CHAPTER XI
Proscription and Massacre by Sulla--Confiscation and Murder in the
Provinces--Sulla Triumphant--Is made Dictator for Life--The Sullan
Constitution--Lucretius Ofella slain by Sulla's Order--Distress and
Exhaustion of Italy
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After accomplishing these deeds throughout Italy by war, fire, and murder,
Sulla's generals visited the several cities and established garrisons at the
suspected places. Pompey was despatched to Africa against Carbo and to
Sicily against Carbo's friends who had taken refuge there. Sulla himself
called the Roman people together in an assembly and made them a speech
vaunting his own exploits and making other menacing statements in order to
inspire terror. He finished by saying that he would bring about a change
which would be beneficial to the public if they would obey him. He would not
spare one of his enemies, but would visit them with the utmost severity. He
would take vengeance by every means in his power on all prætors,
quæstors, military tribunes, and everybody else who had committed
any hostile act after the day when the consul Scipio violated the agreement
made with him. After saying this he forthwith proscribed about forty
senators and 1600 knights.
1 He seems to have been the first one to punish by
proscription, to offer prizes to assassins and rewards wards to informers,
and to threaten with punishment those who should conceal the proscribed.
Shortly afterward he added the names of other senators to the proscription.
Some of these, taken unawares, were killed where they were caught, in their
houses, in the streets, or in the temples. Others were picked up, carried to
Sulla, and thrown down at his feet. Others were dragged through the city and
trampled on, none of the spectators daring to utter a word of remonstrance
against these horrors. Banishment was inflicted upon some and confiscation
upon others. Spies were searching everywhere for those who had fled from the
city, and those whom they caught they killed.
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There was much killing, banishment, and confiscation also among those
Italians who had obeyed Carbo, or Marius, or Norbanus, or their lieutenants.
Severe judgments of the courts were rendered against them throughout all
Italy on various charges--for exercising military command, for serving in
the army, for contributing money, for rendering other service, or even
giving counsel against Sulla. Hospitality, private friendship, the borrowing
or lending of money, were alike accounted crimes. Now and then one would be
arrested for doing a kindness to a suspect, or merely for being his
companion on a journey. These accusations abounded mostly against the rich.
When charges against individuals failed Sulla took vengeance on whole
communities. He punished some of them by demolishing their citadels, or
destroying their walls, or by imposing heavy fines and contributions on
them. Among most of them he placed colonies of his troops in order to hold
Italy under garrisons, sequestrating their lands and houses and dividing
them among his soldiers, whom he thus made true to him during his life and
even after his death. As they could not be secure in their own holdings
unless all of Sulla's affairs were on a firm foundation, they were his
stoutest champions even after he was deceased. While the affairs of Italy
were in this state, Pompey sent a force and captured Carbo, who had fled
with many persons of distinction from Africa to Sicily and thence to the
island of Cossyra. He ordered his officers to kill all of the others without
bringing them into his presence; but Carbo, who had been thrice consul, he
caused to be brought before his feet in chains, and after making a public
harangue at him, killed him and sent his head to Sulla.
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When everything had been accomplished against his enemies as he desired, and
there was no longer any hostile force except that of Sertorius, who was far
distant, Sulla sent Metellus into Spain against him and managed everything
in the city to suit himself. There was no longer any occasion for laws, or
elections, or for casting lots, because everybody was shivering with fear
and in hiding, or dumb. Everything that Sulla had done as consul, or as
proconsul, was confirmed and ratified, and his gilded equestrian statue was
erected in front of the rostra with the inscription, "Cornelius Sulla, a
fortunate commander," for so his flatterers called him on account of his
unbroken success against his enemies. And this flattering title still
attaches to him. I have come across a history which relates that Sulla was
styled Epaphroditus
2 by a decree of the Senate itself. This does not seem to
me to be inappropriate for he was also called Faustus (lucky), which name
seems to have very nearly the same signification as Epaphroditus. There was
also an oracle given to him somewhere which, in response to his question
concerning the future, assured his prosperous career as follows:--
"Believe me, Roman, the Cyprian goddess cares for the race of Æneas
and has given it great power. Render yearly gifts to all the immortals, and
do not forget them. Convey gifts to Delphi. There is also a place where men
go up under snowy Taurus, a wide-reaching city of the Carians,
3 whose inhabitants have named it for Aphrodite. Give the
goddess an axe and you shall gain sovereign power."
4
Whichever decree the Romans voted when they erected the statue, they seem to
me to have made the inscription by way of jest or cajolery. However, Sulla
sent a golden crown and an axe to Venus with this inscription:--
"The dictator Sulla dedicates this to thee, Venus, because in a dream he saw
thee in panoply setting the army in order of battle and fighting with the
weapons of Mars."
5
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Thus Sulla became king, or tyrant, de facto, not elected,
but holding power by force and violence. As, however, he needed some
pretence of being elected it was managed in this way. The kings of the
Romans in the olden time were chosen for their bravery, and when one of them
died the senators held the royal power in succession for five days each,
until the people could decide who should be the new king. This five-day
ruler was called the Interrex, which means king for the time being. The
retiring consuls always presided over the election of their successors in
office, and if there chanced to be no consul at such a time an Interrex was
appointed for the purpose of holding the consular comitia. Sulla took
advantage of this custom. There were no consuls at this time, Carbo having
lost his life in Sicily and Marius in Præneste. So Sulla went out
of the city for a time and ordered the Senate to choose an Interrex. They
chose Valerius Flaccus, expecting that he would soon hold the consular
comitia. But Sulla wrote to Flaccus to bring before the people the
proposition that he (Sulla) considered it advisable, under present
circumstances, that the city should be governed by a dictator according to a
custom that had been abandoned 400 years.
