[83-82 B.C.]
At this crisis, an event, the origin or authors of which were never discovered, threw the city into consternation. On the sixth of July 83, the Capitol was consumed by fire; even the Sibylline volumes, stored away in its most secret recesses, were devoured by the flames. This destruction of the sanctuary of the republic, the site of its wealthiest and most august temples, and of the oracles which guided the most solemn decisions of the senate, seemed to many an announcement of a great change in the destinies of the state. It was the closing of the first volume of the fortunes of Rome.
From Apulia, Sulla had passed, as we have seen, without an obstacle into Campania. He was there met by the consul Norbanus, whom he defeated in the neighbourhood of Capua. Scipio, the other consul, commanded a second force at Teanum, a few leagues in the rear of his colleague. Sulla demanded a truce and employed the interval in tampering with the fidelity of the soldiers opposed to him, who speedily passed under his colours. At the commencement of the year 82, Carbo and the young Marius took possession of the consulate: the one undertook to close the passes of the Apennines, and check the threatened attack of Metellus and Pompey on the north; the other to cover the approach to Latium against the advancing legions of Sulla. The former gained some successes against Metellus, and was only reduced to the necessity of retreating by the critical position of his colleague. Marius had selected Præneste, an impregnable position on the frontiers of Latium, for his headquarters. There he assembled his military forces, and collected all the treasures he had amassed at leisure, including the plunder of many temples in the city, and a large mass of gold and silver drawn from the vaults under the Capitol. Confiding, perhaps, in the strength of this citadel, he had not attempted to prevent Sulla from seizing the passes of the Apennines, nor did he come forth to encounter his assailant till he had arrived at Sacriportus, four leagues in advance of Præneste. The complete defeat which Marius sustained at this spot opened the road to Rome; for Sulla could venture to leave his beaten enemy behind their impregnable walls, and push on towards the city which was ready, as he well knew, to open its gates. He arrived indeed too late to prevent the crowning massacre in which Marius caused the most illustrious of his remaining enemies to be slaughtered in the curia itself. Among the victims was Mucius Scævola, the grand pontiff, who had so narrowly escaped on more than one previous occasion, and who was now sacrificed before the altar of Vesta, whose eternal fires were not extinguished by the scanty drops of blood the old man’s veins could supply.
[82 B.C.]
Sulla masked Præneste with a detachment under Lucretius Ofella, while he swiftly traversed Rome, and threw himself into Etruria, where Carbo was advancing to the rescue of his colleague Marius, being himself unable to maintain his position in the Cisalpine against Metellus and Pompey. Carbo stationed himself near Clusium, behind the Clanis, with his Italian allies and some Gallic and Iberian troops. Of the Iberians, however, a portion passed over to the enemy, and the general in a fit of despair caused the remainder to be massacred. Engaging the enemy he obtained two trifling successes, and fought a bloody battle without a decisive result. But fortune became more favourable to Sulla, who cut off one large division of his adversaries, and now eagerly expected the arrival of Metellus and Pompey to surround Carbo with irresistible numbers. In this strait Carbo, instead of dashing forwards to relieve Præneste, returned on his steps to arrest the assailants from the north.
An Incense Burner
He contented himself with detaching a division of his army to effect a junction with the Samnites, now advancing, and thus create a diversion on the right of Sulla’s position. Sulla took measures to guard the defiles which lead towards Præneste, while Pompey, by a lateral movement, surprised and routed the detached division. The ground, however, was cleared around Carbo’s entrenchments. He had only a single enemy, Metellus, before him, and upon him he threw himself with desperate resolution. But a great battle fought at Faventia near Ravenna resulted in his total defeat, with the loss of ten thousand slain, and several thousands of deserters. His officers hastened to pillage and betray him. His quæstor Verres plundered his military chest, while Albinovanus massacred several chiefs of the army, whom he had invited to a banquet. Norbanus took ship and fled to Rhodes. Carbo, after raising another army in Etruria, and conducting for some time a war of guerillas in the mountains, abandoned his colleague to the fate which awaited him, and made the best of his way into Africa. Sertorius had already withdrawn from a contest which he judged to be hopeless, and was engaged in forming a new confederation in Spain. The Marian chieftains surrendered Italy to the senate, and sought to raise the provinces against it (82).
Sulla and his colleagues now directed their victorious legions upon the last of the Marian armies in their last stronghold, Præneste. But Pontius Telesinus, at the head of a combined force of Samnites, Lucanians, and Campanians, to whom the destruction or humiliation of Rome was a dearer object than the success of either party among the Romans, seized the opportunity to wreak the vengeance of their countrymen upon the capital of their common enemies. Adroitly evading the lines of the numerous legions which were now concentrating upon Præneste, they penetrated by night within ten or twelve miles of the city, which they hoped to surprise, and give to the flames. But they spent one day in the preparations for the assault, and in the interval the slender garrison within the city was enabled to communicate with Sulla. On the first of November the Samnites advanced, but Sulla was already at their back. At the Colline Gate he came up with them, and engaged them in a long and desperate encounter. Since the invasion of the Gauls Rome had never struggled against an enemy so near to her own walls, nor been brought so nigh to destruction.
The combat lasted a day and a night. The left wing commanded by Sulla himself was put to rout, and the fugitives running to the lines before Præneste, exclaimed that the battle was lost and their imperator himself slain. But Crassus meanwhile, with the right wing, had broken the enemy’s ranks, and pursued them as far as Antemnæ. Eight thousand of the Italians were made prisoners, and the Roman officers captured in their ranks were devoted to the sword. Pontius Telesinus, grievously wounded in the fight, was despatched by the conqueror on the field of battle. His whole life had been devoted to the hatred of Rome, and at the moment when she finally escaped from his murderous grasp he could no longer wish to live. He was the last Italian enemy of Rome. As the adversary of the Decii and Fabii he might have been the destroyer of the Roman name, and have changed the face of history. But in the age of Marius and Sulla he could only hope for one day of plunder and conflagration, and when this momentary triumph was snatched from him, what sweeter satisfaction could he covet than to fall among fifty thousand corpses, one-half of which were Roman?[93]