Plutarch's Lives, Volume 2 (of 4)

by Plutarch

VII. Sulla looked on the consulship as only a small matter compared with what he expected to attain: the great object of his desires was the command in the war against Mithridates. But he had a rival in Marius, who was moved by an insane love of distinction and by ambition, passions which never grow old in a man, for though he was now unwieldy and had done no service in the late campaigns by reason of his age, he still longed for the command in a distant war beyond the seas. While Sulla was with the army completing some matters that still remained to be finished, Marius kept at home and hatched that most pestilent faction which did more mischief to Rome than all her wars; and indeed the deity[189] showed by signs what was coming. Fire spontaneously blazed from the wooden shafts which supported the military standards, and was quenched with difficulty; and three crows brought their young into the public road, and after devouring them, carried the fragments back to their nest. The mice in a temple gnawed the gold which was kept there, and the keeper of the temple caught one of the mice, a female, in a trap, which produced in the trap five young ones, and devoured three of them. But what was chief of all, from a cloudless and clear sky there came the sound of a trumpet, so shrill and mournful, that by reason of the greatness thereof men were beside themselves and crouched for fear. The Tuscan seers interpreted this to portend the commencement of a new period, and a general change. They say that there are in all eight periods, which differ in mode of life and habits altogether from one another, and to each period is assigned by the deity a certain number of years determined by the revolution of a great year. When a period is completed, the commencement of another is indicated by some wondrous sign on the earth or from the heavens, so as to make it immediately evident to those who attend to such matters and have studied them, that men are now adopting other habits and modes of life, and are less or more an object of care to the gods than the men of former periods. They say, in the change from one period to another there are great alterations, and that the art of the seer at one time is held in high repute, and is successful in its predictions, when the deity gives clear and manifest signs, but that in the course of another period the art falls into a low condition, being for the most part conjectural, and attempting to know the future by equivocal and misty signs. Now this is what the Tuscan wise men said, who are supposed to know more of such things than anybody else. While the senate was communicating on these omens with the seers, in the temple of Bellona,[190] a sparrow flew in before the whole body with a grasshopper in his mouth, part of which he dropped, and the rest he carried off with him out of the place. From this the interpreters of omens apprehended faction and divisions between the landholders on the one side and the city folk and the merchant class on the other, for the latter were loud and noisy like a grasshopper, but the owners of land kept quiet on their estates.

VIII. Now Marius contrived to gain over the tribune Sulpicius,[191] a man without rival in any kind of villainy, and so one need not inquire whom he surpassed in wickedness, but only wherein he surpassed himself. For in him were combined cruelty, audacity, and rapaciousness, without any consideration of shame or of any crime, inasmuch as he sold the Roman citizenship to libertini[192] and resident aliens, and publicly received the money at a table in the Forum. He maintained three thousand men armed with daggers, and also a number of young men of the equestrian class always about him, and ready for anything, whom he called the Opposition Senate. He caused a law to be passed that no Senator should contract debt[193] to the amount of more than two thousand drachmæ, and yet at his death he left behind him a debt[193] of three millions. This man being let loose upon the people by Marius, and putting everything into a state of confusion by violence and force of arms, framed various pernicious laws, and among them that which gave to Marius the command in the Mithridatic war. The consuls accordingly declared a cessation[194] of all public business; but while they were holding a meeting of the people near the temple of Castor and Pollux, Sulpicius with his rabble attacked them, and among many others massacred the youthful son of Pompeius in the Forum; Pompeius only escaped by hiding himself. Sulla was pursued into the house of Marius, from which he was compelled to come out and repeal the edict for the cessation of public business; and it was for this reason that Sulpicius, though he deprived Pompeius of his office, did not take the consulship from Sulla, but, merely transferred the command of the Mithridatic war to Marius, and sent some tribunes forthwith to Nola to take the army and lead it to Marius.

