Another young man of rising fame showed little less boldness. This was Cicero, who had just returned to Rome from his studies in Greece. He ventured to defend Roscius of Ameria against an accusation of murder made by Chrysogonus, a prime favorite of Sulla. Cicero lashed the favorite vigorously, and won a verdict for his client. But he found it advisable to leave Rome immediately and resume his studies at Rhodes.
Sulla ended his work by organizing a new senate and making a new code of laws. Three hundred new members were added to the senate, and the laws of Rome were brought largely back to the state in which they had been before the Gracchi.
This done, to the utter surprise of the people he laid down his power and retired from Rome, within whose streets he never again set foot. He had no occasion for fear. He had scattered his veterans throughout Italy on confiscated estates, and knew that he could trust to their support. Before his departure he gave a feast of costly meats and rich wines to the Roman commons, in such profusion that vast quantities that could not be eaten were cast into the Tiber. Then he dismissed his armed attendants, and walked on foot to his house, through a multitude of whom many had ample reason to strike him down.
He now retired to his villa near Puteoli, on the Bay of Naples, with the purpose of enjoying that life of voluptuous ease which he craved more than power and distinction. Here he spent the brief remainder of his life in nocturnal orgies and literary converse, completing his "Memoirs," in which he told, in exaggerated phrase, the story of his life and exploits.
He lived but about a year. His excesses brought on a complication of disorders, which ended, we are told, in a loathsome disease. The senate voted him a gorgeous funeral, after which his body was burned on the Campus Martius, that no future tyrant could treat his remains as he had done those of his great rival Marius.
THE REVOLT OF THE GLADIATORS.
At the beginning of the first Punic War, or war with Carthage, a new form of entertainment was introduced into Rome. This was the gladiatorial show, the fights of armed men in the arena, the first of which was given in the year 264 B.C., at the funeral of D. Junius Brutus. These exhibitions were long confined to funeral occasions, money being frequently left for this purpose in wills, but they gradually extended to other occasions, and finally became the choice amusement of the brutal Roman mob. The gladiators were divided into several classes, in accordance with their particular weapons and modes of fighting, and great pains were taken to instruct them in the use of their special arms. But in the period that followed the death of Sulla Rome was to have a gladiatorial exhibition of a different sort.
In the city of Capua was a school of gladiators, kept by a man named Lentulus. It was his practice to hire out his trained pupils to nobles for battles in the arena during public festivals. His school was a large one, and included in its numbers a Thracian named Spartacus, who had been taken prisoner while leading his countrymen against the Romans, and was to be punished for his presumption by making sport for his conquerors.