Part 34

The Italian war had raised the glory of Sylla to its highest point, and now his aversion and enmity against Marius showed itself conspicuously. In the year 664, Sylla had been elected consul at the age of forty-nine, while Marius was already past seventy: Sylla therefore decidedly belonged to a later generation. This utterly widened the breach which in everything had existed between them. Sylla (_Sulla_) is a most original character, and it is difficult to give a cut and dry opinion about him. He was a great general, and also a favourite of fortune, a circumstance on which he himself laid great stress, and which also drew the attention of the crowd upon him; nor is it a delusion, that some men are favoured by luck, either always, or for a long run. When still a very young man, being much under forty, he had distinguished himself in the war of Jugurtha, serving as quæstor under Marius; and he had had the good fortune to carry on the negotiations with Bocchus, so that he looked upon the ending of it as his own work. He had likewise won renown in the Cimbric, and still more so in the Italian war, in the which he far outshone Marius, as he was the only Roman who played a brilliant part in it. He was of the illustrious _gens_ of the Cornelii, and was descended in the sixth generation from that P. Cornelius Rufinus who is honourably mentioned in the war with Pyrrhus; yet the family to which he belonged was undistinguished. The name of _Sulla_ has been rightly derived by Gronovius from _Sura_ (_Surula_, by contraction _Sulla_); consequently it is an apparent diminutive which has the same meaning as the root itself. _Sura_ was a surname of the Lentuli and others. He was in every respect the opposite of Marius. The latter had risen from the ranks, and was a soldier of fortune; Sylla, on the contrary, was a refined man of the world: for his chief delight was in Greek literature; he was quite a master of the Greek language, and a writer of elegant taste. His family being poor, he rose from under as great difficulties as if he had been of humble parentage: the patrician ties were broken, and the Scipios and Lentuli were of no help to him. Marius had all the unhappy feelings of an old man against a younger one who is making his way: this rising sun troubled him, and made him ill at ease; and by treating that extraordinary man with envy and jealousy, he provoked him to an opposition, which--certainly from Marius’ own fault at first--gave birth to their mutual dislike. Ever since the time of the war with Jugurtha, Marius had done his best to keep his rival down; and Sylla must also have said to himself, “had I been in Marius’ place, I should have done just as he did.” Notwithstanding his old age, Marius was insatiable of ruling and commanding, and demanded for himself the conduct of the war against Mithridates, which had been given to Sylla as the consul of that year.

The motive for this war was the very justest on the side of Mithridates, the wrong done by the Romans being too glaring. Mithridates had sprung from a Persian family, which even as early as under the Persian kings had its satrapy in Pontus: the first whom we know of it, in all likelihood was Ariobarzanes, governor of those countries under Ochus. Perhaps it was one of the seven noble families which alone had freedom, being in some sort _sacrosancti_, and invested with the hereditary dignity of governors of those parts. The nation consisted of Syrians and Assyrians; that is to say, the great mass may originally have been Armenian, but as early as in the times of the Assyrian rule over Asia, a colony of Assyrians may have settled here, who called themselves Leuco-Syrians. It was their good fortune, that Alexander did not devastate their country; it was only under his successors, that they got involved in the Macedonian wars: Mithridates the son of the then governor, who arrogated to himself the dignity of a tributary prince, escaped by the friendship of Demetrius Poliorcetes from the jealousy of Antiochus the One-eyed, the father of Demetrius. These countries afterwards established their power on so firm a footing, that even in the fifth century of Rome, their governors already took the title of kings. During the long wars of the successors of Alexander, particularly those of the Syrian kings with Egypt, their strength was completely consolidated; but they were divided by inheritance into two kingdoms, Cappadocia and Pontus proper: they were either under the same dynasty, or at least both of them subject to Persian families. This separation still continued in the beginning of the seventh century (about the year 620), when a Mithridates ruled over Pontus proper and part of Paphlagonia: he gave help to the Romans against Aristonicus, and had before that sent galleys against Carthage; and as a reward they yielded up to him Great Phrygia, which until then had belonged to the kingdom of Pergamus. From a fragment of a speech of C. Gracchus, we find, however, that he had bought this grant from those, who were in power at Rome. Thus then his kingdom was of great extent, and its strength and its revenues were considerable, on quite a different scale from that of our poor Europe. At that time, Lesser Asia was divided into the kingdoms of Pontus and Bithynia, of which the former was the largest; into the Roman province; and into Cappadocia and the southern coast, where Cilicia, Caria, Pamphylia, and a number of small independent states, were then in a chaotic confusion.