IX. But Sulla made his escape to the camp before the tribunes arrived, and the soldiers hearing of what had passed, stoned them to death; upon which the partisans of Marius murdered the friends of Sulla who were in the city, and seized their property. This caused many persons to betake themselves to flight, some going to the city from the camp, and others from the camp to the city. The Senate was not its own master, but was compelled to obey the orders of Marius and Sulpicius; and on hearing that Sulla was marching upon Rome, they sent to him two of the prætors, Brutus and Servilius, to forbid him to advance any further. The prætors, who assumed a bold tone before Sulla, narrowly escaped being murdered; as it was, the soldiers broke their fasces, stripped them of their senatorial dress, and sent them back with every insult. It caused dejection in the city to see the prætors return without their insignia of office, and to hear them report that the commotion could not be checked, and was past all remedy. Now the partisans of Marius were making their preparations, while Sulla with his colleague and six complete legions was moving from Nola; he saw that the army was ready to march right to the city, but he had some hesitation himself, and feared the risk.[195] However upon Sulla making a sacrifice, the seer Postumius, after inspecting the signs, stretched out his hands to Sulla and urged him to put him in chains and keep him a prisoner till the battle took place, declaring that if everything did not speedily turn out well, he was ready to be put to death. It is said also that Sulla in his sleep had a vision of the goddess, whose worship the Romans had learned from the Cappadocians, whatever her name may be, Selene,[196] Athena, or Enyo. Sulla dreamed that the goddess stood by him and put a thunderbolt into his hand, and as she named each of his enemies bade him dart the bolt at them, which he did, and his enemies were struck to the ground and destroyed. Being encouraged by the dream, which he communicated to his colleague, at daybreak Sulla led his forces against Rome. When he was near Picinæ[197] he was met by a deputation which entreated him not to march forthwith against the city, for all justice would be done pursuant to a resolution of the Senate. Sulla consented to encamp there, and ordered the officers to measure out the ground for the encampment, according to the usual practice, and the deputation went away trusting to his promise. But as soon as they were gone, Sulla sent Lucius Bacillus and Caius Mummius, who seized the gate and that part of the walls which surrounds the Esquiline hill, and Sulla set out to join them with all speed. Bacillus and his soldiers broke into the city and attempted to gain possession of it, but the people in large numbers, being unarmed, mounted the house-tops, and by pelting the soldiers with tiles and stones stopped their further progress, and drove them back to the wall. In the mean time Sulla had come up, and seeing how matters stood, he called out that the houses must be fired, and taking a flaming torch, he was the first to advance: he also ordered the bowmen to shoot firebrands, and to aim at the roofs; in which he acted without any rational consideration, giving way to passion, and surrendering the direction of his enterprize to revenge, for he saw before him only his enemies, and without thought or pity for his friends and kinsmen, would force his way into Rome with the help of flames, which know no distinction between the guilty and the innocent. While this was going on, Marius, who had been driven as far as the temple of Earth,[198] invited the slaves to join him by offering them their freedom, but being overpowered by his enemies who pressed on him, he left the city.

X. Sulla assembled the Senate, who condemned[199] to death Marius and a few others, among whom was the tribune Sulpicius. Sulpicius was put to death, being betrayed by a slave, to whom Sulla gave his freedom, and then ordered him to be thrown down the Tarpeian rock: he set a price on the head of Marius, which was neither a generous nor a politic measure, as Marius had shortly before let Sulla off safe when Sulla put himself into his power by going to the house of Marius. Now if Marius had not let Sulla go, but had given him up to Sulpicius to be put to death, he might have secured the supreme power; but he spared Sulla; and yet a few days after, when Sulla had the same opportunity, Marius did not obtain from him a like return. The conduct of Sulla offended the Senate, though they durst not show it; but the dislike of the people and their dissatisfaction were made apparent to him by their acts. They contemptuously rejected Nonius, the son of Sulla's sister, and Servius, who were candidates for offices, and elected those whose elevation they thought would be most disagreeable to Sulla. But Sulla pretended to be pleased at this, and to view it as a proof that the people, by doing what they liked, were really indebted to him for their liberty; and for the purpose of diminishing his general unpopularity he managed the election of Lucius Cinna,[200] who was of the opposite faction, to the consulship, having first bound him by solemn imprecations and oaths to favour his measures. Cinna ascended the Capitol with a stone in his hand and took the oath; then pronouncing an imprecation on himself, that, if he did not keep faithful to Sulla, he might be cast out of the city as the stone from his hand, he hurled it to the ground in the presence of a large number of persons. But as soon as Cinna had received the consulship, he attempted to disturb the present settlement of affairs, and prepared to institute a process against Sulla, and induced Virginius, one of the tribunes, to be the accuser; but Sulla,[201] without caring for him or the court, set out with his army against Mithridates.

