Chapter III: The Great Enemies of Rome (3)

The leaders of the Senatorial party realized at once what had happened, and determined to strike. An outbreak of disorder at a meeting at which Caius was speaking gave them their chance. The consul declared that the State was in danger and proclaimed a state of siege in the city. Then he went out with armed bands and in the streets Caius himself and a number of his supporters were cut down and slain (121).

Thus both Caius and Tiberius Gracchus perished. Cornelia their mother left Rome and went to live at Misenum. Of her sons she spoke as of two heroes who had given their lives for their country. Her pride in them remained untarnished, for they had died true to the things in which they believed. Indeed, many years had not passed before statues to the brothers were set up in the public places in Rome and offerings brought there by the people who realized, too late, how greatly both Tiberius and Caius had served them. Had their work been carried through, Rome might have been spared the terrible disasters that came upon the city in the next half-century. As it was, the senators breathed with relief that Caius had followed his brother to a bloody grave; they did not see that those who opposed reform were preparing the way for revolution and civil war.

VI

Cato the Censor

At any time there are always some people who look back and say, 'Ah, things are not what they were. There are no such men nowadays as there used to be. The good old days are over. When I was young....' and so on. Such men see in change nothing but evil. There is, to some minds, a danger in every change: but there may be greater danger in standing still.

The evils that men like the Gracchi saw in their own time made them desire to see the life of Rome move forward to other and better ways. A new world had opened round them: new ideas, new forces were making themselves felt. Rome was no longer a small city, whose existence was closed in by its own walls; it was the centre of a great dominion, and touched the life of other peoples and nations at innumerable points. The ways of the old could not be those of the new Rome. They saw the difficulties and risks, but they saw too the promise of better things to be won.

Very different was the outlook of a man like Marcus Porcius Cato. To him the ancient ways alone seemed right. He modelled his own life and actions so far as he could upon the heroes of the past, especially on those like Cincinnatus, who were noted for their simplicity and frugality. Cincinnatus, though he had held the highest offices in Rome, was found driving his own plough by those who came from Rome in an hour of peril to ask him to take over the highest power in the State. So Cato kept his dress, the furnishings of his house and table, and everything about him as plain as those he might have had in the days when every one was poor. In his own record of his life he reports that he never wore a garment that cost him more than a hundred drachmae; that even when praetor or consul he drank the same wine as his slaves; that a dinner never cost him from the market above thirty pence; and that he was thus frugal for the sake of his country, that he might be able to endure the harder service in war. He adds that having got, among some goods he was heir to, a piece of Babylonian tapestry, he sold it immediately; that the walls of his country houses were neither plastered nor white-washed; that he never gave more for a slave than fifteen hundred drachmae, as not requiring in his servants delicate shapes and fine faces but strength and ability to labour, that they might be fit to be employed in his stables, about his cattle or on such-like business; and that he thought proper to sell them again when they grew old, that he might have no useless persons to maintain. In a word he thought nothing cheap that was superfluous, that what a man has no need of is dear even at a penny; and that it is much better to have fields where the plough goes and cattle feed, than gardens and walks that require much watering and sweeping. This stern simplicity he carried throughout his life and in words of eloquence (he was one of the most powerful speakers in Rome) he tried to get others to imitate him.

Cato's own character was of remarkable firmness. He did not ask other people to do what he would not do himself. He served in war again and again, and distinguished himself as a soldier, though his harshness made him detested by the peoples he conquered, for instance in Spain. But he wanted every one to think and live in his way, and judged with cruel severity those who thought or acted otherwise. The key to his character, both its strength and its weakness, is given by Plutarch when he remarks that 'Goodness moves in a larger sphere than justice.' Cato was just: but his justice was often harsh, cruel, and ungenerous. Thus he left his war-horse behind him when he left Spain, to save the public purse the charge of his freight, just as he sold his slaves when they became too old to work. In this we see carefulness and indifference to comfort and luxury turning to parsimony and meanness. As Cato grew older he became more and more fond of having money though not of spending it. He himself had prospered in life and, as he grew older, became extremely rich both from his farms and from lending money, at high interest, to shipping and other companies. For those who did not succeed he had a very severe judgement and small pity, as for those who gave way to any of the faults from which he was free. He judged instead of understanding them. His judgement was just but not sympathetic. His own account of the duties of a bailiff and his wife gives an excellent idea of the man.

