SULLA.

the prosecution of this war, the history of which is given under MITHRIDATES VI. and his general ARCHELAUS, and may therefore be dismissed here with a few words. Sulla landed at Dyrrhachium, and forthwith marched against Athens, which had become the head-quarters of the Mithridatic cause in Greece. After a long and obstinate siege, Athens was taken by storm on the 1st of March in the following year, B. c. 86; and in consequence of the insults which Sulla and his wife Metella had received from the tyrant Aristion, the city was given up to rapine and plunder. He next obtained possession of the Peiraeeus, which had been defended by Archelaus. Meantime Mithridates had sent fresh reinforcements to Archelaus, who concentrated all his troops in Boeotia. Sulla advanced against him, and defeated him in the neighbourhood of Chaeroneia with such enormous loss, that out of the 120,000 men with whom Archelaus had opened the campaign, he is said to have assembled only 10,000 at Chalcis in Euboea, where he had taken refuge. But while Sulla was carrying on the war with such success in Greece, his enemies had obtained the upper hand in Italy. The consul Cinna, who had been driven out of Rome by his colleague Octavius, soon after Sulla's departure from Italy, had entered it again with Marius at the close of the year. Both Cinna and Marius were appointed consuls B. C. 86, all the regulations of Sulia were swept away, his friends and adherents murdered, his property confiscated, and he himself declared a public enemy. It has frequently been made a subject of panegyric upon Sulla that he still continued to prosecute the war with Mithridates under these circumstances, and preferred the subjugation of the enemies of Rome to the gratification of his own revenge. But it must be recollected that an immediate peace with Mithridates would have discontented his soldiers; while by bringing the war to an honourable conclusion, he gratified his troops by plunder, attached them more and more to his person, and at the same time collected from the conquered cities vast sums of money for the prosecution of the war against his enemies in Italy. At the same time it is an undoubted proof of his sagacity and forethought that he knew how to bide his time. Most other men in his circumstances would have hurried back to Italy at once to crush their enemies, and thus have ruined themselves. Marius died seventeen days after he had entered upon his consulship, and was succeeded in the office by L. Valerius Flaccus, who was sent into Asia that he might prosecute the war at the same time against Mithridates and Sulla. Flaccus was murdered by his troops at the instigation of Fimbria, who now assumed the command, and who gained several victories over the generals of Mithridates in Asia, in B. c. 85. About the same time the new army, which Mithridates had again sent to Archelaus in Greece, was again defeated by Sulla in the neighbourhood of Orchomenus. These repeated disasters made Mithridates anxious for peace, but it was not granted by Sulla till the following year, B. C. 84, when he had crossed the Hellespont in order to carry on the war in that country. Sulla was now at liberty to turn his arms against Fimbria, who was with his army at Thyateira. The name of Sulla carried victory with it. The troops of Fimbria deserted their general, who put an end to his own life. Sulla now prepared to return to

Italy. After exacting enormous sums from the wealthy cities of Asia, he left his legate, L. Licinius Murena, in command of the province of Asia, with two legions, and set sail with his own army to Athens. While preparing for his deadly struggle in Italy, he did not lose his interest in literature. He carried with him from Athens to Rome the valuable library of Apellicon of Teos, which contained most of the works of Aristotle and Theophrastus. [APELLICON.] During his stay at Athens, Sulla had an attack of gout, of which he was cured by the use of the warm springs of Aedepsus in Euboea. As soon as he recovered, he led his army to Dyrrhachium, and from thence crossed over to Brundusium in Italy.