Mithridates, justly called the Great, had at the death of his father--the Mithridates mentioned above--been left an infant, and had come to the throne after hard trials. Though he had given no provocation, he had very early been injured by the Romans, who, we know not why, took back from him that highly important possession of Great Phrygia which his father had gained. This treachery awakened in him an implacable feeling of revenge. Besides his many other remarkable qualities, Mithridates had an extraordinary talent for dissimulation; and thus while he seemed to be altogether quiet, but was silently making his preparations, he sought to widen his dominions without doing any mischief to the Romans. He conquered the Cimmerian Bosporus, the Crimea, and the south of the Ukraine as far as the Dnieper; which gave him a great accession of strength. Soon afterwards he found an opportunity of gaining Cappadocia, where there were quarrels about the succession, the reigning king having been declared supposititious: he now placed his own son or brother on that throne. This aroused the jealousy of the Romans, and they set up against him another pretender. Ever since he had become of age, he had done his utmost to collect a fleet and a large army, evidently against Rome; and in the meanwhile he reckoned on the war which was raging in Italy, nor is there any doubt of his being connected with the allies. Yet he had not completed his preparations at the right moment; and this circumstance, as in so many other cases, saved Rome, this time also, from the impending danger. Had he engaged in this undertaking two years earlier, at the beginning of the Social War, things might indeed have taken a different turn; but he made too sure of the success of the Italians, and he believed that they would render his conquests only still more easy.

Rome in the meanwhile recovered herself from the Marsian war, which lingered on but feebly. In the second year of the struggle, she had sent commissioners to Asia to prescribe laws to Mithridates; and this may have overawed him: for, much as they had fallen off, their political weight was still the same, and threatened as they were by the greatest dangers in Italy, they did not yet lose sight of Asia. Moreover Mithridates then abetted the designs of a brother of king Nicomedes of Bithynia, in whose worthless race parricide and fratricide were quite common occurrences. Nicomedes was expelled, and Mithridates became the ally of the new king; yet he allowed himself to be so far daunted by the Romans as to put up with the restoration of Nicomedes in Bithynia, and of Ariobarzanes in Cappadocia, though he did not indeed give up his plan of revenge. The Romans, however, might if they had wished it, have still kept off the war much longer, and the government would perhaps have liked to have done it; but individuals who governed the provinces, and hoped to gain booty, would not hear of peace, but forced Nicomedes into hostilities against Mithridates, that they might have an opportunity of coming to his assistance. Cappadocia was not allied to the Romans, and Nicomedes foreboded ill of the result. Mithridates, of course, revenged himself by invading Bithynia; and there, when he had defeated the king, he again set up against him his brother as a pretender: the Roman senate now thought it high time to interfere. Treating him as if he were the aggressor, they demanded that he should abstain from all hostilities against Bithynia, and acknowledge as king of Cappadocia the man of their own choice. Mithridates bitterly complained of this injustice, saying that the Romans had indeed already taken away Great Phrygia from him. In the meanwhile, the war in Italy was all but decided, as the Samnites only and the men of Nola were still in arms, all the rest having obtained the citizenship; but the Romans were so exhausted, that they could hardly make war. They opposed to him three armies, in which very few could have been Romans, chiefly consisting of Asiatic troops. The result of this undertaking was just what it deserved. After having utterly routed two armies, Mithridates overran the neighbouring countries, conquered Bithynia, placed his son again on the throne of Cappadocia, and took the whole of the Roman province, the inhabitants of which, to a man, welcomed him with enthusiasm as their liberator. The rage against the Romans was here so great, that the people in all the towns in Asia Minor, which were quite hellenized, looking upon the war as finished, slew on one and the same day, as a proof of their fidelity to Mithridates, all the Romans and Italians who were among them. The number of these is said to have been seventy thousand, which is almost beyond belief, as after all none but those who were well off, and men of business, could have resided there: the massacre was carried out with the greatest cruelty. Thus the many usurers and bloodsuckers perished, who after the hard wars of Aristonicus had wrung the highest rates of interest from the people which was in need of money; and who, backed by the cohort and the protection of the Roman præfect, had ventured upon every sort of outrage, and had raised the tolls and taxes in a most arbitrary and overbearing way. Mithridates met with scarcely any opposition on the peninsula; some maritime towns also surrendered to him. And thus, as he was brought up entirely in the Greek manner,--there are no traces of the Magian doctrines to be found in him, except on his coins on which the sun and the moon are to be seen,--the Greeks looked upon him as a fellow countryman in spite of his Persian descent, and he was received with rapture even in Greece itself. Athens unhappily allowed herself to be beguiled by a sophist of the name of Aristion, to open her gates to him, and this fellow set himself up as tyrant. The Peloponnesus and Bœotia went over to Mithridates; the whole of Greece, with the exception of a few places, and likewise the isles of Mitylene and Chios, began to waver. Cyzicus and Rhodes remained true to the Romans: the latter in its wisdom foresaw the issue of the war, and by unshaken fidelity made amends for the faults of which, in the opinion of the Romans, it had been guilty in the war of Perseus. Mithridates occupied all the Roman province but Magnesia, and laid siege to Rhodes. In Rome, these events called forth unbounded rage, and stirred men up to go on with the war in right earnest; but the debate to whom the command in it should be entrusted, gave rise to the first civil war.

