Civil Wars

Sulla answered those who came to him from the Senate, saying that he would never be on friendly terms with the men who had committed such crimes. Still he would not prevent the city from extending clemency to them. As for security he said that, as he had a devoted army, he could better furnish lasting security to them, and to those who had fled to his camp, than they to him; whereby it was made plain in a single sentence that he would not disband his army, but was contemplating the exercise of supreme power. He demanded of them his former dignity, his property, and the sacerdotal office, and that they should restore to him in full measure whatever other honors he had previously held. He sent some of his own men with the Senate's messengers to confer about these matters. As soon as they learned from the Brundusians that Cinna was dead and that Rome was in an unsettled state, they went back to Sulla without transacting their business. [*](Y.R. 671) He started with five legions of Italian troops and [*](B.C. 83) 6000 horse, to whom he added some other forces from the Peloponnesus and Macedonia, in all about 40,000 men. He led them from the Piræus to Patræ, and then sailed from Patræ to Brundusium in 1600 ships. The Brundusians received him without a fight, for which favor he afterward gave them exemption from customs-duties, which they enjoy to this day. Then he put his army in motion and went forward.

He was met on the road by Cæcilius Metellus Pius, who had been chosen some time before to finish up the Social War, but who did not return to the. city for fear of Cinna and Marius. He had been awaiting the turn of events in Liguria, and now offered himself as a volunteer ally with the force under his command, as he was still a proconsul; for those who have been chosen to this office retain it till they come back to Rome. After Metellus, came Pompey, who not long afterward was surnamed the Great, son of the Pompeius who was killed by lightning and who was supposed to be unfriendly to Sulla. The son removed this suspicion by coming with a legion which he had collected from the territory of Picenum on the reputation of his father, who had been very influential there. A little later he recruited two more legions and became Sulla's most useful right-hand man in these affairs. So Sulla held him in honor, though still very young; and they say he rose at the entrance of none other than this youth. After the war was finished Sulla sent him to Africa to drive out the party of Carbo and to restore Hiempsal (who had been expelled by the Numidians) to his kingdom. For this service Sulla allowed him a triumph over the Numidians, although he was under age, and was still in the equestrian order. He took his start to greatness from this beginning, and was sent against Sertorius in Spain and later against Mithridates in Pontus. Cethegus also joined Sulla, although with Cinna and Marius he had been violently hostile to him and had been driven out of the city with them. He was now a suppliant, and offered his services to Sulla in any capacity he might desire.

Sulla now had plenty of soldiers and a sufficient number of friends of the higher orders, whom he used as lieutenants. He and Metellus, who were both proconsuls, marched in advance, for it seems that Sulla, who had been appointed proconsul against Mithridates, had at no time laid down his command, although he had been voted a public enemy at the instance of Cinna. Now Sulla moved against his enemies with a most intense yet concealed hatred. The people in the city, who had formed a pretty fair judgment of the character of the man, and who remembered his former attack and capture of the city, and who took into account the decrees they had proclaimed against him, and who had witnessed the destruction of his house, the confiscation of his property, the killing of his friends, and the narrow escape of his family, were in a state of terror. Conceiving that there was no middle ground between victory and utter destruction, they united with the consuls to resist Sulla, but with trepidation. They despatched messengers throughout Italy to collect soldiers, provisions, and money, and, as in cases of extreme peril, they omitted nothing that zeal and earnestness could suggest.

Gaius Norbanus and Lucius Scipio, who were then the consuls, and with them Carbo, who had been consul the previous year (all of them moved by equal hatred of Sulla and more fearful than others because they knew that they were more to blame for what had been done), levied the best possible army from the city, obtained an additional one from Italy, and marched against Sulla in detachments. They had 200 cohorts of 500 men each at first, and their forces were considerably augmented afterward. The sympathies of the people were much in favor of the consuls, because the action of Sulla, who was marching against his country, seemed to be that of an enemy, while that of the consuls, even if they were working for themselves, was ostensibly the cause of the republic. Many persons, too, who knew that they had shared the guilt of the consuls, and who were believed to share their fears, coöperated with them. They knew very well that Sulla was not meditating merely prevention, correction, and alarm for them, but destruction, death, confiscation, and complete extermination. In this they were not mistaken, for the war ruined everything. From 10,000 to 20,000 men were slain in a single battle more than once. Fifty thousand on both sides lost their lives around the city, and to the survivors Sulla was unsparing in severity, both to individuals and to communities, until, finally, he made himself the undisputed master of the whole Roman government, so far as he wished or cared to be.