Sulla landed at Brundusium in the spring of B. C. 83, in the consulship of L. Scipio and C. Norbanus. During the preceding year he had written to the senate, recounting the services he had rendered to the commonwealth from the time of the Jugurthine war down to the conquest of Mithridates, complaining of the ingratitude with which he had been treated, announcing his speedy return to Italy, and threatening to take vengeance upon his enemies and those of the republic. The senate, in alarm, sent an embassy to Sulla to endeavour to bring about a reconciliation between him and his enemies, and meantime ordered the consuls Cinna and Carbo to desist from levying troops, and making further preparations for war. Cinna and Carbo gave no heed to this command; they knew that a reconciliation was impossible, and resolved to carry over an army to Dalmatia, in order to oppose Sulla in Greece; but after one detachment of their troops had embarked, the remaining soldiers rose in mutiny, and murdered The Marian party had thus lost their Cinna. leader, but continued nevertheless to make every preparation to oppose Sulla, for they were well aware that he would never forgive them, and that their only choice lay between victory and destruction. Besides this the Italians were ready to support them, as these new citizens feared that Sulla would deprive them of the rights which they had lately obtained after so much bloodshed. The Marian party had every prospect of victory, for their According to troops far exceeded those of Sulla. Velleius Paterculus, they had 200,000 men in arms, while Sulla landed at Brundusium with only 30,000, or at the most 40,000 men. (Vell. Pat. ii. 24; Appian, B. C. i. 79.) But on the other hand, the popular party had no one of sufficient influence and military reputation to take the supreme command in the war; their vast forces were scattered about Italy, in different armies, under different generals; the soldiers had no confidence in their commanders, and no enthusiasm in their cause; and the consequence was, that whole hosts of them deserted to Sulla on the first opportunity.

Sulla's soldiers, on the contrary, were veterans, who had frequently fought by each other's side, and had acquired that confidence in themselves and in their general which frequent Still if the victories always give to soldiers. Italians had remained faithful to the cause of the Marian party, Sulla would hardly have conquered, and therefore one of his first cares after landing at Brundusium was to detach them from his enemies. For this purpose he would not allow his troops to do any injury to the towns or fields of the Italians in his march from Brundusium through Calabria

and Apulia, and he formed separate treaties with many of the Italian towns, by which he secured to them all the rights and privileges of Roman citizens which they then enjoyed. Among the Italians the Samnites continued to be the most formidable enemies of Sulla. They had not yet received the Roman franchise, because they had continued in arms down to this time, and they now joined the Marian party, not simply with the design of securing the supremacy for the latter, but with the hope of conquering Rome by their means, and then destroying for ever their hated oppressor. Thus this civil war became merely another phase of the Marsic war, and the struggle between Rome and Samnium for the supremacy of the peninsula was renewed after the subjection of the latter for more than two hundred years.

