste by sending Damasippus
with two legions to co-operate from the north with the Samnites on the
south. [Sidenote: Carbo flies to Africa.] But Sulla found means to
hold them in check, and Carbo, on the news of other disasters--at
Fidentia, where Marcus Lucullus defeated one of his lieutenants, and
at Tuder, which Marcus Crassus took and pillaged--lost heart and fled
to Africa. Plutarch says that Lucullus, having less than a third of
the numbers of the enemy, was in doubt whether to fight. But just then
a gentle breeze blew the flowers from a neighbouring field, which fell
on the shields and helmets of the soldiers in such a manner that they
seemed to be crowned with garlands, and this so cheered them that they
won an easy victory. After Carbo's flight his army was defeated by
Pompeius near Clusium. [Sidenote: Carbo's lieutenants threaten Rome.]
The rest of it, under Carrinas and Censorinus, joined Damasippus, and,
taking up a position twelve miles from Rome in the Alban territory,
threatened the capital and forced Sulla to break up his quarters,
where he had been barring the roads to Praeneste and Rome. [Sidenote:
Sulla comes to the rescue.] The sequel is uncertain; but it is
probable that when the three commanders marched into Latium, Sulla was
obliged to detach cavalry to harass them, and soon afterwards to march
with all his forces to prevent Rome being taken. Why Carrinas did not
assault Rome at once as he came south, we cannot say. Probably the
relief of Praeneste was the most urgent necessity, and he hoped, after
setting Marius free, to overwhelm Sulla first, then Pompeius, and then
to take Rome. But, if these were his plans, the furious impetuosity of
the Samnites disarranged them. [Sidenote: Desperate attempt of Pontius
Telesinus.] Pontius, as soon as he saw Sulla's troops weakened, in
order to oppose Carrinas, forced his way by night along the Latin
Road, gathered up the troops of Carrinas on the march, and at daybreak
was within a few miles of Rome. Sulla instantly followed, but by the
Praenestine Road, which was somewhat longer; and when he got to Rome
about midday, fighting had already taken place, and the Roman cavalry
had been beaten under the walls of the city.
[Sidenote: Battle of the Colline Gate.] It was November, B.C. 82.
Sunset was near and Sulla's men were weary, but he was determined or
was compelled to fight. Giving his men some hasty refreshment, he at
once formed the line of battle before the Colline Gate, and the last
and most desperate conflict of the civil war began. Sulla's left wing
was driven back to the city walls, and fugitives brought word to
Ofella at Praeneste that the battle was lost. [Sidenote: Danger of
Sulla.] Sulla himself was nearly slain. He was on a spirited white
horse, cheering on his men. Two javelins were hurled at him at once.
He did not see them, but his groom did, and he lashed Sulla's horse so
as to make it leap forward, and the javelins grazed its tail. Sulla
wore in his bosom a small golden image of Apollo, which he brought
from Delphi. He now kissed it with devotion, and prayed aloud to
the god not to allow him to fall ingloriously by the hands of his
fellow-citizens, after leading him safe through so many perils to the
threshold of the city. But neither courage nor superstition availed
him against the fury of the Samnite onset. For the first time in his
life Sulla was beaten, and either retreated into Rome or maintained a
desperate struggle close to the walls during the night. On the right
wing, however, Crassus had gained the day, had chased the foe to
Antemnae, and halting there sent to Sulla for a supply of food. Thus
apprised of his good fortune, he hastened to join Crassus. That
division of the enemy which had beaten him had doubtless heard the
same news, and must have dispersed or joined the rest of their forces
at Antemnae. But in any case they were full of despair. Three thousand
offered to surrender. But Sulla never gave mercy, though he often sold
it for an explicit or tacit consideration. He swore to spare them if
they turned on their own comrades. They did so, and Sulla, taking them
to Rome with four or five thousand other prisoners, placed them in
the Circus Flaminius and had them all slain. [Sidenote: Sulla's
cold-blooded ferocity.] He was haranguing the Senate in the temple of
Bellona, and the cries of the poor wretches alarmed his audience; but
he told them to attend to what he was saying, for the noise they heard
was only made by some malefactors, whom he had ordered to be
chastised. This last blind rush of the Sabellian bull on the lair of
the wolves, which Pontius had told his followers they must destroy,
had failed only by a hair's breadth, and since the days of the Gauls
Rome had never been in such peril. But now at last Sulla had
triumphed, and could afford to gratify his pent-up passion for
vengeance. This butchery in the Circus was but the beginning of what
he meant to do. [Sidenote: Executions.] The four leaders, Pontius,
Carrinas, Damasippus, and Censorinus, were all beheaded; and, in the
same ghastly fashion in which, it was said, Hannibal had learnt the
death of Hasdrubal, so those blockaded in Praeneste learnt the fate of
the relieving army and their own fate also by seeing four heads stuck
on poles outside the town walls. They were half starving and could
resist no longer. Marius and a younger brother of Pontius killed each
other before the surrender. Ofella sent the head of Marius to Sulla,
who had it fixed up before the Rostra, and jeered at it in his
pitiless fashion, quoting from Aristophanes the line,
You should have worked at the oar before trying to handle the helm.
