CHAPTER VII
The Civil Wars of Marius and Sulla--The Command against
Mithridates--Sulla marches against the City--Captures it--Flight of the
Marians--Changes introduced by Sulla--Rome under Martial Law--Narrow
Escape of Marius--He passes over to Africa--Killing of Quintus
Pompeius
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Hitherto the murders and seditions had been merely intestine squabbles.
Afterward the chiefs of factions assailed each other with great armies,
according to the usage of war, and the country lay as a prize between them.
The beginning and origin of these contentions came about directly after the
Social War, in this wise. When Mithridates, king of Pontus and of other
nations, invaded Bithynia and Phrygia and that part of Asia adjacent to
those countries, as I have related in the preceding book, the consul Sulla
was chosen by lot to the command of Asia and the Mithridatic war, but was
still in Rome. Marius thought that this would be an easy and lucrative war
and he desired the command of it. So he prevailed upon the tribune, Publius
Sulpicius, by many promises, to help him obtain it. He also led the new
Italian citizens, who had very little power in the elections, to hope that
they should be distributed among all the tribes--not putting forward
anything concerning his own advantage, but with the expectation of employing
them as loyal servants in his every
attempt. Sulpicius straightway brought
forward a law for
this purpose. If it were enacted Marius
and Sulpicius would have everything they wanted, because the new citizens
far outnumbered the old ones. The old citizens saw this and opposed the new
ones with all their might. They fought each other with sticks and stones,
and the evil increased continually. The consuls, becoming apprehensive, as
the day for voting on the law drew near, proclaimed a vacation of many days'
duration, such as was customary on festal occasions, in order to postpone
the voting and the danger.
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Sulpicius would not wait for the vacation's end. He ordered his faction to
come to the forum with concealed daggers and to do whatever the exigency
might require, and not to spare the consuls themselves upon occasion. When
everything was in readiness he denounced the vacation as illegal and ordered
the consuls, Cornelius Sulla and Quintus Pompeius, to put an end to it at
once, in order to proceed to the enactment of laws. A tumult arose, and
those who had been armed drew their daggers and threatened to kill the
consuls, who were making opposition. Finally Pompeius escaped secretly and
Sulla withdrew on the pretext of taking advice. In the meantime the son of
Pompeius, who was the son-in-law of Sulla, and who was speaking his mind
rather freely, was killed by the Sulpicians. Presently Sulla returned and
annulled the vacation, but hurried away to Capua, where his army was
stationed, in order to cross over to Asia to take command of the war against
Mithridates, for he knew nothing as yet of the designs against himself. As
the vacation was annulled and Sulla had left the city, Sulpicius enacted his
law, and Marius, for whose sake it was done, was forthwith chosen commander
of the war against Mithridates in place of Sulla.
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When Sulla heard of this he resolved to decide the question by war. He called
the army together in a conference. They were eager for the war against
Mithridates because it promised much plunder, and they feared that Marius
would enlist other soldiers instead of themselves. Sulla spoke of the
indignity put upon him by Sulpicius and Marius, and while he did not openly
allude to anything else (for he did not dare as yet to mention this kind of
a war), he urged them to be ready to obey his orders. They understood what
he meant, and as they feared lest they should miss the campaign they spoke
boldly what Sulla had in his mind, and told him to be of good courage, and
to lead them to Rome. Sulla was overjoyed and led six legions thither
forthwith, but all of his superior officers, except one quæstor,
left him and hastened to the city, because they would not submit to the idea
of leading an army against their country. Envoys met him on the road and
asked him why he was marching with armed forces against his country.
"To deliver her from her tyrants," he replied. He gave the same
answer to a second and a third embassy that came to him, one after another,
but he announced to them finally that the Senate and Marius and Sulpicius
might meet him in the Campus Martius if they liked, and that he would do
whatever might be agreed upon after consultation. As he was approaching, his
colleague, Pompeius, came to meet him and praised him for what he had done,
for Pompeius was delighted, and coöperated with him in every way.
As Marius and Sulpicius needed some short interval for preparation, they
sent other messengers, in the guise of envoys from the Senate, directing him
not to move his camp nearer than forty stades from the city until they could
consider of the business in hand. Sulla and Pompeius understood their game
perfectly and promised to comply, but as soon as the envoys were returning
they followed them.
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Sulla took possession of the Cœlian gate and of the adjoining wall
with one legion of soldiers, and Pompeius occupied the Colline gate with
another. A third advanced to the Sublician bridge, and a fourth remained on
guard in front of the walls. With the remainder Sulla entered the city,
being in appearance and in fact an enemy. The inhabitants round about tried
to fight him off by hurling missiles from the roofs until he threatened to
burn the houses; then they desisted. Marius and Sulpicius went, with some
forces they had hastily armed, to meet the invaders near the
Æsquiline forum, and here a battle took place between the
contending parties, the first that was regularly fought in Rome with trumpet
and signal under the rules of war, and not at all in the similitude of a
faction fight. To such extremity of evil had the recklessness of party
strife progressed among them. Sulla's forces were beginning to waver when
Sulla seized a standard and exposed himself to danger in the foremost ranks.
Out of regard for their general and fear of ignominy if they should abandon
their standard, they rallied at once. Sulla ordered up fresh troops from his
camp and sent others around by the socalled Suburran road to take the enemy
in the rear. The Marians fought feebly against these new-comers, and as they
feared lest they should be surrounded they called to their aid the other
citizens who were still fighting from the houses, and proclaimed freedom to
slaves who would share their labors. As nobody came forward they fell into
utter despair and fled at once out of the city, together with those of the
nobility who had coöperated with them.