XI. It is said that about the time when Sulla was conducting his armament from Italy, many omens occurred to Mithridates, who was staying in Pergamum, and that a Victory, bearing a crown, which the people of Pergamum were letting down upon him by some machinery from above, was broken in pieces just as it was touching his head, and the crown falling upon the theatre, came to the ground and was destroyed, which made the spectators shudder and greatly dispirited Mithridates, though his affairs were then going on favourably beyond all expectation. For he had taken Asia[202] from the Romans, and Bithynia and Cappadocia from their kings, and had fixed himself at Pergamum, where he was distributing wealth and provinces and kingdoms among his friends; one of his sons also held without any opposition the ancient dominions in Pontus, and the Bosporus[203] as far as the uninhabited regions beyond the Mæotis; Ariarathes[204] occupied Thrace and Macedonia with a large army; and his generals with their forces were subduing other places. Archelaus,[205] the greatest of his generals, was master of all the sea with his navy, and was subjugating the Cyclades[206] and all the other islands east of Malea, and had already taken Eubœa, while with his army, advancing from Athens as his starting-point, he was gaining over all the nations of Greece as far north as Thessaly, and had only sustained a slight check near Chæroneia. For there he was met by Bruttius Sura,[207] a legatus of Sentius, prætor of Macedonia, and a man of signal courage and prudence. Archelaus was sweeping through Bœotia like a torrent, when he was vigorously opposed by Sura, who, after fighting three battles near Chæroneia, repulsed him and drove him back to the coast. On receiving orders from Lucius Lucullus[208] to make room for Sulla, who was coming, and to allow him to carry on the war, for which he had received his commission, Sura immediately left Bœotia and went back to Sentius, though he had succeeded beyond his expectations, and Greece was well disposed to change sides on account of his great merit. However, these exploits of Bruttius were very brilliant.

XII. Now all the rest of the Grecian cities immediately sent deputations to Sulla and invited him to enter; but against Athens, which was compelled by the tyrant Aristion[209] to be on the king's side, he directed all his energies; he also hemmed in and blockaded the Peiræus,[210] employing every variety of engine and every mode of attack. If he had waited a short time, he might have taken the Upper City without danger, for through want of provisions it was reduced by famine to extreme necessity; but anxious to return to Rome, and fearing a new revolution there, at great risk fighting many battles and at great cost he urged on the war, wherein, besides the rest of the expenditure, the labour about the military engines required ten thousand pair of mules to be daily employed on this service. As wood began to fail, owing to many of the works being destroyed by their own weight, and burnt by the incessant fires thrown by the enemy, Sulla laid his hands on the several groves and levelled the trees in the Academia,[211] which was the best wooded of the suburbs, and those in the Lycæum. And as he wanted money also for the war, he violated the sacred depositaries of Greece, sending for the finest and most costly of the offerings dedicated in Epidaurus[212] and Olympia. He wrote also to the Amphiktyons[213] to Delphi, saying that it would be better for the treasures of the god to be brought to him, for he would either have them in safer keeping, or, if he used them, he would replace them; and he sent one of his friends, Kaphis, a Phokian, to receive all the things after they were first weighed. Kaphis went to Delphi, but he was afraid to touch the sacred things, and in the presence of the Amphiktyons he deeply lamented the task that was imposed on him. Upon some of them saying that they heard the lute in the shrine send forth a sound, Kaphis either believing what they said or wishing to inspire Sulla with some religious fear, sent him this information. But Sulla replied in a scoffing tone, he wondered Kaphis did not understand that such music was a sign of pleasure and not of anger, and he bade him take courage and seize the property, as the deity was quite willing, and in fact offered it. Now all the things were secretly sent off unobserved by most of the Greeks; but the silver jar, one of the royal presents which still remained, could not be carried away by the beasts of burden owing to its weight and size, and the Amphiktyons were accordingly obliged to cut it in pieces; and this led them to reflect that Titus Flamininus,[214] and Manius Acilius, and also Æmilius Paulus—Acilius, who drove Antiochus out of Greece; and the two others, who totally defeated the kings of Macedonia—not only refrained from touching the Greek temples, but even gave them presents and showed them great honour and respect. These generals, however, were legally appointed to command troops consisting of well-disciplined soldiers, who had been taught to obey their leaders without a murmur: and the commanders themselves were men of kingly souls, and moderate in their living and satisfied with a small fixed expenditure, and they thought it baser to attempt to win the soldiers' favour than to fear their enemies. But the generals at this time, as they acquired their rank by violence and not by merit, and had more occasion to employ arms against one another than against the enemies of Rome, were compelled to act the demagogue while they were in command; and by purchasing the services of the soldiers by the money which they expended to gratify them, they made the Roman state a thing for bargain and sale, and themselves the slaves of the vilest wretches in order that they might domineer over honest men. This is what drove Marius into exile, and then brought him back to oppose Sulla; this made Cinna the murderer of Octavius,[215] and Fimbria[216] the murderer of Flaccus. And Sulla mainly laid the foundation of all this by his profusion and expenditure upon his own soldiers, the object of which was to corrupt and gain over to his side the soldiers of other commanders; so that his attempts to seduce the troops of others and the extravagance by which his own soldiers were corrupted, made money always necessary to him; and most particularly during the siege of Athens.