[Sidenote: Massacre at Praeneste.] Then he went to Praeneste, and made
all the inhabitants come outside and lay down their arms. The Roman
senators who had been in the place had been already slain by Ofella.
Three groups were made of the rest, consisting of Samnites, Romans,
and Praenestines. The Romans, the women, and the children were spared.
All the others, 12,000 in number, were massacred, and Praeneste was
given over to pillage.
[Sidenote: Fate of Norba.] So ruthless an example provoked a desperate
resistance at Norba. It was betrayed to Lepidus by night; but the
citizens stabbed and hung themselves or each other, and some locking
themselves inside their houses, set them in flames. A wind was blowing
and the town was consumed. So at Norba there was neither pillage nor
execution. Nola was not taken till two years afterwards, and we have
seen (p. 121) what became of Mutilus on its surrender. [Sidenote:
Sulla's vengeance in Samnium.] Aesernia, the last Samnite capital in
the Social War, was captured in the same year (80), and Sulla did his
best to fulfil his threat of extirpating the Samnite name. In Etruria
Populonium held out longer, and in Strabo's time was still deserted--a
proof of the punishment which it received. Volaterrae was the last
town to submit. In 79 its garrison surrendered, on condition of their
lives being spared. But the soldiers of the besieging force raised a
cry of treason and stoned their general, and a troop of cavalry sent
from Rome cut the garrison to pieces.
[Sidenote: Fate of Carbo. Pompeius in Sicily.] In the provinces there
was still much to be done. Pompeius was sent to Sicily, and on his
arrival Perperna, the Marian governor, left the island. Carbo had
come over from Africa to Cossura, and was taken and brought before
Pompeius. Pompeius condemned the man who had once been his advocate,
and sent his head to Sulla. It is said that Carbo met his death in a
craven way, begging for a respite. Whether this is true or not, he
seems to have been a selfish and incapable man. But if it be true that
Pompeius, while he had Carbo's companions instantly slain, purposely
spared Carbo himself in order to have the satisfaction of trying him,
he was less to be envied than the man he tried. He divorced his wife
at this time in order to marry Sulla's step-daughter, who was also
divorced from her husband for the purpose. From Sicily Pompeius
was sent to Africa, where Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus was in arms.
Crossing offer with 120 ships and 800 transports he landed some of his
troops at Utica and some at Carthage.
[Sidenote: Decay of discipline in Roman armies.] The decay of
discipline in the Roman armies is illustrated by an incident which
occurred at Carthage. One soldier found some treasure, and the rest
would not stir for several days till they were convinced that there
was nothing more to be found. Pompeius looked on and laughed at them.
Sulla's way of treating his soldiers was already bearing fruit, and
was one of the worst of the evils which he brought on Italy; for he
who goes about scattering smiles and smooth words in order to win a
name, for good-nature will always find others to run him a race in
such meanness, and so discipline becomes subverted and states are
ruined.
[Sidenote: Domitius Ahenobarbus conquered and slain by Pompeius in
Africa.] Pompeius found Domitius strongly posted behind a ravine.
Taking advantage of a tempest, he crossed it and routed the enemy. His
men hailed him Imperator: but he said he would not take the title till
they had taken the camp. The camp was then stormed and Domitius slain.
Pompeius also captured the towns held by the partisans of Domitius,
and defeated and took prisoner the Marian usurper who had expelled
Hiempsal, King of Numidia. Hiempsal was restored and his rival put
to death. On returning to Utica Pompeius found a message from Sulla,
telling him to disband his troops except one legion and wait till his
successor came. [Sidenote: Vanity of Pompeius.] The men mutinied,
for they liked Pompeius, and Sulla was told that Pompeius was in
rebellion. He remarked that 'in his old age it was his fate to fight
with boys'--a saying to which Pompeius's speech, 'that more men
worshipped the rising than the setting sun,' may have been intended
as a rejoinder. But soon he was relieved by hearing that the politic
Pompeius had appeased the mutiny. Sulla had the art of yielding with
a good grace when it was necessary, and, seeing how popular Pompeius
was, he went out to meet him on his return and greeted him by the name
'Magnus.' The vain young man asked for a triumph. His forty days'
campaign had indeed been brilliant; but he was not even a praetor, the
lowest official to whom a triumph was granted, nor a senator, but
only an eques. Sulla at first was astonished at the request, but
contemptuously replied, 'Let him triumph; let him have his triumph.'
