[95] 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.
1 Mommsen says that the list of the proscribed reached 4700 names. "This total," he adds, "is given by Valerius Maximus, ix. 2, i. According to Appian (B.C. i. 95) there were proscribed by Sulla nearly 40 senators and 1600 knights; according to Florus (ii. 9, whence Augustine, de Civ. Dei, iii. 28) 2000 senators and knights. According to Plutarch (Sull. 31) 520 names were placed on the list in the first three days; according to Orosius (v. 21) 580 names during the first days. There is no material contradiction between these various reports, for it was not senators and knights alone that were put to death, and the list remained open for months. When Appian, at another passage (i. 103), mentions as put to death or banished by Sulla, 15 consulars, go senators, 2600 knights, he there confounds, as the context shows, the victims of the civil war throughout, with the victims of Sulla. . . . On a comparison of the figures 50 senators and 1000 knights were regarded as victims of Marius, 40 senators 1600 knights as victims of Sulla; this furnishes a standard--at least not altogether arbitrary--for estimating the extent of the mischief on both sides." (Hist. of Rome, iii. 423.)
The Civil Wars. Appian. Horace White. London. MACMILLAN AND CO., LTD. 1899.
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