had ordered them to be publicly exposed; and among men of the second and third rank in particular death reaped a fearful harvest.  In addition to those who were placed on the list for their services in or on behalf of the revolutionary army with little discrimination, sometimes on account of money advanced to one of its officers or on account of relations of hospitality formed with such an one, the retaliation fell specially on those capitalists who had sat in judgment on the senators and had speculated in Marian confiscations—­the “hoarders”; about 1600 of the equites, as they were called,(6) were inscribed on the proscription-list.  In like manner the professional accusers, the worst scourge of the nobility, who made it their trade to bring men of the senatorial order before the equestrian courts, had now to suffer for it—­“how comes it to pass,” an advocate soon after asked, “that they have left to us the courts, when they were putting to death the accusers and judges?” The most savage and disgraceful passions raged without restraint for many months throughout Italy.  In the capital a Celtic band was primarily charged with the executions, and Sullan soldiers and subaltern officers traversed for the same purpose the different districts of Italy; but every volunteer was also welcome, and the rabble high and low pressed forward not only to earn the rewards of murder, but also to gratify their own vindictive or covetous dispositions under the mantle of political prosecution.  It sometimes happened that the assassination did not follow, but preceded, the placing of the name on the list of the proscribed.  One example shows the way in which these executions took place.  At Larinum, a town of new burgesses and favourable to Marian views, one Statius Albius Oppianicus, who had fled to Sulla’s headquarters to avoid a charge of murder, made his appearance after the victory as commissioner of the regent, deposed the magistrates of the town, installed himself and his friends in their room, and caused the person who had threatened to accuse him, along with his nearest relatives and friends, to be outlawed and killed.  Countless persons—­including not a few decided adherents of the oligarchy—­thus fell as the victims of private hostility or of their own riches:  the fearful confusion, and the culpable indulgence which Sulla displayed in this as in every instance towards those more closely connected with him, prevented any punishment even of the ordinary crimes that were perpetrated amidst the disorder.

Confiscations

The confiscated property was dealt with in a similar way.  Sulla from political considerations sought to induce the respectable burgesses to take part in its purchase; a great portion of them, moreover, voluntarily pressed forward, and none more zealously than the young Marcus Crassus.  Under the existing circumstances the utmost depreciation was inevitable; indeed, to some extent it was the necessary result of the Roman