By the Sempronian law, the decision lay with the senate, and it appointed Sylla. But Marius, who could not have kept up his great name by distinguishing himself in peace, wanted likewise to have the command in this war. Twelve years had elapsed since his triumph, and he had lost ground in the public opinion: besides which, he had grown old. He might perhaps have been still an able general, although, in the Social War, he distinguished himself but once. The older indeed he grew, the lower he sank in moral worth: he had no more those great qualities which in former days had thrown his faults into the background; but he had still a party, and was the man whom the foes of the aristocracy put forward. Yet all the commotions of that time are not to be accounted for by the feelings of the contending factions, as everything was soon resolved into a mere question of persons.

When Sylla entered upon his consulship, no one seems to have had a foreboding of any danger threatening the republic from a civil war; and before he marched against Mithridates, he wished to put an end to the struggle in Italy. Nola then held out, we know not by what means: this part of the Social War is called _bellum Nolanum_, even as its beginning is called _bellum Marsicum_. This _bellum Nolanum_, however, was chiefly kept up by the Samnites who were still in arms; it was more of an insurrection in which there were no large armies. It was one of Sylla’s great qualities, not for any consideration to leave any undertaking unfinished, in which he had once embarked; and the war with Mithridates which was now impending, did not make him withdraw from Nola. While Sylla was still staying there, P. Sulpicius was tribune of the people at Rome: it is he who in Cicero’s books _de Oratore_, as a youth, takes a share in the conversation. Whatever may now have led this young man of high family thus unhappily astray,--personal hatred perhaps against Sylla,--it was with him that the calamities of Rome originated. He brought forward a motion that the command in the war against Mithridates should be transferred to Marius; for according to precedent (since the Hortensian law), the people had the right of settling the matter, even though the senate had already assigned the provinces. At the same time, he proposed that instead of forming the new citizens (by whom are meant the Latins, Etruscans and Umbrians) into fresh tribes, as had been intended, they should be distributed among the old ones. The new tribes were in fact to have voted after the others, as the _urbanæ_ did after the _rusticæ_, owing to which, as the _prærogativa_ had great weight, their rights were much curtailed. The new citizens might indeed have a vote in their turn; but they deemed it a mockery, that a right was granted them by which, nine times out of ten (the Roman tribes being almost always unanimous), they would not be called upon at all: for as soon as there was a clear majority, the votes were no longer taken. That eighteen polled against seventeen, was what very seldom happened. Sulpicius’ motion therefore was in one respect an injustice to the old citizens; yet Velleius Paterculus takes too harsh a view of the case: for, as most of those who were in the _tribus rusticæ_ lived far from Rome, and did not come to town at all, whilst, on the other hand, the _libertini_, who dwelt in the city itself, had got themselves enrolled among the _tribus rusticæ_, the measure must after all be termed a substantial improvement. A great deal therefore might have been said for and against it.

P. Sulpicius is very badly spoken of by Plutarch and Appian. That his conduct towards Sylla was unjustifiable, needs no further proof, and it is also possible that he did not act from pure motives; yet I cannot believe that he deserved to be so disparaged. The man of whom Cicero,--even though it be only from the recollections of his youth,--quite contrary to his usual feelings towards democrats, speaks with so much reverence, cannot have sunk so low. Sulpicius must, according to Cicero, have been a man of great refinement, and of the most brilliant genius; and though he may have allowed himself to be beguiled into acts of wickedness, Cicero could not indeed have looked upon the matter in such a bad light as the Greeks did. Cicero admires him also for his talents as a speaker: he had still heard him in his youth. Plutarch’s hatred of Sulpicius is not to be wondered at, as he followed the memoirs of Sylla who was most justly exasperated against him: yet for this very reason such statements are suspicious.