XIII. Now Sulla was seized with a violent and irresistible desire to take Athens, whether it was that he was ambitious to contend against a city which retained only the shadow of its former glory, or that he was moved by passion to revenge the scoffs and jeers with which the tyrant Aristion irritated him and his wife Metella, by continually taunting them from the wall and insulting them. This Aristion was a compound of lewdness and cruelty, who combined in himself all the worst of the vices and passions of Mithridates, and now had brought as it were a mortal disease in its last extremities upon a city which had come safe out of so many wars and escaped from so many tyrannies and civil commotions. For now when a medimnus[217] of wheat was selling for a thousand drachmæ in the Upper City, and men were obliged to eat the parthenium[218] that grew about the Acropolis, and shoes and oil-flasks, he was drinking all day long and amusing himself with revels and pyrrhic dances, and making jokes at the enemy: he let the sacred light of the goddess go out for want of oil; when the hierophant sent to ask for the twelfth part of a medimnus of wheat, he sent her as much pepper; and when the members of the Senate and the priests entreated him to have pity on the city and come to terms with Sulla, he dispersed them by ordering the archers to fire on them. At last being persuaded with great difficulty, he sent two or three of his boon companions to treat of peace; but instead of making any reasonable proposals, the men began to make a pompous harangue about Theseus and Eumolpus, and the Persian wars, on which Sulla said, "Be gone, my good fellows, with your fine talk. I was not sent to Athens by the Romans to learn a lesson, but to compel rebels to submit."

XIV. In the mean time, as the story goes, some soldiers in the Keramicus[219] overheard certain old men talking to one another, and abusing the tyrant for not guarding the approach to the wall about the Heptachalkum, which was the only part, they said, where it was practicable and easy for the enemy to get over; and the soldiers reported to Sulla what they heard. Sulla did not neglect the intelligence, but he went to the spot by night, and seeing that it was practicable, he set about the thing forthwith. He says in his Memoirs that the first man who mounted the wall was Marcus Teius,[220] who, finding a soldier in his way, struck him a violent blow on the helmet, which broke his sword; still Marcus did not retreat, but kept his ground. The city then was taken from this quarter, as the old Athenians said it might be. Sulla having destroyed and levelled that part of the wall which lies between the Peiræic and the Sacred[221] Gate, about midnight entered the city, striking terror with the sound of trumpets and horns, and the shouts and cries of the soldiers, who had his full licence to plunder and kill, and made their way through the streets with naked swords. The slain were not counted, but the number is even now measured by the space over which the blood flowed. For besides those who were slaughtered in the other parts of the city, the blood of those who fell about the Agora[222] covered all the Keramicus within Dipylum: many say that it even flowed through the gates and deluged the suburbs. But though the number of those who perished by the sword was so great, as many killed themselves for sorrow and regret at the overthrow of their native city. For all the most honest citizens were driven to despair, expecting in Sulla neither humanity nor moderation. But, however, when Meidias and Kalliphon, who were exiles, fell down at his knees with entreaties, and the Senators who were in his army urged him to save the city, being now sated with vengeance and passing some encomiums upon the ancient Athenians, he said he would pardon the many for the sake of the few, and the living for the sake of the dead. Sulla states in his Memoirs, that he took Athens on the Calends of March,[223] which day nearly coincides with the new moon of Anthesterion, in which month it happens that the Athenians perform many ceremonies in commemoration of the great damage and loss occasioned by the heavy rain, for they suppose that the deluge happened pretty nearly about that time. When the city was taken the tyrant retreated to the Acropolis, where he was besieged by Curio, who was commissioned for this purpose: after he had held out for some time, Aristion was compelled to surrender for want of water; his surrender was immediately followed by a token from the deity, for on the very day and hour on which Curio took the tyrant from the Acropolis, the clouds gathered in the clear sky, and a violent shower descended which filled the Acropolis with water. Sulla soon took the Peiræus also, and burnt the greater part of it, including the arsenal of Philo,[224] which was a wonderful work.