_The Duties of a Bailiff and his Wife_

These will be your duties as bailiff. Maintain strict discipline;
observe rest-days; do not lay hands on the property of another,
but keep a careful watch over your own. It is your business to
settle disputes in the household and to punish offences without
excessive severity. The household ought to be well cared for,
never suffering from cold or hunger, and should be sufficiently
employed; in which case it will be easier to stop unruliness and
dishonesty. If your conduct is good, your example will be
followed; if you are wronged, your master will inflict the
punishment. Reward merit, and thus encourage others to exert
themselves. Do not waste time in taking walks; always be sober,
and never go out to dinner. See that your master's orders are
carried out, and do not suppose that you are wiser than he is. His
friends should be your friends, and you should obey those whom you
are bidden to obey. Do not sacrifice at the cross-ways and on the
hearth of the homestead except at the great festival of the
_Lares_. Do not make an advance without your master's knowledge,
but exact all that is due to him. Never lend seed-corn,
provisions, meal, grain, wine, or oil to any one. There should be
two or three households to which you apply in times of need, and
which you similarly help; but no more. Be punctual in settling
accounts with your master. Special labour on the land, paid by the
day, should not be employed beyond the term agreed. Buy nothing
without your master's knowledge, nor, indeed, keep any transaction
from him. Let no one sponge upon you; consult no soothsayer,
augur, prophet, or Chaldaean. Do not stint the sowing; for the
result will be a poor crop. Acquaint yourself thoroughly with all
the work on the farm, and often do some yourself, as long as it
does not overtire you. Thus you will understand the feelings of
the workers and they, knowing this, will be more contented, while
you will enjoy better health, have less taste for idle walks, and
be more ready for sleep. Be first to get up in the morning, and
last to go to bed at night, taking care that the house is locked
up, that everyone is at rest in his proper place, and that the
animals have got their fodder.

You should take care, too, that your wife does not neglect her
duties. Make her fear you. Do not let her indulge in luxury. She
should see as little as possible of her neighbours and other
female friends; she should not entertain at home or go out to
dinner, or waste time in walks. Do not let her sacrifice, or
depute any one else to sacrifice, without the orders of her master
or mistress; for it must be understood that the master sacrifices
for all the household. She should be neat, and keep the house neat
and swept, and every day, before she goes to bed, she should see
that the hearth is clean and the ashes gathered on to the embers.
On days of festival, Kalends, Nones, or Ides, she should lay a
garland on the hearth and during the same days offer up prayer to
the Lar of the house for plenty. It is her business to see that
food is cooked for you and everybody else, and to keep a good
supply of poultry and eggs.

Cato, _De Re Rustica_, v. 1-5; cxliii. 1-2.

This same just but hard and ungenerous spirit is seen in Cato's public life. As Censor he had the right to strike off the roll of senators men who were in any respect unworthy. In doing this Cato was fearless. He attacked the most popular men in Rome and did not yield an inch when there was a howl against him. Public money was to him as sacred as private, and ought, he held, to be husbanded in the same careful way. Thus he attacked the brother of Scipio Africanus, because, as he said, he had spent more than he ought on his campaigns. He admired Scipio greatly. Cato was far too intelligent not to appreciate his high qualities of mind and character: but he thought him a new and therefore dangerous kind of man.

Fifty years after the battle of Zama the Carthaginians, who were not allowed by the treaty to make war without the permission of Rome, sent an appeal for protection against Masannasa, the King of Numidia, who had gradually been encroaching on their territory. A Commission was sent out from Rome to inquire, with Cato at its head. Cato came back possessed by one idea, which never afterwards left him. 'Carthage must be destroyed. Rome would not be safe until it was blotted out.' When it was pointed out to him that the city was in no sense dangerous to Rome, that it had practically no arms, absolutely no fleet, and had shown in fifty years no sort of desire to attack Rome, was indeed too weak even to defend itself against attack, Cato paid no heed. It did not stir him when Scipio urged that to attack a defeated and helpless city was mean and unworthy of Rome, that its greatness would not be increased by destroying a beaten foe. Cato paid no heed. Carthage was rich and flourishing: it might one day be a danger again. It was taking trade that Rome might get, it possessed riches Rome might have. He was a powerful and effective speaker and his name stood high in Rome. What he said had a great influence because his character was deeply respected. Though old, his red hair quite white, he had lost none of his vigour. His dry humour could still make the Senate laugh, and his passionate earnestness rouse them to anger. His grey eyes sparkled, his long white teeth flashed when, day in, day out, whatever the main subject of his speech, the inflexible old man always ended with the words, 'Carthage must be destroyed'.

Cato had his way in the end. The Romans carried out the destruction of Carthage (146). It was a mean and disgraceful act. The Carthaginians had already submitted, without terms, to the mercy of the Roman people. When the consuls arrived they first demanded that all arms should be collected and given up: then that all the inhabitants should depart and the city itself be removed. This was too much. The desperate people resolved to resist, and resist they did with terrible and extraordinary heroism.

Cato himself did not live through the siege: but he died knowing that his fierce will had its way. Carthage was to be destroyed. As a city it was to exist no longer.