involved in great obscurity. Carbo made two efforts to relieve Praeneste, but failed in each; and after fighting with various fortune against Pompey, Metellus, and Sulla, he at length embarked for Africa, despairing of further success in Italy. [For details see CARBO, No. 7.] Meantime Rome had nearly fallen into the hands of the enemy. The Samnites and Lucanians under Pontius Telesinus and L. Lamponius, after attempting to relieve Praeneste, resolved to march straight upon Rome, which had been left without any army for its protection. Sulla barely arrived in time to save the city. The battle was fought before the Colline gate; it was long and obstinately contested; the contest was not simply for the supremacy of a party; the very existence of Rome was at stake, for Telesinus had declared that he would raze the city to the ground. Sulla marched from Apulia into Campania with- The left wing where Sulla commanded in person out meeting with any resistance. It was in the was driven off the field by the vehemence of the latter country that he gained his first victory over enemy's charge; but the success of the right wing, the consul Norbanus, who was defeated with great which was commanded by Crassus, enabled Sulia loss, and obliged to take refuge in Capua. His to restore the battle, and at length gain a comcolleague Scipio, who was at no great distance, plete victory. Fifty thousand men are said to willingly accepted a truce which Sulla offered him, have fallen on each side (Appian, B. C. i. 93). although Sertorius warned him against entering All the most distinguished leaders of the enemy into any negotiations, and his caution was justified either perished in the engagement or were taken by the event. By means of his emissaries Sulla prisoners and put to death. Among these was the seduced the troops of Scipio, who at length found brave Samnite Pontius Telesinus, whose head was himself deserted by all his soldiers, and was taken cut off and carried under the walls of Praeneste, prisoner in his tent. Sulla, however, dismissed thereby announcing to the younger Marius that him uninjured. On hearing of this Carbo is said his last hope of succour was gone. To the Samto have observed "that he had to contend in Sulla nite prisoners Sulla showed no mercy. He was both with a lion and a fox, but that the fox resolved to root out of the peninsula those heroic gave him more trouble." Many distinguished enemies of Rome. On the third day after the Romans meantime had taken up arms on behalf of battle he collected all the Samnite and Lucanian Sulla. Cn. Pompey had levied three legions for prisoners in the Campus Martius, and ordered his him in Picenum and the surrounding districts; soldiers to cut them down. The dying shrieks of and Q. Metellus Pius, M. Crassus, M. Lucullus, so many victims frightened the senators, who had and several others offered their services as legates. been assembled at the same time by Sulla in the It was not, however, till the following year, B. C. temple of Bellona; but he bade them attend to 82, that the struggle was brought to a decisive what he was saying and not mind what was taking issue. The consuls of this year were Cn. Papirius place outside, as he was only chastising some Carbo and the younger Marius; the former of rebels, and he then quietly proceeded to finish his whom was entrusted with the protection of Etruria discourse. Praeneste surrendered soon afterwards. and Umbria, while the latter had to guard Rome The Romans in the town were pardoned; but all the and Latium. Sulla appears to have passed the Samnites and Praenestines were massacred without winter at Campania. At the commencement of mercy. The younger Marius put an end to his spring he advanced against the younger Marius, own life [MARIUS, No. 2]. The war in Italy who had concentrated all his forces at Sacriportus, was now virtually at an end, for the few towns and defeated him with great loss. Marius took which still held out had no prospect of offering any refuge in Praeneste, where he had previously de-effectual opposition, and were reduced soon afterposited his military stores, and a great quantity of gold and silver which he had brought from the Capitol and other temples at Rome. Sulla followed him to Praeneste, and after leaving Q. Lucretius Ofella with a large force to blockade the town and compel it to a surrender by famine, he marched with the main body of his army to Rome. Marius was resolved not to perish unavenged, and accordingly before Sulla could reach Rome, he sent orders to L. Damasippus, the praetor, to put to death all his leading opponents. His orders were faithfully obeyed. Q. Mucius Scaevola, the pontifex maximus and jurist, P. Antistius, L. Domitius, and many other distingished men were butchered and their corpses thrown into the Tiber. Sulla entered the city without opposition; Damasippus and his adherents had previously withdrawn, and repaired to Carbo in Etruria. Sulla marched against Carbo, who had been previously opposed by Pompeius and Metellus. The history of this part of the war is

wards. In other parts of the Roman world the war continued still longer, and Sulla did not live to see its completion. The armies of the Marian party in Sicily and Africa were subdued by Pompey in the course of B. c. 82; but Sertorius in Spain continued to defy all the attempts of the senate to crush him, till his cowardly assassination by Perperna in B. c. 72. [SERTORIUS.]

Sulla was now master of Rome. He had not commenced the civil war, but had been driven to it by the mad ambition of Marius. His enemies had attempted to deprive him of the command in the Mithridatic war which had been legally conferred upon him by the senate; and while he was fighting the battles of the republic they had declared him a public enemy, confiscated his property, and murdered the most distinguished of his friends and adherents. For all these wrongs, Sulla had threatened to take the most ample vengeance; and he more than redeemed his word.

