Sulla

Of course this distressed Marius; but since he considered Sulla to be beneath his envy, he used him in his campaigns, during his second consulship as legate, or lieutenant, and during his third as military tribune, and through his agency performed many successful services. For instance, as legate, Sulla captured Copillus, chieftain of the Tectosages; and as tribune, he persuaded the great and populous nation of the Marsi to become friends and allies of Rome.

But perceiving that Marius was vexed with him for these successes, and that he was no longer glad to give him opportunities for action, but opposed his advancement, he attached himself to Catulus, the colleague of Marius in the consulship, a worthy man, but too sluggish for arduous contests. By him he was entrusted with the leading and most important enterprises, and rose to power and fame.

He not only subdued in war a large part of the Barbarians of the Alps, but when provisions ran low, he undertook the task of furnishing them, and made them so abundant that the soldiers of Catulus lived in plenty, and had some to spare for those of Marius. At this, as Sulla himself says,[*](In his Memoirs. Cf. chapter vi. 5. ) Marius was greatly distressed.

So slight and puerile were the first foundations and occasions of that hatred between them, which afterwards led them through civil bloodshed and irreparable discords to tyranny and the confusion of the whole state. This proved that Euripides was a wise man, and acquainted with the distempers of civil government, when he exhorted men to beware of ambition as a deity most injurious and fatal to its votaries.[*](Phoenissae, 532 ff. (Kirchhoff).)

Sulla now thought that the reputation which he had won in war was sufficient to justify political activities, and therefore at once exchanged military service for public life,[*](He returned to Rome in 101 B.C., and was elected praetor in 93 B.C.) offered himself as a candidate for the city praetorship, and was defeated. The responsibility for his defeat, however, be lays upon the populace. They knew, he says, about his friendship with Bocchus, and expected that if he should be made aedile before his praetorship, he would treat them to splendid hunting scenes and combats of Libyan wild beasts, and therefore appointed others to the praetorship, in order to force him into the aedileship.

But subsequent events would seem to show that Sulla does not confess the real reason for his failure. For in the following year he obtained the praetorship, partly because he was subservient to the people, and partly because he used money to win their support. And so it happened that, during his praetorship, when he angrily told Caesar[*](Not the dictator, who was only seven years old at this time.) that he would use his own authority against him, Caesar laughed and said: You do well to consider the office your own, for you bought it.

After his praetorship, he was sent out to Cappadocia, ostensibly to reinstate Ariobarzanes, but really to check the restless activities of Mithridates, who was adding to his dominion and power fully as much as he had inherited. Accordingly, he took out with him no large force of his own, but made use of the allies, whom he found eager to serve him, and after slaying many of the Cappadocians themselves, and yet more of the Armenians who came to their aid, he drove out Gordius, and made Ariobarzanes king again.

As he lingered on the banks of the Euphrates, he received a visit from Orobazus, a Parthian, who came as an ambassador from king Arsaces, although up to this time the two nations had held no intercourse with one another. This also is thought to have been part of Sulla’s great good fortune, that he should be the first Roman with whom the Parthians held conference when they wanted alliance and friendship. On this occasion, too, it is said that he ordered three chairs to be set, one for Ariobarzanes, one for Orobazus, and one for himself, and that he sat between them both and gave them audience.