IV. Laws relating to the Improvement of Public Morals.—Of these we have very little information. One of them was a Lex Sumtuaria, which enacted that not more than a certain sum of money should be spent upon entertainments, and also restrained extravagance in funerals. There was likewise a law of Sulla respecting marriage, the provisions of which are quite unknown, as it was probably abrogated by the Julian law of Augustus.
CHAPTER XXIX.
FROM THE DEATH OF SULLA TO THE CONSULSHIP OF POMPEY AND CRASSUS. B.C. 78-70.
Sulla was scarcely dead before an attempt was made to overthrow the aristocratic constitution which he had established. The Consul M. Lepidus had already, as we have seen, endeavored to prevent the burial of Sulla in the Campus Martius. He now proposed to repeal the Dictator's laws; but the other Consul, Q. Catulus, remained firm to the aristocracy, and offered the most strenuous opposition to the measures of his colleague. Shortly afterward the Senate ordered Lepidus to repair to Farther Gaul, which had been assigned to him as his Province; but he availed himself of the opportunity to collect an army in Etruria, and at the beginning of the following year marched straight upon Rome. The Senate assembled an army, which they placed under the command of Q. Catulus, with Pompey as his lieutenant. A battle was fought near the Mulvian bridge, in which Lepidus was defeated, and, finding it impossible to maintain his footing in Italy, he sailed with the remainder of his forces to Sardinia, where he died soon afterward.
Meantime the remainder of the Marian party found refuge in Spain. Q. Sertorius, one of the ablest of their generals, had received the government of this country in the year B.C. 82. He soon acquired an extraordinary ascendency over the minds of the natives, and flattered them with the hope of establishing an independent state which might bid defiance to Rome. His influence was enhanced by the superstition of the people. He was accompanied on all occasions by a tame fawn, which they believed to be a familiar spirit. So attached did they become to his person, that he found no difficulty in collecting a formidable army, which for some years successfully opposed all the power of Rome. After defeating several generals whom Sulla had sent against him, he had to encounter, in B.C. 79, Q. Metellus, who had been Consul the previous year with Sulla. But Metellus did not fare much better than his predecessors; and in B.C. 78 Sertorius was re-enforced by a considerable body of troops which Perperna carried with him into Spain after the defeat of Lepidus. The growing power of Sertorius led the Senate to send Pompey to the assistance of Metellus. Pompey, though only 30 years of age, was already regarded as the ablest general of the Republic; and as he played such a prominent part in the later history, we may here pause to give a brief account of his early career.
POMPEY was born B.C. 106, and was, as we have already seen, the son of Cn. Pompeius Strabo, who fought against the Italians in his Consulship, B.C. 89. The young Pompey served under his father in this war, when he was only 17 years of age, and continued with him till his death two years afterward. He was present at the battle of the Colline Gate in B.C. 87, and shortly afterward he saved the life of his father, and quelled an insurrection of the soldiers by his courage and activity. As soon as Sulla had finished the Mithridatic war, and was on his way to Italy, Pompey, instead of waiting, like the other leaders of the aristocracy, for the arrival of their chief, resolved to share with him the glory of crushing the Marian party. Accordingly, he proceeded to levy troops in Picenum without holding any public office; and such was his personal influence that he was able to raise an army of three legions. Before joining Sulla he gained a brilliant victory over the Marian generals, and was received by Sulla with the greatest distinction. Upon the conclusion of the war in Italy Pompey was sent first into Sicily, and afterward into Africa, where the Marian party still held out. His success was rapid and decisive. In a few months he reduced the whole of Numidia, and, unlike other Roman governors, abstained from plundering the province. His military achievements and his incorruptibility procured him the greatest renown, and he returned to Rome covered with glory (B.C. 80). Numbers flocked out of the city to meet him; and the Dictator himself, who formed one of the crowd, greeted him with the surname of MAGNUS or the GREAT, which he bore ever afterward. Sulla at first refused to let him triumph. Hitherto no one but a Dictator, Consul, or Prætor had enjoyed this distinction; but as Pompey insisted upon the honor, Sulla gave way, and the young general entered Rome in triumph as a simple Eques, and before he had completed his 25th year.