Sylla showed himself to be great indeed. His house was pulled down, and his property destroyed; his family had been obliged to fly the country; his friends were either murdered, or driven into banishment, and many of these last came to him, entreating him to return. Mithridates, moreover, would long since have concluded a peace which indeed would have been less advantageous to the Romans; but Sylla wished to bring the war quite to an end, and to get the most favourable terms possible, first taking care of the interests of his country, before he looked to his own. Thus he now returned with a victorious army which was proud of him, and attached to him, being also in possession of great pecuniary resources. He had not more than thirty thousand men, whereas there were opposed to him in the whole of the Italian peninsula as far as Gaul, four hundred and fifty cohorts, that is to say, more than a hundred and eighty thousand men: (for at that time armies were counted by cohorts of four hundred and twenty men, more rarely by legions.) And this was a party besides, which had to fight for its very existence, containing also the Samnites, who could not under any circumstances have concluded a peace with Sylla. This army he attacked in full reliance on his own strength and good fortune, and conducted the war in a manner which was most glorious to his fame.
When Sylla brought back his army to Italy, L. Cornelius Scipio and C. Norbanus Balbus were consuls: here also we again find patricians siding with the democrats. If any one of them had had dictatorial power, and had known how to make use of it; if therefore the military resources had been properly managed, Sylla must have been lost: for against the overwhelming numbers of the opposite party, his success would have been impossible. But the Roman state was at that time so disorganized, and the leaders after Marius’ death so incapable; that it was just as it was in France, in the year 1799, when the Directory was so helpless, that without Buonaparte’s return it would have been lost. Under such circumstances, rebellions multiply, as the people expect more from any change, than from the continuance of the existing state of things. Sylla reckoned on the incapacity of the chiefs of the opposite faction, and on the hatred which every one had had for their leaders: that now happened which the judicious Cælius Rufus writes to Cicero of the contest of Cæsar and Pompey.[99] Even of the new citizens, very many were filled with disgust and abhorrence against the actual government, and ready to go over to Sylla, if they had only a hope of being maintained in their rights: could the ruling party have relied on the bulk of the new citizens, and on part of the old ones, Sylla would certainly never have been victorious. He therefore, even while his first campaign was still going on, made an alliance with the new citizens in which he confirmed all their rights. Thus, when he landed at Brundusium, he was received with open arms. Preparations for attacking him had been talked of; but those ordered by Carbo, had miscarried owing to the general opposition. Sylla marched quite peacefully through Apulia; near Canusium,[100] if a statement which certainly is very likely, be correct, he had a battle indeed with the consul Norbanus, although it was but an insignificant one. The main force of the enemy, however, he found encamped near Capua, quite close to which city, in the neighbourhood of Mount Tifata, he once more defeated Norbanus; the very troops arrayed against him already went over to him by whole sections. When still in Greece, he had begun to treat, endeavouring to bring about a fair agreement without any exclusive rights for himself; and now he again entered into negotiations with the consul Scipio, and an armistice was concluded, and hostages given. But this truce was broken by Sertorius, because he saw that Sylla was only temporising that he might deceive the consuls and tamper with the soldiers: he therefore occupied Suessa which had declared for Sylla. The soldiers, however, partly from contempt for their general, and partly because they were dazzled by the renown of Sylla, went over to him in such numbers that Scipio was left quite alone. Towards the end of the year, when Sylla was gaining ground in the south of Italy, several of his partisans took up arms: Metellus Pius, in what is now the Romagna; Cn. Pompeius (Pompey),—who afterwards got the surname of Magnus, and was then twenty-three years of age,—in Picenum, where his influence was great, as that district, which had been subjected by his father, stood in a kind of clientship to him; M. Lucullus and several others. Their party and their forces consisted in some degree of old Romans, but mostly of new citizens; Metellus, however, may have had with him a greater number of the older ones from Cisalpine Gaul and the Romagna.
The beginning of the next year was most bloody and decisive. Marius the younger, said to have been a son or nephew of C. Marius (very likely an adopted son), a young man about twenty-seven years of age, was consul with Cn. Papirius Carbo. The latter took the command in northern Etruria and in the neighbourhood of Ariminum, especially against Metellus, Pompey, and Lucullus; Marius was stationed at the frontier of Latium, whither Sylla came from Campania where he had passed the winter. Here the decisive battle near Sacriportus was fought, probably on the road from Segni to Palestrina, hard by the latter place: perhaps there was only a defile. Marius had concentrated thither all the troops which belonged to him, most of which were Samnites, that he might cover Rome; and so long as he held this position, Sylla could not march by the Appian road against the city. All this country, as well as Etruria, was the stronghold of Cinna’s party, the Latin towns there being most zealous in the cause: the rest of the Italians, on the other hand, with the exception of the Samnites and Lucanians, seem to have been lukewarm, even when they did not keep aloof. Thus at Sacriportus, Sylla gained a decisive victory, and, it is said, with very little loss to himself. Marius fled to the strong town of Præneste, which was quite devoted to him, and was also at that time a very large place; the Palestrina of the present day, a town of six thousand inhabitants, is but a part of the ancient arx, and lies within the precincts of the temple of Fortuna. Here Sylla hemmed in his conquered foes, intrusting the siege to Q. Lucretius Ofella, who blockaded and starved the city in which, besides the Prænestines, there were old Romans, and Samnites.