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Sulla advanced to the so-called Via Sacra and there, in sight of everybody,
punished certain soldiers who had plundered persons on the road. He
stationed guards at intervals throughout the city, he and Pompeius keeping
watch by night. Each kept moving about his own command to see that no
calamity was brought about either by the frightened people or by the
victorious troops: They summoned the people to an assembly at daybreak and
lamented the condition of the republic, which had been so long given over to
demagogues, and said that they had done what they had done as a matter of
necessity. They proposed that no question should ever again be brought
before the people which had not been previously considered by the Senate, an
ancient practice which had been abandoned long ago. Also that the voting
should not be by tribes, but by centuries, as King Servius Tullius had
ordained. They thought that by these two measures--namely, that no law
should be brought before the people unless it had been previously before the
Senate, and that the voting should be controlled by the well-to-do and
sober-minded rather than by the pauper and reckless classes--there would no
longer be any starting-point for civil discord. They proposed many other
measures for curtailing the power of the tribunes, which had become
extremely tyrannical. They enrolled 300 of the best citizens at once in the
list of senators, who had been reduced at that time to a very small number
and had fallen into contempt for that reason. They annulled all the acts
performed by Sulpicius after the vacation had been proclaimed by the
consuls, as being illegal.
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Thus the seditions proceeded from strife and contention to murder, and from
murder to open war, and now the first army of her own citizens had invaded
Rome as a hostile country.
1 From this time the civil
dissensions were decided only by the arbitrament of arms. There were
frequent attacks upon the city and battles before the walls and other
calamities incident to war. Henceforth there was no restraint upon violence
either from the sense of shame, or regard for law, institutions, or country.
Now Sulpicius, who still held the office of tribune, together with Marius,
who had been consul six times, and his son Marius, also Publius Cethegus,
Junius Brutus, Gnæus and Quintus Granius, Publius Albinovanus,
Marcus Lætorius, and others with them, about twelve in number,
fled from Rome, because they had stirred up the sedition, had borne arms
against the consuls, had incited slaves to insurrection, had been voted
enemies of the Roman people, and anybody meeting them had been authorized to
kill them with impunity or to drag them before the consuls, and their goods
had been confiscated. Detectives were in pursuit of these men. They caught
Sulpicius and killed him.
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Marius escaped them and fled to Minturnæ without a companion or a
servant. While he was resting in a secluded house the magistrates of the
city, whose fears were excited by the proclamation of the Roman people, but
who hesitated to be the murderers of a man who had been six times consul and
had performed so many brilliant exploits, sent a Gaul who was living there
to kill him with a sword. It is said that as the Gaul was approaching the
pallet of Marius in the dusk he thought he saw the gleam and flash of fire
darting from his eyes, and that Marius rose from his bed and shouted to him
in a thundering voice, "Do you dare to kill Gaius Marius? " The Gaul turned
and fled out of doors like a madman, exclaiming, "I cannot kill Gaius
Marius." As the magistrates had come to their previous decision with
reluctance, so now a kind of religious awe came over them as they remembered
the prophecy uttered while he was a boy, that he should be consul seven
times. It was said that while he was a boy seven young eaglets alighted on
his breast, and that the soothsayers predicted that he would attain the
highest office seven times.
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Bearing these things in mind and believing that the Gaul had been inspired
with fear by divine influence, the magistrates of Minturnæ sent
Marius out of the town forthwith, to seek safety wherever he could. As he
knew that Sulla was searching for him and that horsemen were pursuing him,
he moved toward the sea by unfrequented roads and came to a hut where he
rested, covering himself up with leaves. Hearing a noise, he concealed
himself more carefully with the leaves. Hearing a somewhat louder noise, he
rushed to the boat of an old fisherman, overpowered him, leaped into it,
and, although a storm was raging, he cut the rope, spread the sail, and
committed himself to chance. He was driven to an island where he found a
ship navigated by his own friends, and sailed thence to Africa. He was
prohibited from landing there by the governor, Sextius, because he was an
enemy, and he passed the winter in his ship a little beyond the province of
Africa, along the shore of Numidia. While he was sailing thither he was
joined by Cethegus, Granius, Albinovanus, Lætorius, and others,
including the son of Marius himself, who had gained tidings of his approach.
They had fled from Rome to Hiempsal, prince of Numidia, and now they had run
away from him, fearing lest they should be delivered up. They were ready to
do just as Sulla had done, that is, to master their country by force, but as
they had no army they waited for some opportunity.
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In Rome Sulla, who had been the first one to seize the city by force of arms,
and was now able perhaps to wield supreme power, having rid himself of his
enemies, desisted from violence of his own accord. He sent his army forward
to Capua and resumed his functions as consul. The faction under banishment,
especially the rich ones, and many wealthy women, who now found a respite
from the terror of arms, bestirred themselves for the return of their male
relatives from exile. They spared neither pains nor expense to this end,
even conspiring against the persons of the consuls when they thought they
could not secure the recall of their friends while the consuls survived.
Sulla's army furnished ample protection for himself even after he should
cease to be consul, since he had been voted commander of the war against
Mithridates. The people commiserated the fears of the other consul, Quintus
Pompeius, for his personal safety, and gave him the command of Italy and of
the army appertaining to it, which was then under Gnæus Pompeius.
When the latter learned this fact he was greatly displeased. Nevertheless he
received Quintus in the camp, and, after transacting the necessary business
with him the following day, withdrew for a short time as a private person,
but a little later a crowd that had collected around the consul under
pretence of listening to him killed him. After the guilty ones had fled,
Gnæus came to the camp in a high state of indignation over the
killing of a consul contrary to law. Notwithstanding his displeasure he
forthwith resumed his command over them.
2