During the years B. C. 80 and 79, Sulla carried into execution his various reforms in the constitution, of which an account is given at the close of his life. But at the same time he adopted measures in order to crush his enemies more completely, and to consolidate the power of his party. These measures require a few words of explanation, as they did not form a part of his constitutional reforms, though they were intended for the support of the latter. The first of these measures has been already mentioned, namely the destruction of his enemies by the proscription. He appears to have published his list of victims immediately after the defeat of the Samnites and Lucanians at the Colline gate, without communicating, as Plutarch says (Sull. 31), with any magistrate; but when he was dictator he proposed a law in the comitia centuriata, which ratified his proscriptions, and which is usually called Lex Cornelia de Proscriptione or De Proscriptis. By this law it was enacted that all proscriptions should cease on the 1st of June, B. c. 81. The lex Valeria, which conferred the dictatorship upon Sulla, gave him absolute power over the lives of Roman citizens, and hence Cicero says he does not know whether to call the proscription law a lex Valeria or lex Cornelia. (Cic. pro Rosc. Am. 43, 44, de Leg. Agr. iii. 2.)

He resolved to extirpate root and branch the po-called himself Epaphroditus. All ranks in Rome pular party. One of his first acts was to draw up bowed in awe before their master; and among other a list of his enemies who were to be put to death, marks of distinction which were voted to him by which list was exhibited in the forum to public the obsequious senate, a gilt equestrian statue was inspection, and called a Proscriptio. It was the erected to his honour before the Rostra, bearing the first instance of the kind in Roman history. All inscription "Cornelio Sullae Imperatori Felici." persons in this list were outlaws who might be killed by any one with impunity, even by slaves; their property was confiscated to the state, and was to be sold by public auction; their children and grandchildren lost their votes in the comitia, and were excluded from all public offices. Further, all who killed a proscribed person, or indicated the place of his concealment, received two talents as a reward, and whoever sheltered such a person was punished with death. Terror now reigned, not only at Rome, but throughout Italy. Fresh lists of the proscribed constantly appeared. No one was safe; for Sulla gratified his friends by placing in the fatal lists their personal enemies, or persons whose property was coveted by his adherents. An estate, a house, or even a piece of plate was to many a man, who belonged to no political party, his death warrant; for although the confiscated property belonged to the state, and had to be sold by public auction, the friends and dependents of Sulla purchased it at a nominal price, as no one dared to bid against them. Oftentimes Sulla did not require the purchase-money to be paid at all, and in many cases he gave such property to his favourites without even the formality of a sale. Metella, the wife of the dictator, and Chrysogonus his freedman, P. Sulla, M. Crassus, Vettius, and Sex. Naevius are especially mentioned among those who received such presents; and handsome Roman inatrons, as likewise actors and actresses, were favoured in the same manner. The number of persons who perished by the proscriptions is stated differently, but it appears to have amounted to many thousands. At the commencement of these horrors Sulla had been appointed dictator. As both the consuls had perished, he caused the senate to elect Valerius Flaccus interrex, and the latter brought before the people a rogatio, conferring the dictatorship upon Sulla, for the purpose of restoring order to the republic, and for as long a time as he judged to be necessary. Thus the dictatorship was revived after being in abeyance for more than 120 years, and Sulla obtained absolute power over the lives and fortunes of all the citizens. This was towards the close of B. C. 81. Sulla's great object in being invested with the dictatorship was to carry into execution in a legal manner the great reforms which he meditated in the constitution and the administration of justice, by which he hoped to place the government of the republic on a firm and secure basis. He had no intention of abolishing the republic, and consequently he caused consuls to be elected for the following year, B. C. 81, and was elected to the office himself in B. C. 80, while he continued to hold the dictatorship.