VII

Caius Marius and Lucius Cornelius Sulla

To understand the strange and in many ways sinister characters of Caius Marius and of Lucius Cornelius Sulla, we must have in our minds a picture of the dark times in which they lived. At a crisis in the life of the State Sulla showed courage, decision and will, and a stern devotion to his country which enabled him, in his own way, to save it. In these things he showed that he was a Roman of the old breed. Until this crisis came Sulla appeared no better than the other aristocrats of his time: like them he was careless of everything save his own selfish pleasure; always he remained hard, cruel, indifferent to the lives, feelings, and happiness of others. Whereas both Tiberius and Caius Gracchus lived and died for an idea greater than themselves, Sulla's was a mind incapable of idealism. He and Caius Marius, his great rival, are alike in nothing except the harsh cruelty that belongs to times of revolutionary upheaval. In all other respects they are as unlike as any two men that ever lived. Marius was a son of the soil, a soldier with a soldier's merits--courage, rude good humour, careless generosity--and his faults--cruelty, coarseness, indifference to everything but the rudest of pleasures. His one big work was the reconstruction of the army. Sulla was an aristocrat to the finger-tips: proud, cold-blooded, indifferent, highly educated, with a deep disbelief in everything and everybody. He had a remarkable intellect, and a physical beauty which attracted women without number. But it is doubtful whether he ever cared for a human creature. His extraordinary courage and his equally extraordinary indifference rested on a chilling belief in Fate. He was lucky: he called himself Sulla Felix; but nothing in the end was going to make any difference.

To see Marius and Sulla against the background of their time the events must be traced that followed on the death of Caius Gracchus.

Tiberius Gracchus, and far more clearly his brother Caius, had seen the growing dangers that threatened Rome, if no wise steps were taken in time to meet them. Both brothers gave their lives in the effort to save their country. Their sacrifice was vain. The men who had power in their hands were blind to the great change that was taking place. They tried to compel the stream to go on flowing in its old channels, although the weight of waters had grown too great for them to carry. The result was that suddenly the waters broke loose and flooded everything. Rome, all Italy, was torn by a bloody and terrible civil war.

At the time many people put these things down to the Gracchi. They had stirred up the lower orders and the Italians to discontent and bitterness. They had set strife between classes in Rome: roused the middle class against the senators and the mob against both. This was not a just statement. Caius Gracchus had thought out a great plan of reform that, if carried through, might have saved Rome and Italy from revolution and civil war. He had to win people to his side. In order to do so he passed measures that were not good in themselves but only as means to his great end. Thus he made the knights, the new class of wealthy men, judges instead of the senators; and gave doles of bread to the Roman populace in the hope that he would then be able to persuade them to give votes to the Italians and so make Italy really one.

The evil that men do lives after them:
The good is oft interréd with their bones.

It was so with Caius Gracchus.

But the real cause of the civil war lay much deeper than the work of any single man or group of men. It was, in the main, the fact that while Rome had grown, and grown into a new world, the old system of government remained, and did not fit this new world. Rome was beginning to be a great trading empire. Yet wealth and power was jealously held by a small class in Rome in their own hands. The men of this class grew rich. They went out to the provinces, to Sicily, Greece, and Spain, as governors and made great fortunes. They came home with their riches and bought up the land that had once belonged to peasants and farmers, and worked this land with slaves. The condition of these slaves in the country was miserable, especially that of those who lived herded in camps. The greed of the agents of the tax-collecting companies made the Roman name hated in the provinces. In Italy, too, there was deep discontent. To keep the Roman poor quiet the ruling classes gave them games and bread-doles; they altered the laws so that no Roman citizen could be condemned to death for any offence. This kept the Romans quiet, but it made the Italians, who had no share in it, increasingly restive.

It had been clear to the far-seeing mind of Caius Gracchus that unless Rome could draw fresh blood and life and energy from Italy it must perish. The material wealth that was pouring into the city from all parts of the world, from Carthage and Corinth and the conquered kingdoms of the East, was doing more harm than good. Too many men, rich as well as poor, were beginning to care only for pleasure and for money as a means to pleasure. The luxury and extravagance of the rich made the poverty of the poor bitter, and these poor, uneducated, idle, accustomed to be kept in a good temper by splendid shows and presents of corn and wine, were ready at any moment to rise in disorder and destroy those who tried to help them. Most of them were not liable to military service--that was still confined to the old classes of men who held land; but they had votes, while the Italians had none. The town mob was swollen by freedmen--slaves who had saved enough money to buy themselves off--they too had votes.

The Roman voters cared nothing for the wrongs of the Italians, or of the people of the provinces. Like the rich, who lived on the revenues of the tax-collecting companies, they thought the rest of the world was there merely to supply them with comfort and luxuries. But while in Rome itself people were more and more sharply divided between the 'have nots' and the 'haves', all round them there was a growing dissatisfaction and discontent. The strife at home meant that enterprises abroad were badly managed. Many army commanders and provincial governors were incompetent and corrupt. There was no longer the old high Roman sense of duty and honesty. In its stead were pride, greed, and cruelty. The spirit that had shown itself in the savage destruction of Carthage and Corinth was shown again in the treatment of Jugurtha.

