Sertorius

To this Sertorius answered: Indeed, I for my part thought that Marius was come of his own accord into Italy, and so I was trying to discover what was advantageous in the matter; but in thy case it was not well to deliberate at all after the arrival of one whom thou thyself didst ask to come; nay, thou shouldst have received and employed him, since a pledge leaves room for no discussion. So Cinna sent for Marius, the army was divided into three parts, and the three men held command.

When the war had been brought to an end,[*](That is, when the party of Sulla and the senate ceased to resist and Rome had surrendered. ) Cinna and Marius were filled with insolence and all bitterness, and made the evils of war appear as gold to the Romans; Sertorius alone, as we are told, neither killed any one to gratify his anger, nor waxed insolent with victory, but actually rebuked Marius, and by private interviews and entreaties made Cinna more moderate.

And finally, there were the slaves whom Marius had used as allies during the war and as body-guards of his tyranny. They had thus become powerful and rich, partly by the permission and under the orders of Marius, and partly through their lawless and violent treatment of their masters, whom they would slay, and then lie with their masters’ wives, and outrage their masters’ children. Such a state of things Sertorius felt to be unendurable, and therefore when the slaves were all encamped together he had them shot down with javelins, and they were as many as four thousand in number.[*](Cf. the Marius, xliv. 6.)

But presently Marius died;[*](In 86 B.C.) and shortly afterwards Cinna was murdered;[*](In 84 B.C. Cf. the Pompey, chapter v.) and the younger Marius, against the wishes of Sertorius and contrary to the laws, assumed the consulship;[*](In 82 B.C.) and such men as Carbo, Norbanus, and Scipio were unsuccessfully opposing Sulla’s advance upon Rome; and the cause of the popular party was being ruined and lost, partly through the cowardice and weakness of its generals, and partly by treachery;