At the beginning of the following year, B. c. 81, Sulla celebrated a splendid triumph on account of his victory over Mithridates. In a speech which he delivered to the people at the close of the gorgeous ceremony, he claimed for himself the surname of Felix, as he attributed his success in life to the favour of the gods. He believed himself to have been in particular under the protection of Venus, who had granted him victory in battle as well as in love. Hence, in writing to Greeks, he

Another of Sulla's measures, and one of still more importance for the support of his power, was the establishment of military colonies throughout Italy. The inhabitants of the Italian towns, which had fought against Sulla, were deprived of the full Roman franchise which had been lately conferred upon them, and were only allowed to retain the commercium: their land was confiscated and given to the soldiers who had fought under him. Twentythree legions (Appian, B. C. i. 100), or, according to another statement (Liv. Epit. 89), forty-seven legions received grants of land in various parts of Italy. A great number of these colonies was settled in Etruria, the population of which was thus almost entirely changed. These colonies had the strongest interest in upholding the institutions of Sulla, since any attempt to invalidate the latter would have endangered their newly-acquired possessions. But though they were a support to the power of Sulla, they hastened the fall of the commonwealth; an idle and licentious soldiery supplanted an industrious and agricultural population; and Catiline found nowhere more adherents than among the military colonies of Sulla. While Sulla thus established throughout Italy a population devoted to his interests, he created at Rome a kind of bodyguard for his protection by giving the citizenship to a great number of slaves belonging to those who had been proscribed by him. The slaves thus rewarded are said to have been as many as 10,000, and were called Cornelii after him as their patron.

Sulla had completed his reforms by the beginning of B. c. 79, and as he longed for the undisturbed enjoyment of his pleasures, he resolved to resign his dictatorship. Accordingly, to the general surprise he summoned the people, resigned his dictatorship, and declared himself ready to render

tion. It was a gorgeous pageant. The magis trates, the senate, the equites, the priests, and the Vestal virgins, as well as the veterans, accompanied All the reforms of Sulla were effected by means of the funeral procession to the Campus Martius, Leges, which were proposed by him in the comitia where the corpse was burnt according to Sulla's centuriata and enacted by the votes of the people. own wish, who feared that his enemies might It is true that the votes of the people were a mere insult his remains, as he had done those of Marius, form, but it was a form essential to the preservation which had been taken out of the grave and thrown of his work, and was maintained by Augustus into the Anio at his command. It had been pre-in his legislation. The laws proposed by Sulla are viously the custom of the Cornelia gens to bury and not burn their dead. A monument was erected to Sulla in the Campus Martius, the inscription on which he is said to have composed himself. It

These laws were all passed during the time that Sulla was dictator, that is, from the end of B. C. 82 to B. C. 79, and most of them in all probability during the years B. c. 81 and 80. It is impossible to determine in what order they were proposed, nor is it material to do so. They may be divided into four classes, laws relating to the constitution, to the ecclesiastical corporations, to the adminis tration of justice, and to the improvement of public morals.

The

exercised a powerful influence in the state, were strictly forbidden by Sulla. (Cic. pro Cluent. 40.) The Comitia Centuriata, on the other hand, were allowed to retain their right of legislation unimpaired. He restored however the ancient regulation, which had fallen into desuetude, that no matter should be brought before them without the previous sanction of a senatusconsultum (Appian, B. C. i. 59); but he did not require the confirmTheir general object and designation of the curiae, as the latter had long ceased to was to restore, as far as possible, the ancient Ro- have any practical existence. Göttling supposes man constitution, and to give again to the senate that the right of provocatio or appeal to the comitia and the aristocracy that power of which they had centuriata was done away with by Sulla, but the been gradually deprived by the leaders of the passage of Cicero (Cic. Verr. Act. i. 13), which he popular party. It did not escape the penetration quotes in support of this opinion, is not sufficient of Sulla that many of the evils under which the to prove it. Roman state was suffering, arose from the corruption of the morals of the people; and he therefore attempted in his legislation to check the increase of crime and luxury by stringent enactments. attempt was a hopeless one, for vice and immorality pervaded alike all classes of Roman citizens, and no laws can restore to a people the moral feelings which they have lost. Sulla has been much blamed by modern writers for giving to the Roman state such an aristocratical constitution; but under the circumstances in which he was placed he could not well have done otherwise. To have vested the government in the mob of which the Roman people consisted, would have been perfect madness; and as he was not prepared to establish a monarchy, he had no alternative but giving the power to the senate. His constitution did not last, because the aristocracy were thoroughly selfish and corrupt, and exercised the power which Sulla had entrusted to them only for their own aggrandisement and not for the good of their country. Their shameless conduct soon disgusted the provinces as well as the capital; the people again regained their power, but the consequence was an anarchy and not a government; and as neither class was fit to rule, they were obliged to submit to the dominion of a single man. Thus the empire became a necessity as well as a blessing to the exhausted Roman world. Sulla's laws respecting criminal jurisprudence were the most lasting and bear the strongest testimony to his greatness as a legislator. He was the first to reduce the criminal law of Rome to a system; and his laws, together with the Julian laws, formed the basis of the criminal Roman jurisprudence till the downfal of the empire.