Jugurtha, the King of Numidia, threw off the Roman yoke and defied every Roman general sent against him until Caius Marius was sent out (107). Marius, the son of humble parents, had been marked by Scipio Aemilianus, under whom he served in Africa, as a coming man: but though he had already shown great gifts as a leader the Senate did not want to give him the command against Jugurtha because of his low birth, rude manners, and the love in which he was held by the Roman mob. He was at last elected by a huge majority, and, thanks in part to the brilliant exploits of a cavalry officer, Lucius Cornelius Sulla, ended the campaign in triumph. Jugurtha was captured, marched in chains through the Roman streets and cast naked into an ice-cold dungeon to die of hunger and exposure.

In Marius's triumph there was a drop of bitterness. His glory was shared with Sulla. For it was Sulla who had actually captured Jugurtha. With a small body of men he had daringly entered the camp of Bocchus, King of Mauretania, with whom Jugurtha had taken refuge, and persuaded Bocchus to make friends with Rome by giving him up. He had a ring made with a picture of the scene, which annoyed Marius every time he saw it.

But no one at the moment thought that Sulla could be a real rival to Marius. There was no question of naming any one else as general when the strife of parties in Rome was suddenly interrupted by terrible news--the Northern barbarians were on the march. This danger, from the Cimbri and the Teutones, had actually been threatening for a long time. In 113 a consular army had been routed by the Cimbri. For the next eight years, joined by other tribes, they remained on the North Italian frontier, a perpetual menace, defeating, one after another, the armies sent against them. In 105, when Marius was still in Africa, two Roman armies were annihilated at Arausio on the Rhone (105). More than 80,000 men perished in a single battle. Only a handful escaped to bring the terrible news home. Such a disaster had not happened since Cannae. The way to Rome stood open: there was no army to stop the victors had they marched on to Italy. They did not. They turned to Spain. Marius, who was called home, given chief command, and made consul in three successive years, had time to create a new army.

In doing this he tackled one of the most pressing problems of the time. Gracchus had seen how great a danger the falling-off of the supply of men from the land might be: but no one had really grasped and dealt with the question from the army point of view until Marius took it in hand. This was indeed his greatest and most lasting work. First he changed the whole basis of service. Every one was liable to be called on, not only the shrinking class of holders of land. He took soldiers from the towns as well as from the country, from among freedmen and paupers as well as from among citizens. Second, he paid to every soldier a small daily wage. This was an immense change. It at once created a new class: the professional soldier. Formerly men had done their time in the army and then returned to ordinary civil life. Now the soldier was a soldier for life. Next Marius reorganized the army from within, sweeping away the differences between the Roman legions and those made up of Italians and allies. He improved the equipment of all ranks. This done he set himself to training his new men, encamped in Transalpine Gaul, in readiness to meet the foe.

A soothsayer, in whose prophecy he placed great faith, had told Marius he should be consul seven times. As consul for the fourth time he finally attacked the Teutones with his new armies. At Aquae Sextiae (to the north of Marseilles) 100,000 barbarians were slain (102). It was a terrible slaughter. For centuries after the fields were covered with blackening bones, and the people of Massilia used them to make fences for their vineyards. Next year Marius, consul for the fifth time, met the Cimbri, who had crossed the Alps and descended into the plains of Lombardy, at Vercellae (101). Before the battle messengers came from the Cimbri, demanding land for themselves and the Teutones. They had not heard of the rout of Aquae Sextiae. Marius smiled grimly. 'Do not trouble yourselves about your brothers,' he replied. 'They have land enough which we have given them to keep for ever.' When battle was joined next day it was the height of summer; the blazing heat exhausted the Northerners. Boiorix, the Cimbrian king, the tallest and strongest man in the army, perished; round him there lay, at the day's end, 100,000 of his countrymen.

Marius returned home to be hailed as the saviour of his country, the peer of Camillus and Fabius. He was made consul for the sixth time.

Marius had won great victories; but the rejoicings in Rome over the terrible dangers that had been averted by his generalship were brief. Men's minds were profoundly disturbed: many felt dimly that great and terrible events were coming without seeing what they were or how to deal with or prevent them. Marius certainly was not the man who had either the insight or the power to do this; he was a man of camps with no knowledge or understanding of politics. His victories and the great shows that followed them made him the idol of the mob: but the idol of the mob was the last man to deal wisely with the difficulties of Rome. The men of wealth and birth detested him as a dangerous, rude, unlettered boor, who knew nothing of government or public business. Marius could not even keep order. There were constant riots. People were set upon and murdered in the open streets. Alarming reports came from the provinces, especially from the East. But any one who had the courage to demand justice for the provincials was certain to be detested in Rome. Thus the honest Rutilius Rufus, who tried to defend the people of Asia against the greed of the Roman tax-collectors, was driven into exile. Nor did the Roman mob care a fig for the grievances of the Italians--or the senators either.

