Sulla

Accordingly, the rest of the treasures were sent away without the knowledge of the most, certainly, of the Greeks; but the silver jar, the only one of the royal gifts[*](The gifts of Croesus, king of Lydia (Herodotus, i. 51).) which still remained, was too large and heavy for any beast of burden to carry, and the Amphictyons were compelled to cut it into pieces. As they did so, they called to mind now Titus Flamininus and Manius Acilius, and now Aemilius Paulus, of whom one had driven Antiochus out of Greece,[*](Manius Acilius Glabrio, consul in 191 B.C., defeated Antiochus the Great at Thermopylae, and forced him to return to Asia.) and the others had subdued in war the kings of Macedonia;[*](Flamininus defeated Philip V. of Macedon at Cynoscephalae in 197 B.C., and Aemilius Paulus crushed Perseus, the last king of Macedonia, at Pydna, in 168 B.C. See Plutarch’s Flamininus, xv.; Aemilius Paulus, xvi.-xxii. ) these had not only spared the sanctuaries of the Greeks, but had even made additional gifts to them, and greatly increased their honour and dignity.

But these were lawful commanders of men who were self-restrained and had learned to serve their leaders without a murmur, and they were themselves kingly in spirit and simple in their personal expenses, and indulged in moderate and specified public expenditures, deeming it more disgraceful to flatter their soldiers than to fear their enemies;

the generals of this later time, however, who won their primacy by force, not merit, and who needed their armies for service against one another, rather than against the public enemy, were compelled to merge the general in the demagogue, and then, by purchasing the services of their soldiers with lavish sums to be spent on luxurious living, they unwittingly made their whole country a thing for sale, and themselves slaves of the basest men for the sake of ruling over the better. This was what drove out Marius, and then brought him back again against Sulla; this made Cinna the assassin of Octavius, and Fimbria of Flaccus.[*](According to Appian, Bell. Civ. i. 71, Octavius, the consul, a supporter of Sulla, was killed at Rome by Censorinus, acting under the orders of Marius and Cinna, in 86 B.C. Valerius Flaccus, chosen consul to succeed Marius, in 86 B.C., was sent into Asia to thwart Sulla and conduct the war against Mithridates, but was murdered there by his mutinous lieutenant, Fimbria, in the following year. See chapters xx. 1; xxiii. 6; Lucullus, xxxiv. 2. )

And it was Sulla who, more than any one else, paved the way for these horrors, by making lavish expenditures upon the soldiers under his own command that he might corrupt and win over those whom others commanded, so that in making traitors of the rest, and profligates of his own soldiers, he had need of much money, and especially for this siege.