compensated his soldiers for the fatigues which they had undergone by luxurious winter-quarters in the rich west of Asia Minor, he in the spring of 671 transferred them in 1600 vessels from Ephesus to the Piraeeus and thence by the land route to Patrae, where the vessels again lay ready to convey the troops to Brundisium.  His arrival was preceded by a report addressed to the senate respecting his campaigns in Greece and Asia, the writer of which appeared to know nothing of his deposition; it was the mute herald of the impending restoration.

CHAPTER IX

Cinna and Sulla

Ferment in Italy

This state of suspense and uncertainty existing in Italy when Sulla took his departure for Greece in the beginning of 667 has been already described:  the half-suppressed insurrection, the principal army under the more than half-usurped command of a general whose politics were very doubtful, the confusion and the manifold activity of intrigue in the capital.  The victory of the oligarchy by force of arms had, in spite or because of its moderation, engendered manifold discontent.  The capitalists, painfully affected by the blows of the most severe financial crisis which Rome had yet witnessed, were indignant at the government on account of the law which it had issued as to interest, and on account of the Italian and Asiatic wars which it had not prevented.  The insurgents, so far as they had laid down their arms, bewailed not only the disappointment of their proud hopes of obtaining equal rights with the ruling burgesses, but also the forfeiture of their venerable treaties, and their new position as subjects utterly destitute of rights.  The communities between the Alps and the Po were likewise discontented with the partial concessions made to them, and the new burgesses and freedmen were exasperated by the cancelling of the Sulpician laws.  The populace of the city suffered amid the general distress, and found it intolerable that the government of the sabre was no longer disposed to acquiesce in the constitutional rule of the bludgeon.  The adherents, resident in the capital, of those outlawed after the Sulpician revolution—­ adherents who remained very numerous in consequence of the remarkable moderation of Sulla—­laboured zealously to procure permission for the outlaws to return home; and in particular some ladies of wealth and distinction spared for this purpose neither trouble nor money.  None of these grounds of ill-humour were such as to furnish any immediate prospect of a fresh violent collision between the parties; they were in great part of an aimless and temporary nature; but they all fed the general discontent, and had already been more or less concerned in producing the murder of Rufus, the repeated attempts to assassinate Sulla, the issue of the consular and tribunician elections for 667 partly in favour of the opposition.

Cinna
Carbo
Sertorius