/> Then, after giving his soldiers a winter's rest in Asia, he turned his

face towards Rome, writing to the senate that he was coming, and that he

intended to take revenge on his enemies.



It was now the year 83 B.C. Three years had passed since the death of

Marius. During the interval the party of the plebeians had been at the

head of affairs. Now Sulla, the aristocrat, was coming to call them to a

stern account, and they trembled in anticipation. They remembered

vividly the Marian carnival of blood. What retribution would his

merciless rival exact?



Cinna, who had most to fear, proposed to meet the conqueror in the

field. But his soldiers were not in the mood to fight, and settled the

question by murdering their commander. When spring was well advanced,

Sulla left Asia, and in sixteen hundred ships transported his men to

Italy, landing at the port of Brundusium.



On the 6th of July, shortly after his landing, an event occurred that

threw all Rome into consternation. The venerable buildings of the

Capitol took fire and were burned to the ground, the cherished Sibylline

books perishing in the flames. Such a disaster seemed to many Romans a

fatal prognostic. The gods were surely against them, and all things were

at risk.



Onward marched Sulla, opposed by a much greater army collected by his

opponents. But he led the veterans of the Mithridatic War, and in the

ranks of his opponents no man of equal ability appeared. Battle after

battle was fought, Sulla steadily advancing. At length an army of

Samnites, raised to defend the Marian cause, marched on Rome. Caius

Pontius, their commander, was bent on terribly avenging the sufferings

of his people on that great city.



"Rome's last day," he said to his soldiers, "is come. The city must be

annihilated. The wolves that have so long preyed upon Italy will never

cease from troubling till their lair is utterly destroyed."



Rome was in despair, for all seemed at an end. The Samnites had not

forgotten a former Pontius, who had sent a Roman army under the Caudine

Forks, and had been cruelly murdered in the Capitol They thundered on

the Colline Gate. But at that critical moment a large body of cavalry

appeared and charged the foe. It was the vanguard of Sulla's army,

marching in haste to the relief of Rome.



A fierce battle ensued. Sulla fought gallantly. He rode a white horse,

and was the mark of every javelin. But despite his efforts his men were

forced back against the wall, and when night came to their relief it

looked as if nothing remained for them but to sell their lives as dearly

as possible the next morning.



But during the night Sulla received favorable news. Crassus, who

commanded his right wing, had completely defeated a detachment of the

Marian army. With quick decision, Sulla marched during the night round

the enemy's camp, joined Crassus, and at day-break attacked the foe.



The battle that ensued was a terrible one. Fifty thousand men fell on

each side. Pontius and other Marian leaders were slain. In the end Sulla

triumphed, taking eight thousand prisoners, of whom six thousand were

Samnites. The latter were, by order of the victor, ruthlessly butchered

in cold blood.



This was but the prelude to an equally ruthless but more protracted

butchery. Sulla was at last lord of Rome, as absolute in power as any

emperor of later days. In fact, he had himself appointed dictator, an

office which had vanished more than a century before, and which raised

him above the law. He announced that he would give a better government

to Rome, but to do so he must first rid that city of its enemies.



Marius, whom Sulla hated with intense bitterness, had escaped him by

death. By his orders the bones of the old general were torn from their

tomb near the Anio and flung into that stream. The son of Marius had

slain himself to prevent being taken. His head was brought to Sulla at

Rome, who gazed on the youthful face with grim satisfaction, saying,

"Those who take the helm must first serve at the oar." As for himself,

his fortune was now accomplished, he said, and henceforth he should be

known as Felix.



The cruel work which Sulla had promised immediately began. Adherents of

the popular party were slaughtered daily and hourly at Rome. Some who

had taken no part in the late war were slain. No man knew if he was

safe. Some of the senators asked that the names of the guilty should be

made known, that the innocent might be relieved from uncertainty. The

proposition hit with Sulla's humor. He ordered that a list of those

doomed to death should be made out and published. This was called a

Proscription.