Drusus

There were, however, men in Rome who felt that dishonour was coming upon the Republic from these things as well as danger. These men--aristocrats of the old stamp--were, however, mostly rather inclined to turn aside from politics, which filled them with disgust. Their feelings were not keen enough to make them take action. But they saw that things were going from bad to worse; and when at last one of their order came forward who cared enough to take risks, they rallied round him. This was M. Livius Drusus, a young man of lofty family, who thought the men of his own order were partly to blame for what was happening. They held aloof and let vulgar and ignorant men like Marius and his associates, Glaucia and Saturninus (men of very low character who led the crowd by promises and bribes), drag the good name of Rome down. Two things stirred Drusus to action: one the shocking unfairness of the law courts, the other the fact that the people of Italy were shut out of all share in their own government. Everything was settled in Rome: the Italians had no voice. The consuls and other magistrates who made and administered the laws were chosen by Roman votes only. Yet the Italians had to send men to the army and pay taxes.

Drusus got his Bill for the reform of the law courts through (91) in spite of the moneyed men, since he proposed that the judges should be partly chosen from the Senate, and a strong body of senators backed this up. But when his Bill giving votes to the Italians came up things were different. There he could count on very little support. It did not help him in Rome that, when he fell ill, prayers for his recovery were put up in every town in Italy. This was indeed used against him by his enemies in Rome, who said there was a conspiracy going on. The rich Italians, too, made common cause with the rich men in Rome. Some of the aristocrats stood by Drusus, but the majority in Rome was against him.

Throughout Italy the struggle round his Bill raised an intense and deep excitement. Then one night Drusus was murdered in the street as he was going home. The murderer vanished. No inquiry was made. Drusus's Bill was dropped; his party was crushed. His enemies at once rushed through a measure setting up a court before which every one suspected of sympathizing with votes for Italians was to be charged.

But the hopes of the Italians could not be crushed thus. The news of Drusus's murder ran like an earthquake shock through Italy. Feeling was at fever pitch. Rome refused to recognize Italian rights: the Italians would compel it to do so by the sword. All over the peninsula feverish preparations went on. A few months after Drusus's death fighting broke out at Asculum in the south and spread like lightning all over the north and centre.

This Social War, as it was called, was waged with dreadful bitterness on both sides, and the misery and ruin it brought on the country was terrible. In the first year (90) things went against Rome, though all their best generals, including Marius and his hated rival Sulla, took the field. In the second year (89) Marius did little or nothing, but in the south Sulla carried everything before him. But while the Romans were winning they were also beginning to see that the war need never have taken place: it was time to let the Italians take their share and make them Romans. A Bill giving them voting rights was drafted and passed into law. This did more than anything in the actual campaign to bring the fighting to an end.

The war was still raging when news came that the East was ablaze. Mithridates, King of Pontus, the richest king in Asia Minor, and far the ablest, had taken the field and was preparing to overrun the Roman provinces. Hard on the heels of this came worse. Mithridates had defeated a Roman general, destroyed his army, captured his fleet and was invading Asia. He came, he said, to free the people from the Roman tax-collectors who sucked their blood away. Slaves and prisoners were set free, those who killed Italians pardoned. On a certain day of the year 88 there was a massacre of no less than 80,000 Italians in Asia. The rebellion against Rome, thus begun, spread to Greece. Athens threw off the Roman yoke; Mithridates, who dreamed of ruling over the whole East, sent his general to help overthrow the Roman garrisons in Greece.

Thus while Romans were fighting one another the lands beyond the seas of which they were so proud, and which were the source of most of their wealth, were in rebellion. Men of their own race had been massacred by Asiatics. Each day the news grew worse. In Rome there were riots in the streets. Sulla had been named commander against Mithridates. Marius could not bear this. He got his friends to bring in a Bill transferring the command to him. It was carried, but amid such disorder that senators and consuls fled from the city. Sulla had left the riots and disorders of Rome to go to his army at Nola. There he received the order to hand over the command to Marius. If Marius expected him to obey he had misread the character of the man he hated. Sulla's answer was to march upon Rome at the head of his legions. There he was welcomed by the remnant of the Senate as the restorer of law and order. Marius fled.

Of the sudden rise of Sulla, Plutarch gives the following account:

_Sulla Felix_

In the long Social War, with all its vicissitudes and disasters,
and dangers that threatened the safety of Rome, Marius could
achieve nothing great, and merely proved that military excellence
demands physical strength and vigour, while Sulla by many notable
victories gained the reputation of a great general with the
people, of the greatest of generals with his friends, and of the
most fortunate with his enemies. Yet he was not sensitive about
this last judgement as Timotheus the son of Conon was; for when
his enemies attributed all his successes to fortune, and painted
pictures in which he was represented asleep with Fortune casting a
net over the cities, Timotheus was rude to them and angry, feeling
that they deprived him of the credit due to his deeds. Sulla, on
the other hand, not only accepted without annoyance the 'felicity'
thus assigned to him, but even magnifying it and recognizing it as
divine, he made fortune responsible for his exploits, either in a
spirit of ostentation or from a genuine belief in providential
guidance. For example, he has written in his memoirs that of all
his decisions which were justified by results the happiest were
not reached by deliberation, but adopted in the hurry of the
moment. Moreover, when he says that he was born for fortune rather
than for war, he seems to have more respect for fortune than for
merit and to accept the control of an unseen power; insomuch that
he makes a divine good luck the cause of his harmony with
Metellus, his kinsman and colleague in the consulship; for he
expected to have much trouble with him, but found him a most
agreeable partner in office. Again, in the memoirs, which he has
dedicated to Lucullus, he bids him place most reliance on any
warning given him by a vision in the night. He tells us, too, that
when he was leaving the city with an army to fight in the Social
War, the earth opened near Laverna and a great fire gushed out,
shooting up a bright flame to the sky. The prophets interpreted
this to mean that a man of genius, who was of unusual and
remarkable appearance, would take the command and free the country
from its present disorders. Sulla declares that he was the man;
for his golden hair was the peculiarity in his appearance, and he
felt no diffidence in ascribing genius to himself after his great
achievements.

Plutarch, xxxiii. 6. 2-7.

In many respects Lucius Cornelius Sulla is the most extraordinary figure in Roman history. Belonging to a very old family, the same as that of the Scipios, he grew up in genteel poverty, living in one of the large blocks of flats that had been built near the centre of the town. He was extremely handsome, with every grace of form and feature, tall, well built, with a face of classic outline, marred in later life by a hot and somewhat mottled complexion, but distinguished by eyes of a brilliant blue: eyes that could upon occasion flash fire. They did not often do so, for Sulla was a person of ice-cold reserve, seldom carried away by his feelings. Highly educated and gifted with unusual powers of mind, he looked out upon the world and despised most people in it. His was a mind incapable of feeling any sort of religious appeal. Most of the things people strove after seemed to him stupid, because there was no pleasure in them. He was what is called a cynic.

Until he was nearly fifty Sulla took no important part in public affairs. He served with great distinction in Africa. His unshakable courage and complete self-control, combined as they were with rare powers of making men do what he wanted and an absolute belief in himself, made him a successful commander. But for military glory in itself he did not care, or for any other kind of glory. To him these things were illusions. Nor was he stirred by patriotism in the ordinary sense. He saw the Rome of his time very much as it was and did not consider it worth the sacrifice of a pleasure. The aristocrats seemed to him selfish and stupid: the popular party vulgar and stupid. He saw what was going to happen but had none of the belief that inspires idealists that he could change the course of events. 'Things are what they are; the consequences will be what they will be. Why then should we seek to be deceived?' This, said two thousand years later, was a true description of Sulla's point of view. He looked on, coldly scornful; and amused himself, like other well-to-do men of his class, with the arts in their lower as well as their higher forms. But, when occasion called, he could act. When the Social War broke out, and all hands in Rome were, as it were, called to the pumps, Sulla was ready. He proved more successful, if also more ruthless, than any other commander in the field; he understood, better than any one else, the supreme danger in which Rome stood. It was this, and not personal ambition in the ordinary sense, that made him take the command against Mithridates, and march on Rome when the Marius faction showed that they were incapable of keeping order there.

Sulla could spend no time in Rome. The danger in the East was too pressing. He sailed for Greece. Marius might return: if he did Sulla knew that his own life might be in danger, but he could not trouble about that. Roman rule in the East was threatened: it was his business to save it. He saw, as Marius did not or could not see, that at this terrible moment the fate of Rome trembled in the balance. Italy lay torn and exhausted by civil war. Agriculture had been ruined, thousands slain, and business of all kinds was at a standstill. The war in the East shook the very life of the Republic to its foundations. Rome lived, as London lives, on trade and supplies from overseas. They were stopped. There was a money panic. The danger was the greater that the revolt against Rome, both in Italy and in Asia, Greece, and elsewhere, had right on its side. The Roman Government, in the years that had passed since the defeat of Hannibal, had been bad: cruel, extortionate, and unjust. In Rome itself there was bitter disunion.

When Sulla set sail he knew all this, knew how tremendous a task was before him, and, believing as he did in his star, knew that he would accomplish it. But only he of Romans then living could have done it. Marius, hot-headed always and now old and weakened in will and mind by drink, could not have succeeded. It needed all Sulla's extraordinary coolness, all his iron will.

Though he saw that trouble would break out again in Rome as soon as his back was turned, he also saw that the danger from the revolt of Greece and from Mithridates was even more immediate and pressing. The whole basis on which the Roman world rested would drop from under it if Mithridates succeeded. The danger was, in its way, as great as that which had threatened Rome when Hannibal crossed the Alps.

For Mithridates was an exceedingly able prince. His strength did not lie in the huge hordes of soldiers he had behind him. Eastern soldiers were a poor match for Roman legionaries, even when they far outnumbered them. Nor did it lie in the vast wealth of the kingdoms over which he ruled: though in both men and resources he outclassed the small army Rome could send against him. His real strength was first his own ability, second, the general and widespread revolt against Rome. The Roman State, as he knew, was torn with revolution at home. There was a general sense of panic and uncertainty. The Government had neither men, money, nor supplies for the war against Mithridates.