6 He told them not
to appoint the dictator for any definite time, but until the city and Italy
and the whole government, so shaken by factions and wars, should be put upon
a firm foundation. That this proposal referred to Sulla himself was not at
all doubtful. Sulla made no concealment of it. At the conclusion of the
letter he declared openly that, in his judgment, he could be serviceable to
the city in that capacity.
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Such was Sulla's letter. The Romans were unwilling, but they had no more
opportunities for elections according to law, and they considered that this
matter was not altogether in their own power. So, in the absence of
everything else, they welcomed this pretence of an election as an image and
semblance of freedom and chose Sulla their absolute master for as long a
time as he pleased. There had been autocratic rule of the dictators before,
but it was limited to short periods. But in Sulla's time it first became
unlimited and so an absolute tyranny; yet they added, for propriety's sake,
that they chose him dictator for the enactment of such laws as he might deem
best and for the regulation of the commonwealth. Thus the Romans, after
having government by kings for sixty Olympiads, and a democracy, under
consuls chosen yearly, for 100 Olympiads, resorted to kingly government
again. This was in the 175th Olympiad according to the Greek calendar, but
there were no Olympic games then except races in the stadium, since Sulla
had carried away the athletes and all the sights and shows to Rome to
celebrate his victories in the Mithridatic and Italian wars, under the
pretext that the masses needed a breathing-spell and recreation after their
toils.
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Nevertheless, as the form of the republic remained
he
allowed them to appoint consuls. Marcus Tullius and Cornelius Dolabella were
chosen. But Sulla, like a reigning sovereign, was dictator over the consuls.
Twenty-four axes were borne in front of him, as was customary with
dictators, the same number that were borne before the ancient kings, and he
had a large body-guard also. He repealed laws and he enacted others. He
forbade anybody to hold the office of prætor until after he had
held that of quæstor, or to be consul before he had been
prætor, and he prohibited any man from holding the same office a
second time till after the lapse of ten years. He reduced the tribunician
power to such an extent that it seemed to be destroyed. He curtailed it by a
law which provided that one holding the office of tribune should never
afterward hold any other office; for which reason all men of reputation or
family, who formerly contended for this office, shunned it thereafter. I am
not able to say positively whether Sulla transferred this office from the
people to the Senate, where it is now lodged, or not. To the Senate itself,
which had been much thinned by the seditions and wars, he added about 300
members from the best of the knights, taking the vote of the tribes for each
one. To the plebeians he added more than 10,000 slaves of proscribed
persons, choosing the youngest and strongest, to whom he gave freedom and
Roman citizenship, and he called them Cornelii after himself. In this way he
made sure of having 10,000 men among the plebeians always ready to obey his
commands. In order to provide the same kind of safeguard throughout Italy he
distributed to the twenty-three legions that had served under him a great
deal of land among the communities, as I have already related, some of which
was public property and some taken from the communities by way of fine.
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So terrible was he and so uncontrollable in anger that he slew in the middle
of the forum Q. Lucretius Ofella, the one who had besieged and captured
Præneste and the consul Marius, and had won the final victory for
him. He did this because, in spite of the new law, Lucretius persisted,
though Sulla opposed and forbade, in being a candidate for the consulship
while he was still in the equestrian order and before he had been
quæstor and prætor, presuming on the greatness of his
services, according to the former custom, and captivating the populace. Then
Sulla assembled the people and said to them, "Know, citizens, and learn from
me, that I caused the death of Lucretius because he disobeyed me." And then
he told the following story: "A husbandman was bitten by fleas while
ploughing. He stopped his ploughing twice in order to clear them out of his
shirt. When they bit him. again he burned his shirt, so that he might not be
so often interrupted in his work. And I tell you, who have felt my hand
twice, to take warning lest the third time fire be brought in requisition."
With these words he terrified them and thereafter ruled as he pleased. He
had a triumph on account of the Mithridatic war, during which some of the
scoffers called his government " the royalty disavowed" because only the
name of king was concealed. Others took the contrary view, judging from his
acts, and called it "the tyranny confessed."
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Into such evils were the Romans and all the Italians plunged by this war; and
so likewise were all the countries beyond Italy by the recent piracies, or
by the Mithridatic war, or by the many exhausting taxes levied to meet the
deficit in the public treasury due to the seditions. All the allied nations
and kings, and not only the tributary cities, but those which had delivered
themselves to the Romans voluntarily under sworn agreements, and those which
by virtue of their furnishing aid in war or for some other merit were
autonomous and not subject to tribute, all were now required to pay and to
obey. Some that had surrendered themselves under treaty arrangements were
deprived of their territory and their harbors. Sulla decreed that Alexander
(the son of Alexander the former sovereign of Egypt), who had been reared in
Cos and given to Mithridates by the inhabitants of that island, and had fled
to Sulla and become intimate with him, should be king of Alexandria. He did
this because the government of Alexandria was destitute of a sovereign in
the male line, and the women of the royal house wanted a man of the same
lineage, and because he (Sulla) expected to reap a large reward from the
rich kingdom. As Alexander behaved himself in a very offensive manner toward
them, relying upon Sulla, the Alexandrians, on the nineteenth day of his
reign, dragged him from the palace to the gymnasium and put him to death; so
little fear had they of foreigners, either by reason of the magnitude of
their own government or their inexperience as yet of external dangers.