Sulla himself marched upon Rome. As yet, he displayed great moderation; nay, had it not been for the infatuation of his opponents, he would perhaps have made up his mind to settle affairs without bloodshed: but these were quite drunk with rage; for there was a fanaticism among them, just as there was at the destruction of Jerusalem. Even in the last days of the rule of Cinna’s party, the prætor Damasippus had all the partisans of Sylla, whether open or suspected, put to death, particularly the senators: among those who were thus murdered, was the venerable pontifex maximus, Q. Mucius Scævola, who, being conscious of his innocence, had not left the city. But as this fury after all did not give them strength to defend the city, the leaders made their escape. Rome opened her gates to Sylla, and he promised moderation; but his moderation had a terrible meaning. He first went to Etruria, where Carbo was: on the side of the Etruscans, the war was truly a national one, as Sylla took away from them the rights of citizenship which had been granted them: the details of this campaign are shrouded in impenetrable darkness. Carbo had posted himself near Clusium, from whence he made two vain attempts to relieve Præneste; he also engaged in other expeditions which were equally unsuccessful, as, for instance, that against Picenum, in which Carinas was concerned. The troops of the Marian party dwindled to nothing under his hands, desertion spreading more and more among them. Of this there were many cases which are quite inconceivable. Even at the very outset, P. Cethegus, one of the twelve who were outlawed with Marius, had surrendered himself to the mercy of Sylla; and Albinovanus, to make his peace with him likewise, now murdered his colleagues and legates at a banquet.
The last effort was made by Pontius Telesinus, whose brother commanded with Marius the Samnites in Præneste. He and the Lucanian M. Lamponius, had tried to relieve Præneste, and had failed; after which, believing Sylla to be out of the way, they marched in all haste to surprise Rome: but Sylla heard of it, and came up just in time to ward off the danger. Had they been successful, they would have destroyed Rome; but the very fear of this must have roused the Romans to exert themselves to the utmost. There were said to have been forty thousand Samnites and Lucanians; the dread of such allies led many a partisan of Marius to fight under the banners of Sylla. The terrible battle near the Porta Collina now followed, by which the fate of the world was decided; and it was only after fortune had long wavered, and had often been in favour of the Samnites, that Sylla in the evening of the day broke through the ranks of the enemy: so great was their defeat, that Telesinus died by his own hand. After such a blow, Marius also, and the younger Telesinus in Præneste, gave themselves up for lost. They tried to escape from the town by passages under ground which led into the open fields; but the outlets were guarded, and so they both killed each other. Of the son of Marius, we cannot say as we did of the father, “he was a great man:” he was rather a dreadful man; he had the faults of his father, without any of his great qualities but that of perseverance, in which, under such circumstances, there is nothing so very wonderful. Carbo also soon fled from his men to Africa. Unless perhaps in Spain, the party had no longer an army; and in Italy, although single towns still held out, the war was virtually at an end.
Eight thousand Samnites had been taken prisoners in the battle before the Colline gate; and Sylla had them surrounded with troops in the Campus Martius, and cut down to a man. When also, after the death of the younger Marius, Præneste surrendered at discretion, he caused the Roman citizens, the Prænestines, and the Samnites, to be divided into three bodies: to the first he granted their lives; but the Prænestines and Samnites he ordered to be shot down with javelins. The Etruscan towns yielded to him one after another, and met with the same fate as Præneste, besides being razed to the ground. Thus also fared Clusium, Aretium, Populonia, and Volaterræ; the latter after a two years’ siege. So perished likewise all the larger towns of Etruria; with the exception perhaps of Fæsulæ, which, however, may also have been rebuilt afterwards.