Now, instead of closing ranks, as after Cannae, rich Romans fled, some even joining Mithridates. Marius and his party saw in the dangers Sulla went out to face nothing but their chance to come back to power in Rome. Marius himself was old now and had taken to drink. Almost as soon as Sulla sailed revolution broke out again in Rome. The streets ran with blood; the town was heaped with the bodies of the slain. Cinna, one of the consuls, proposed to recall Marius (who had fled to the ruins of Carthage) and brought up first slaves and then armed Italians against the Senate. He was defeated and declared a public enemy. With Sertorius, a most able officer but a personal enemy of Sulla, Cinna then organized the Samnites. Marius returned from Africa, and he, Cinna, Sertorius, and Carbo marched on Rome (87). When they at last entered the city at the head of their troops a terrible massacre took place. Marius, who was almost mad with fury, struck down any one who had ever thwarted or criticized him, among them some of the noblest men in Rome. Antonius, first of living orators, Publius Crassus, a fine soldier, Catulus who had shared with Marius the toils and honours of the wars against Teutones and Cimbri, Merula the consul, shared the fate of hundreds of less note. No one was safe. Marius walked about like a raging lion, thirsting for blood. The heads of the dead stood in rows round the Forum and above Marius's own house. For five days the massacre went on until at last Sertorius, who had looked on with horror, stopped it by cutting Marius's bodyguard of murderers to pieces. The old man was elected consul for the seventh time (86): a few days later he died. Sulla meantime was declared a public enemy, banished, and removed from his command. His house was demolished, all his goods were sold, his wife and family were driven into exile.

Such was the news that came to Sulla as he was besieging Athens and in the greatest danger. The city appeared impregnable. His small army was reduced by wounds, disease, and the shortage of supplies: the danger that Mithridates would land and cut them off was immediate. They would then be between the devil and the deep sea. But Sulla's iron will did not quail. The man whom Rome regarded as a creature of pleasure shared every hardship of the soldiers and encouraged them day and night by his personal courage and calm. He showed marvellous ingenuity and resource in collecting supplies and a complete disregard of everything but the purpose in hand. He was a Greek scholar with a real admiration of Greek literature and art: yet he ransacked the temples and melted down the ornaments and treasures of centuries to make money; cut down the trees of the Sacred Grove of the Academy where Plato had walked with Socrates to make trench props. His ablest officer, Lucius Lucullus, was sent off to collect a fleet, somehow or other.

All through the winter and the whole of the next year Athens held out. The next winter came before Mithridates' fleet sailed: it could do nothing till the spring. But with this news came that of a new danger. The Roman Government of Cinna was sending out an army against Sulla. He was between two fires. But his nerve did not fail. Athens fell to a supreme assault on the 1st March (86) before the new Roman army left Italy. Moving south Sulla then met Mithridates' army on the Boeotian plain and at Chaeronea gained a victory that rang through the world. The spell of Mithridates' name was broken: Rome was still invincible. The revolted cities of the East began to come back. In the same year Sulla gained another great victory. At first the Roman line broke, panic-struck. Sulla, leaping from his horse, snatched a standard and rushing into the hottest of the fight shouted to his men, 'Soldiers! If you are asked where you abandoned your general, say it was at Orchomenus.' Stung by this reproach and the supreme courage of their general, the men recovered. The day was won. Flaccus, the Roman general, made an agreement with Sulla: to him, whatever the orders of the Home Government, it seemed impossible that Roman armies should fight against one another when there was a common enemy to face. But a captain in the ranks, Fimbria by name, stirred up a mutiny, Flaccus was murdered, and Fimbria prepared to march on Sulla.

Sulla was now in a dilemma. His life was in danger unless he made peace with Mithridates. To do so was not magnificent: it was not even highly honourable. But Sulla was not a man to be stayed by such ideas. His own life was at the moment more important than anything else. If he were killed there would not be much left of the honour of Rome. He therefore made a treaty with Mithridates. He made the treaty on his own terms, however. Earlier, at a time when he was in extreme danger, Mithridates had offered him an alliance. This he had utterly rejected. Now he insisted that Mithridates should altogether abandon his plans and claims against Rome. By the treaty of Dardanus (84) the king had to give up all his conquests in Greece and Asia and hand over ships of war and a great sum of money to Sulla. In return the man who had arranged the cold-blooded murder of 80,000 Italians was made 'friend and ally' of Rome. Sulla knew that Mithridates would sooner or later give trouble again: but for the time being the danger was over. Rome's power and name in the East had been saved, at a price. The treaty could not stand, but for the moment it was necessary. Sulla could turn to saving Rome at home. Fimbria's army began to desert to him. Fimbria in despair killed himself. Sulla spent the next year in preparations for his own return in Rome. Carbo, who had succeeded Cinna, was as bitter against him as Cinna had been.