XV. In the mean time Taxiles, the general of Mithridates, coming down from Thrace and Macedonia with one hundred thousand foot, ten thousand horse, and ninety scythe-bearing four-horse chariots, summoned Archelaus, who was still lying with his ships near Munychia,[225] and was neither inclined to give up the sea nor ready to engage with the Romans: his plan was to protract the war and to cut off the supplies of the enemy. But Sulla was as quick as Archelaus, and moved into Bœotia from a niggardly region, which even in time of peace could not have maintained his troops. Most people thought that he had made a false calculation in leaving Attica, which is a rough country and ill adapted for the movements of cavalry, to throw himself into the champaign and open tracts of Bœotia, when he knew that the strength of the barbarians lay in their chariots and cavalry. But in his flight from famine and scarcity, as I have already observed, he was compelled to seek the hazard of a battle. Besides, he was alarmed for Hortensius,[226] a skilful general and a man ambitious of distinction, who was conducting a force from Thessaly to Sulla, and had to pass through the straits where the enemy was waiting for him. For all these reasons Sulla moved into Bœotia. But Kaphis, who was from my town, evading the barbarians by taking a different route from what they expected, led Hortensius over Parnassus, close by Tithora, which was not at that time so large a city as it is now, but only a fort on a steep rock scarped all round, to which place in time of old the Phokians who fled from Xerxes escaped with their property and were there in safety. Hortensius having encamped there during the day repelled the attacks of the enemy, and at night descending to Patronis, through a difficult path joined Sulla, who met him with his forces.

XVI. Having united their forces, Sulla and Hortensius occupied an elevation rising out of the midst of the plains of Elateia,[227] which was fertile and extensive, and had water at its base: it is called Philobœotus, and its natural qualities and position are most highly commended by Sulla. When they were encamped, the weakness of the Roman force was apparent to the enemy; for the cavalry did not exceed fifteen hundred, and the infantry was below fifteen thousand. Accordingly the rest of the generals, against the wish of Archelaus, drew out their forces in order of battle, and filled the plain with horses, chariots, shields, and bucklers; and the heavens could not contain the shouts and cries of so many nations putting themselves in battle array. At the same time the pomp and costly splendour of the troops were not without effect nor their use in causing alarm; but the glittering of the arms, which were curiously ornamented with gold and silver, and the colour of the Median and Scythian dresses mingled with the brightness of the brass and steel, produced a firelike and formidable appearance as the masses moved like waves and changed their places, so that the Romans hid themselves behind their ramparts, and Sulla, being unable by any words to remove their fear, and not choosing to urge men to a battle who were disposed to run away, kept quiet and had to endure the insulting boasts and ridicule of the barbarians. But this turned out most favourable to the Romans; for the enemy despising them, neglected to preserve discipline, and indeed, owing to the number of commanders, the army was not generally inclined to obey orders; a few kept to their post within their ramparts, but the greater part, tempted by the hope of booty and plunder, were dispersed many days' journey from the camp. It is said that they destroyed the city of Panopeus, and plundered Lebadeia, and robbed the oracular shrine without any order from a general. Sulla, who could not endure to see the cities destroyed before his eyes and was greatly irritated, no longer allowed his soldiers to be inactive, but leading them to the Kephisus, he compelled them to divert the stream from its course and to dig ditches, allowing no man any cessation and punishing most severely all who gave in, his object being to tire his soldiers with labour and to induce them to seek danger as a release from it. And it happened as he wished. For on the third day of this labour, as Sulla was passing by, they entreated him with loud shouts to lead them against the enemy. He replied, that they said this not because they wished to fight, but because they disliked labour; but if they really were disposed to fight, he bade them move forthwith with their arms to yonder place, pointing out to them what was formerly the Acropolis of the Parapotamii,[228] but the city was then destroyed and there remained only a rocky precipitous hill, separated from Mount Hedylium by the space occupied by the river Assus, which falling into the Kephisus at the base of the Hedylium and thus becoming a more rapid stream, makes the Acropolis a safe place for encampment. Sulla also wished to seize the height, as he saw the Chalkaspides[229] of the enemy pressing on towards it, and as his soldiers exerted themselves vigorously, he succeeded in occupying the place. Archelaus, being repelled from this point, advanced towards Chæroneia, upon which the men of Chæroneia who were in Sulla's army entreating him not to let their city fall into the hands of the enemy, he sent Gabinius[230] a tribune, with one legion, and permitted the men of Chæroneia to go also, who, though they had the best intention, could not reach the place before Gabinius: so brave a man he was, and more active in bringing aid than even those who prayed for it. Juba[231] says it was not Gabinius who was sent, but Ericius. However this may be, our city[232] had a narrow escape.