At Rome, Sylla now held absolute sway, and although until then had been humane, he all at once showed himself at length a bloodthirsty monster. For he gave for the first time the example of a proscription; that is to say, he made out a list of all those whom not only any one might kill with impunity, but on whose head moreover a price was set. There were among his victims few indeed who were to be compared to those whom Marius and Cinna massacred; but in the extent of suffering inflicted, nothing could surpass the revenge of Sylla, who visited even whole peoples with his wrath. That proscription affected the lives of several thousands; two thousand four hundred knights[101] are said to have been in it: that so many had been on the list, seems doubtful. Twenty-three (according to another, but probably incorrect statement, forty-three,) legions had military colonies allotted them. The first colonies of Rome were settlements, in which one of every gens was placed to garrison the conquered towns; these men had a third part of the land, and, of course, they kept themselves under arms. The Latin colonies were divided between the Romans and Latins: very likely, every one who belonged to them had served as a soldier; but this was only an accidental circumstance, that colonisation being no special reward for military service. After the second Punic war, we meet with the first instances of the ager publicus being assigned to superannuated soldiers; and in Bononia alone there are signs of a still continuing obligation to serve in war, a difference being made there between the lots given to horsemen, centurions, foot-soldiers, &c. Sylla’s are the first true military colonies, a system by which the inhabitants of some particular town were stripped of the whole of their land, and some legion or other, which was now discharged, was to form the population there: should the territory of the town not be sufficient, there was added to it from the adjoining districts as much as was required. Thus the soldiers gained a right of having land assigned to them, a right to which in former days plebeianism only could give a title. According to an old and extremely plausible Florentine tradition,—which cannot indeed be traced to any classic author, but which is all but proved by an old reading in the orations of Cicero against Catiline,[102]—we may say that Florence has risen as such a military colony out of the old Fæsulæ; thus it was also with New Aretium and several places of Etruria, with Præneste and other towns, of which, however, few only can be ascertained by satisfactory evidence; in these cases, the inhabitants had almost everywhere been murdered. These legions were the corner-stone of Sylla’s power. Something of the same kind was done in places where the old inhabitants were not exterminated: the new comers became κληροῦχοι, whilst the old residents had to pay a land tax for the allotments which they still retained. This was especially the fate of the old Latin colonies. Those which did not fare thus, had by the lex Julia become municipia, and remained as such; those, on the other hand, which Sylla had proscribed, were now called coloniæ, not, however Latinæ, but Romanæ militares,—Sylla’s military colonies. These are the coloniæ of which Pliny[103] speaks, and which always have been mistaken. This matter was an obscure one even for the ancients: Asconius Pedianus, a writer of first-rate historical learning, did not in his time understand how Cicero could have called Placentia a colony, when it had become a municipium.[104] Nearly the whole of Etruria became a wilderness, and the towns which had not been turned into military colonies, lay in ruins as late as in the days of Augustus. The Samnite nation he had all but rooted out, the whole of the Hirpinian country being laid waste: all that had been made ager publicus, was left by him to his favourites.
A marked feature of Sylla is a sort of fantastic activity. He looked upon himself as born to be the achiever of great things, especially as a reformer: he was aware of the disorganized condition of the nation; but he did not know that when what is old is worn out, the only thing to be done, is to create, in the spirit of the ancient institutions, new ones which are suited to the age. What Sylla wanted to do, could have been of no avail whatever: it was the restoring of what was dead, the return to a state of things which had fallen away because the life had fled from it;—he recalled the old forms of the republic into existence, and believed that they had strength enough to stand. He thought (as in Tieck’s World Turned Upside Down) that he could push the world back to the point at which in his opinion it ought to have stopped. Moreover, he deemed himself called upon to rule; and therefore he stuck at nothing, as he held that he was above all these forms, so that they did not affect him in the least.
He reorganised the senate, which was fearfully diminished after the many executions. It might have been expected that he would have tried to restore it from the ranks of the old nobility; yet instead of doing so, he selected the new senators—with a remarkable inconsistency, which shows that notwithstanding all his arbitrary rule, he was swayed by circumstances—not only from the knights, but also from his own low-born centurions, who were ready, it is true, to lay down their lives for him. He had not the elements of an aristocracy at hand: the party, which really had vitality, influence, and refinement of mind and manners, being that of the monied classes, the knights and the Italian municipia. These he hated and wanted to crush; and as in such cases, one has usually recourse to the rabble, thus Sylla, true to the example of all oligarchs and counter-revolutionists, filled up with the lowest of the people his senate which was a mere skeleton, and ought most naturally to have been recruited from the rich class of the equites; this was just as in the year 1799 at Naples, when the dregs of the populace were armed. Whilst wishing to save the republic by forms, he began by departing from them himself.
As long as his influence lasted, even for four years running, a patrician and a plebeian were regularly made consuls; before that plebeians alone had often been chosen for four or five years in succession: beyond this Sylla durst not go, as all the leaders of his party were plebeians. This was indeed quite a childish arrangement.