CHAPTER III.

IN THE DAYS OF THE DICTATOR.

In November 82 B.C., Cornelius Sulla became absolute master of Rome.  It is not part of my purpose to give a history of this man.  He was a great soldier who had won victories in Africa and Asia over the enemies of Rome, and in Italy itself over the “allies,” as they were called, that is the Italian nations, who at various times had made treaties with Rome, and who in the early part of the first century B.C. rebelled against her, thinking that they were robbed of the rights and privileges which belonged to them.  And he was the leader of the party of the nobles, just as Marius was the leader of the party of the people.  Once before he had made himself supreme in the capital; and then he had used his power with moderation.  But he was called away to carry on the war in Asia against Mithridates, the great King of Pontus; and his enemies had got the upper hand, and had used the opportunity most cruelly.  A terrible list of victims, called the “proscription,” because it was posted up in the forum, was prepared.  Fifty senators and a thousand knights (peers and gentlemen we should call them) were put to death, almost all of them without any kind of trial.  Sulla himself was outlawed.  But he had an army which he had led to victory and had enriched with prize-money, and which was entirely devoted to him; and he was not inclined to let his enemies triumph.  He hastened back to Italy, and landed in the spring of 83.  In the November of the following year, just outside the walls of Rome, was fought the final battle of the war.

The opposing army was absolutely destroyed and Sulla had every thing at his mercy.  He waited for a few days outside the city till the Senate had passed a decree giving him absolute power to change the laws, to fill the offices of State, and to deal with the lives and properties of citizens as it might please him.  This done, he entered Rome.  Then came another proscription.  The chief of his enemies, Marius. was gone.  He had died, tormented it was said by remorse, seventeen days after he had reached the crowning glory, promised him in his youth by an oracle, and had been made consul for the seventh time.  The conqueror had to content himself with the same vengeance that Charles II. in our own country exacted from the remains of Cromwell.  The ashes of Marius were taken out of his tomb on the Flaminian Way, the great North Road of Rome, and were thrown into the Anio.  But many of his friends and partisans survived, and these were slaughtered without mercy.  Eighty names were put on the fatal list on the first day, two hundred and twenty on the second, and as many more on the third.  With the deaths of many of these victims politics had nothing to do.  Sulla allowed his friends and favorites to put into the list the names of men against whom they happened to bear a grudge, or whose property they coveted.  No one knew who might be the next to fall.  Even