In treating of Sulla's laws we shall follow the fourfold division which has been given above.

I. Laws relating to the Constitution.-The changes which Sulla introduced in the comitia and the senate, first call for our attention. The Comitia Tributa, or assemblies of the tribes, which originally possessed only the power to make regulations respecting the local affairs of the tribes, had gradually become a sovereign assembly with legislative and judicial authority. Sulla deprived them of their legislative and judicial powers, as well as of their right of electing the priests, which they had also acquired. He did not however do away with them entirely, as might be inferred from the words of Appian (B. C. i. 59); but he allowed them to exist with the power of electing the tribunes, aediles, quaestors, and other inferior magistrates. This seems to have been the only purpose for which they were called together; and all conciones of the tribes, by means of which the tribunes had

The Senate had been so much reduced in numbers by the proscriptions of Sulla, that he was obliged to fill up the vacancies by the election of three hundred new members. These however were not appointed by the censors from the persons who had filled the magistracies of the state, but were elected by the people. Appian says (B. C. i. 100) that they were elected by the tribes. Most modern writers think that we are not to understand by this the comitia tributa, but the comitia centuriata, which voted also according to tribes at this time; but Göttling observes that as the senators were regarded by Sulla as public officers, there is no difficulty in supposing that they were elected by the comitia tributa as the inferior magistrates were. However this may be, we know that these three hundred were taken from the equestrian order. (Appian, l. c.; Liv. Epit. 89.) This election was an extraordinary one, and was not intended to be the regular way of filling up the vacancies in the senate; for we are expressly told that Sulla increased the number of quaestors to twenty, that there might be a sufficient number for this purpose (Tac. Ann. xi. 32.) It was not necessary for Sulla to make any alteration respecting the duties and functions of the senate, as the whole administration of the state was in their hands; and be gave them the initiative in legislation by requiring a previous senatusconsultum respecting all measures that were to be submitted to the comitia, as is stated above. One of the most important of the senate's duties was the appointment of the governors of the provinces. By the Lex Sempronia of C. Gracchus, the senate had to determine every year before the election of the consuls the two provinces which the consuls should have (Cic. de Prov. Cons. 2, 7; Sall. Jug. 27); but as the imperium was conferred only for a year, the governor had to leave the province at the end of that time, unless his imperium was renewed. Sulla in his law respecting the provinces (de Provinciis ordinandis) did not make any change in the Sempronian law respecting the distribution of the provinces by the senate; but he allowed the governor of a province to continue to hold the government till a successor was appointed by the senate, and enacted that he should continue to possess the imperium till he entered the city, without the necessity of its being renewed annually (comp. Cic. ad Fam. i. 9. § 12). The time during which the government of a province was to be held, thus depended entirely upon the will of the senate. It was further enacted that as soon as a successor arrived in the province, the former governor must quit it within thirty days (Cic. ad Fam. iii. 6); and the law also limited the ex