[Sidenote: Sulla has Ofella slain.] Two other officials of Sulla gave
him trouble. One, Ofella, stood for the consulship against his wishes,
and went about with a crowd of friends in the Forum. But with a man
like Sulla it was foolish to presume on past services. He had no
notion of allowing street-riots again, and sent a centurion who cut
Ofella down. The people brought the centurion to him, demanding
justice. [Sidenote: Sulla's parables.] Sulla told them the man had
done what he ordered, and then spoke a grim parable to them. A rustic,
he said, was so bitten by lice that twice he took off his coat and
shook it. But as they went on biting him he burnt it. And so those
who had twice been humbled had better not provoke him to use fire the
third time. [Sidenote: Murena provokes the second Mithridatic war.]
The other officer was Murena, who had been left in Asia. He raised
troops besides the legions left with him, forced Miletus and other
Asiatic towns to supply a fleet, and then stirred up the second
Mithridatic war. The Colchians had revolted, and Mithridates suspected
his son of fostering the revolt in order to be set over them. So he
invited him to come to his court, put him there in chains of gold, and
soon killed him. He had also, it seems, threatened Archelaus, who fled
from him and represented to the ready ears of Murena, that Mithridates
still held part of Cappadocia, and was collecting a powerful army.
Murena advanced into Cappadocia, took Comana, and pillaged its temple.
Mithridates appealed to the treaty; but Murena asked where it was,
for the terms had never been reduced to a written form. [Sidenote:
Mithridates appeals to the Senate.] The king then sent to the Senate.
Murena crossed the Halys, and retired into Phrygia and Galatia with
rich spoil. [Sidenote: Murena defeated.] Disregarding a prohibition
of the Senate, he again attacked the king, who at last sent Gordius
against him, and soon after, coming up in person, defeated Murena
twice and drove him into Phrygia. For this success Mithridates lit on
a high mountain a bonfire, which, it is said, was seen more than a
hundred miles away by sailors in the Black Sea. [Sidenote: Sulla puts
a stop to the war.] Sulla sent orders to Murena to fight nor more; and
Mithridates, on condition of being reconciled to Ariobarzanes, was
allowed to keep as much of Cappadocia as was in his possession. He
gave a great banquet in honour of the occasion; and Murena went home,
where he had a triumph. Sulla probably granted it to him after his
defeats with more pleasure than he granted it to Pompeius for his
victories.
[Sidenote: Sertorius in Spain.] The ablest of the Marian generals was,
it has been seen, virtually unemployed in the Civil War. Sertorius,
when sent to Spain, seized the passes of the Pyrenees. Sulla, in 81,
sent against him, Q. Annius Luscus, who found one of the lieutenants
of Sertorius so strongly posted that he could not get past him.
However this lieutenant was assassinated by one of his own men,
and his troops abandoned their position. [Sidenote: He flies to
Mauretania. At Pityussa.] Sertorius had few men, and fled to New
Carthage, and thence to Mauretania. Here he was attacked by the
barbarians, and re-embarking, was on his way back to Spain, when he
fell in with some Cilician pirates with whom he attacked Pityussa
(Iviza) and expelled the Roman garrison. [Sidenote: At Gades.] Annius
hastened to the rescue and worsted him in a fight, after which
Sertorius sailed away through the Straits of Gibraltar to Gades
(Cadiz). Here some sailors told him of two islands which the Spaniards
believed to be the Islands of the Blest, with a pleasant climate and a
fruitful soil. In these islands--probably Madeira--Sertorius wished
to settle. [Sidenote: In Mauretania.] But, when his Cilician allies
sailed to Mauretania to restore some prince to his throne, he went
there too and fought on the other side. Sulla sent help to the prince,
but Sertorius defeated the commander and was joined by the troops.
[Sidenote: Invited to Spain.] Now, when once more at the head of
a Roman army, he was invited to Spain by the Lusitani, who were
preparing to revolt against Rome. With 2,600 Romans and 700 Africans
he crossed the sea, gaining a victory over the Roman cruisers on his
way, and set to work organizing and drilling the Lusitani in Roman
fashion. [Sidenote: His white fawn.] One of them gave him a white
fawn, and Sertorius declared that it had been given him by Diana.
After this, when he obtained any secret intelligence he said that the
fawn had told him, and brought it out crowned with flowers, if it was
some officer's success of which he had heard. By such means, and by
introducing a gay and martial uniform among his troops, he made his
army both well-disciplined and devoted to him personally, and defeated
one governor of Further Spain on the Baetis (Guadalquiver). [Sidenote:
Defeats Metellus Pius.] Gaining afterwards a series of successes over
Q. Metellus Pius, who had been sent against him, he was still in arms
and master of a considerable part of Spain when Sulla died.
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