During this time Sulla had conquered Mithradates and had assured the loyalty of his soldiers by giving them the free pillage of Asia.  He returned with his army (83) to Italy.  His enemies opposed him with five armies, but these were defeated or they deserted.  Sulla entered Rome, massacred his prisoners and overthrew the partisans of Marius.  After some days of slaughter he set himself to proceed regularly:  he posted three lists of those whom he wished killed.  “I have posted now all those whom I can recall; I have forgotten many, but their names will be posted as the names occur to me.”  Every proscribed man—­that is to say, every man whose name was on the list, was marked for death; the murderer who brought his head was rewarded.  The property of the proscribed was confiscated.  Proscription was not the result of any trial but of the caprice of the general, and that too without any warning.  Sulla thus massacred not only his enemies but the rich whose property he coveted.  It is related that a citizen who was unaccustomed to politics glanced in passing at the list of proscriptions and saw his own name inscribed at the top of the list.  “Alas!” he cried, “my Alban house has been the death of me!” Sulla is said to have proscribed 1800[142] knights.

After having removed his enemies, he endeavored to organize a government in which all power should be in the hands of the Senate.  He had himself named Dictator, an old title once given to generals in moments of danger and which conferred absolute power.  Sulla used the office to make laws which changed the entire constitution.  From that time all the judges were to be taken from the Senate, no law could be discussed before it had been accepted by the Senate, the right of proposing laws was taken from the tribunes of the plebs.

After these reforms Sulla abdicated his functions and retired to private life (79).  He knew he had nothing to fear, for he had established 100,000 of his soldiers in Italy.

=Pompey and Caesar.=—­The Senate had recovered its power because Sulla saw fit to give it this, but it had not the strength to retain it if a general wished again to seize it.  The government of the Senate endured, however, in appearance for more than thirty years; this was because there were several generals and each prevented a rival from gaining all power.

At the death of Sulla four armies took the field:  two obeyed the generals who were partisans of the Senate, Crassus and Pompey; two followed generals who were adversaries of the Senate, Lepidus in Italy, and Sertorius in Spain.  It is very remarkable that no one of these armies was regular, no one of the generals was a magistrate and therefore had the right to command troops; down to this time the generals had been consuls, but now they were individuals—­private persons; their soldiers came to them not to serve the interests of the state, but to profit at the expense of the inhabitants.