After a year in Asia collecting the taxes, not paid for the last four years, Sulla landed at Brundisium (83) with a well-filled treasury and a devoted army. On every soldier he imposed an oath: they were to treat the Italians as friends and fellow citizens, not as enemies. But to the Marian party in Rome he determined to show no mercy. The State must be cleared of these people: there must be no more riot and revolution. As Sulla marched north he defeated the forces sent against him: many of the soldiers deserted to him: many cities opened their gates. The Government of Marius, Cinna, and Carbo was thoroughly unpopular: and Sulla kept his word, doing no harm to the country through which he passed. Only the Samnites resisted strongly: them Sulla, who had been joined by young Crassus and by Cnaeus Pompeius, defeated in a great battle lasting from noon to the following mid-day outside the Colline Gate (82).

Rome and all Italy were now in Sulla's power. He entered the city and assembled the Senate in the Temple of Bellona. As he explained his plans for restoring order--he was to have the powers of a dictator till that was done--a frightful sound was heard. Sulla gave his grim smile. 'Some criminals being punished', he said. Six thousand Samnite prisoners were being cut to pieces. In this spirit he proceeded to stamp out what had been the party of Marius. Marius had been mad with rage: Sulla was quite calm, but not a whit more merciful. The tomb of Marius was broken open, his ashes scattered in the road. Samnium, which had resisted the conqueror, was laid desert. The land was broken into allotments for Sulla's soldiers.

The proscriptions followed. Lists of public enemies were posted and a reward paid to any one who killed the men whose names appeared. Their property was confiscated. Men put the names of private enemies on the list before or sometimes after they had killed them. Catiline, for instance, did this to his own brother. Sulla did not care. The State must be cleared of dangerous men and it must get revenues from somewhere. On the 1st June 81 the lists were closed: the executions and confiscations ended. Nearly five thousand persons had perished. Their property and that of those who had fled or been banished fell to the State, which got four million pounds in this way.

By murder and robbery the State treasury was filled. Sulla's hard mind did not shrink from these ugly words. He did the things and made no pretences. In the same way he never pretended to believe in the rights of the people. He despised them, thought them stupid, ignorant, and lazy. What they needed was police. The Government he built up was of this kind. He made the Senate much larger and stronger, for men of birth and wealth, though no better than the others, could at least, he thought, be trusted to keep things orderly and as they were. No one was to be consul till he had passed through the lower offices, and then consul only once. As consul he was to stay in Italy without an army; at the end of his year he might be sent abroad, with an army, as a pro-consul. In Italy there were to be no troops: no soldiers were to cross the Rubicon. The law courts were reformed, the juries again drawn from the Senate.

When he had finished his work of reorganization and built up the power of the Senate--i.e. of the older men of birth and property--as strongly as he could, Sulla laid down all his extraordinary powers and retired to private life. He had built himself a lovely villa, full of the art treasures he had brought from Greece and from the East, in the midst of exquisite gardens. There he lived, writing his memoirs, and enjoying the pleasures of hunting and fishing, banqueting and revelling, surrounded by the most amusing people he could find. Many of these were writers, artists, and actors. Actors were looked down upon in Rome, but Roscius the tragedian was a great friend of Sulla's, for he scorned all such notions as unreal. Always Sulla had provoked the Romans by his power of casting off serious cares when he sat down at table and by what they thought his ill-timed jests. They did not understand his view of life. To him it was all a play, not a very good play: out of which, if one were lucky, one might get some entertainment. He had been lucky: chance was his goddess and he believed in nothing higher. Before he died, at the age of sixty, he wrote his own epitaph, which was inscribed on the great monument set up to him in the Campus Martius: 'No friend ever did me so much good or enemy so much harm but I repaid him with interest.'

VIII

The New Rome

With the death of Sulla a new period of Roman history begins, a brief and in many ways brilliant half-century, about which we know far more than we do of any earlier time, since we possess the works, in writing, architecture, sculpture, of the men, or of some of them, who helped to make it. Roman life in these fifty years is, in many respects, startlingly like that of our own day. True, the great discoveries of science had not been achieved; there were no motors, telephones or lifts, no railways, no electric light or power, no illustrated papers--indeed the first newspaper of any kind was a small sheet issued by Caesar. But in the things they did and said and thought about, and in the way they acted and spoke and thought about them, the Romans who lived in the sixty odd years before the birth of Christ were very much like the Englishmen of our own day. The comfort of the lives of the well-to-do, with their elegant town houses and charming country villas, furnished with beautiful things brought from all parts of the world, depended on the labour of innumerable slaves. In many ways, however, these slaves were not worse off than the poor factory workers of our great towns; in some they were more fortunate. The lot of those who were being trained to fight in the games was certainly dreadful; but those owned by private persons were for the most part kindly treated and could and often did buy their freedom. The class of freedmen was a large and growing one in Rome.