But the uncertainty continued as great as ever. The list contained but

eighty names. It was quickly followed by another containing one hundred

and twenty. Day after day new lists of the doomed were issued. To make

death sure, a reward of two talents was promised any one who should kill

a proscribed man,--even if the killer were his son or his slave. Those

who in any way aided the proscribed became themselves doomed to death.



Men who envied others their property managed to have their names put on

the list. A partisan of Sulla was exulting over the doomed, when his

eye fell on his own name in the list. He hastily fled, and the

bystanders, judging the cause, followed and cut him down. Catiline, who

afterwards became notorious in Roman history, murdered his own brother,

and to legalize the murder had the name of his victim placed on the

list.



How many were murdered we do not know. Probably little less than three

thousand in Rome. The stream of murder flowed to other cities. Several

of these defied the conqueror, but were taken one by one and their

defenders slain. To all cities which had taken part with the Marians the

proscription made its way. Of the total number slain during this reign

of terror no record exists, but the deliberate butchery of Sulla went

far beyond the ferocious but temporary slaughter of Marius.



Murder was followed by confiscation. Sulla ordered that the property of

the slain should be sold at auction and the proceeds put in the

treasury. But the favorites of the dictator were the chief bidders, the

property was sold at a tithe of its value, and the unworthy and

dissolute obtained the lion's share of the spoil.



During this period of murder and confiscation we first hear the names of

a number of afterwards famous Romans. Catiline we have named. Pompey

took part in the war on Sulla's side, was victorious in Sicily and

Africa, and on his return was hailed by his chief with the title of

Pompey the Great. Another still more famous personage was Julius Caesar.

Sulla had ordered that all persons connected by marriage with the

Marian party should divorce their wives. Pompey obeyed. Caesar, who was a

nephew of Marius and had married the daughter of Cinna, boldly refused.

He was then a youth of nineteen. His boldness would have brought him

death had not powerful friends asked for his life.



"You know not what you ask," said Sulla; "that profligate boy will be

more dangerous than many Mariuses."



Caesar, not trusting Sulla's doubtful humor, escaped from Rome, and hid

in the depths of the Sabine mountains, awaiting a time when the streets

of the capital city would be safer for those who dared speak their

minds.



Another young man of rising fame showed little less boldness. This was

Cicero, who had just returned to Rome from his studies in Greece. He

ventured to defend Roscius of Ameria against an accusation of murder

made by Chrysogonus, a prime favorite of Sulla. Cicero lashed the

favorite vigorously, and won a verdict for his client. But he found it

advisable to leave Rome immediately and resume his studies at Rhodes.



Sulla ended his work by organizing a new senate and making a new code of

laws. Three hundred new members were added to the senate, and the laws

of Rome were brought largely back to the state in which they had been

before the Gracchi.



This done, to the utter surprise of the people he laid down his power

and retired from Rome, within whose streets he never again set foot. He

had no occasion for fear. He had scattered his veterans throughout

Italy on confiscated estates, and knew that he could trust to their

support. Before his departure he gave a feast of costly meats and rich

wines to the Roman commons, in such profusion that vast quantities that

could not be eaten were cast into the Tiber. Then he dismissed his armed

attendants, and walked on foot to his house, through a multitude of whom

many had ample reason to strike him down.



He now retired to his villa near Puteoli, on the Bay of Naples, with the

purpose of enjoying that life of voluptuous ease which he craved more

than power and distinction. Here he spent the brief remainder of his

life in nocturnal orgies and literary converse, completing his

"Memoirs," in which he told, in exaggerated phrase, the story of his

life and exploits.



He lived but about a year. His excesses brought on a complication of

disorders, which ended, we are told, in a loathsome disease. The senate

voted him a gorgeous funeral, after which his body was burned on the

Campus Martius, that no future tyrant could treat his remains as he had

done those of his great rival Marius.