As the old citizens opposed the motions of Sulpicius,--for there is no longer any question of aristocrats and democrats,--Sulpicius called whole crowds of new citizens into the town to carry his laws by force. But as the bill for giving the command to Marius was tacked to them, Sylla resolved on taking up arms to prevent this. In former days, a man like Fabius Maximus Rullianus would perhaps with a bleeding heart have bowed himself to the will of fate; but those times were gone. That Sylla had recourse to arms, is a thing which, considering the age in which it was done, ought to be judged of with indulgence: he had to fear that Sulpicius and his party would not stop short, but that they would try and have his life. Calling together his soldiers near Nola, he pointed out to them that Marius would form a new army, and disband them, and thus the rich war would slip out of their grasp, and they would be left in disgrace: they resolved one and all to follow him to Rome. He marched with six legions along the Appian road; the senate, which was under the power of Sulpicius, stood aghast at the approach of an army, and sent delegates to enquire what he wanted. Sylla gave an evasive answer, but kept on advancing, and was joined by his colleague, Cn. Octavius.

Marius and Sulpicius had made preparations for a defence: but these were of little avail, as Rome was no fortress, and the eastern suburbs, which in fact were the most splendid quarters of the city, lay open. It was to no purpose that they closed the gates: for the walls afforded no longer any protection, having gone to ruin in some places, while in many others they could easily be climbed over from the suburbs, owing to the houses which were built against them on both sides, now that the town had so greatly increased. Even as late as the war with Hannibal, Rome might have still been defended; but this could now be done no more. Nor did Marius try to make a stand at the gates; he withdrew into the inner part of the city. There was some fighting at the Carinæ; but Sylla outflanked the enemy with his superior numbers, and he marched down the _Via sacra_ to the Forum, on which all dispersed. Marius and Sulpicius made their escape.

Sylla used his victory with moderation; so that at that time he appears in a favourable light: yet he unhappily sinned against the forms of the constitution by causing Marius and his son, Sulpicius and nine of their followers, to be outlawed. Sulpicius was seized and put to death, as were also one or two besides; but these were all. Marius escaped with his son to the sea-coast; came in a boat to Tarracina, where he was in danger of being given up; and from thence he went on to Minturnæ on the Liris: there he hid himself in a marsh, and was taken. The magistrate had him thrown into prison, and as a price had been set on his head, sent a _servus publicus_ to kill him. The latter, a Cimbric captive, affrighted at the sight of Marius, whom he recognised as his conqueror, ran away from him with a cry of terror at the fickleness of fortune. The decurions then let Marius go away in a boat; and he first went to Ischia, and from thence in a small vessel to Africa. Here he lived during the troubles which followed, among the ruins of Carthage, forgotten and unheeded: there was either no governor just then in Africa, or the proconsul must have belonged to his party. No one thought of seeking a refuge with Mithridates.

Sylla was so little of a tyrant as to leave the election of consuls for the next year free, owing to which men of both parties were chosen, Cn. Octavius (perhaps a son of the tribune M. Octavius), who belonged to that of Sylla, and L. Cornelius Cinna, who was on the side of Marius: which is another proof how utterly the division into patricians and plebeians was now forgotten, the democracy being headed by one of the Cornelii and one of the Valerii (L. Valerius Flaccus), downright demagogues, who trampled under foot every vested right. At the end of the year, Sylla, when he thought that he had put things in order, as the struggle with the Samnites was one that would last long, went over to Greece: there he carried on the war against Archelaus, who commanded the army of Mithridates.

To Q. Pompeius, the colleague of Sylla, the province of Italy was in the meanwhile given for the following year, that he might withstand Cinna, uphold Octavius, and end the Social War. Cn. Pompeius, the father of Cn. Pompeius Magnus, was still at that time with an army in Apulia, on the shores of the Adriatic. Of this Cn. Pompeius, Cicero says, _homo diis nobilitatique perinvisus_: he might also have said, _populo Romano_; for no one was more generally hated. He was a man of deep cunning and of crooked policy, like the men of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, especially in Italy. Neither party knew, whether he was for, or against them; nor was he for any of them, as in reality he was calculating how, at the end of all this confusion, the power might fall into his own hands. To this Cn. Pompeius, Q. Pompeius turned himself, to take the command from him. Cneius pretended to obey the senate, and to give up the _imperium_ to him; but he secretly set the soldiers against Quintus, who, when he wanted to make them take the oaths, was murdered, on which Cneius, under a shallow pretence of popularity, was compelled by the troops to resume the command;--a farce, like those played off in Spanish South America by Bolivar, and others of the same stamp. He then wrote to the senate, reporting what a calamity had befallen him, and asked to be confirmed in his command, that he might set on foot an enquiry, and do what he could for the welfare of the republic; a request which indeed they were weak enough to grant him. He was now at the head of this army, and he waited to see what would happen. Sylla being in Greece, the Samnites had time to take breath.