FOOTNOTES:

"Proud Sparta, resting on two equal feet,Beware lest lameness on thy kings alight;Lest wars unnumbered toss thee to and fro,And thou thyself be ruined in the fight."

But when many were persuaded by this oracle andlooked to Leotychides as the true heir, Lysander said that they did not rightly understand it; for what it meant was, he argued, not that the god forbade a lame man to reign, but that the kingdom would be lame of one foot if base-born men should share the crown with those who were of the true race of Herakles. By this argument and his own great personal influence he prevailed, and Agesilaus became king of Sparta.

XXIII.Lysander now at once began to urge him to make a campaign in Asia, holding out to him hopes of conquering the Persians and making himself the greatest man in the world. He also wrote to his friends in Asia, bidding them ask the Lacedæmonians to send them Agesilaus to act as their commander in chief in the war with the Persians. They obeyed, and sent an embassy to demand him: which was as great an honour to Agesilaus as his being made king, and which, like the other, he owed to Lysander alone. However, ambitious natures, though in other respects fit for great commands, often fail in important enterprises through jealousy of their rivals; for they make those men their opponents who would otherwise have been their assistants in obtaining success. On this occasion Agesilaus took Lysander with him, as the chief of his board of thirty counsellors, and treated him as his greatest friend; but when they reached Asia, the people there would not pay their court to Agesilaus, whom they did not know, while all Lysander's friends flocked round him to renew their former intimacy, and all those who feared him assiduously courted his favour. Thus, as in a play we often see that a messenger or servant engrosses all the interest of the spectators and really acts the leading part, while he who wears the crown and bears the sceptre is hardly heard to speak, so now it was the counsellor who obtained all the honours due to a commander in chief, while the king had merely the title without any influence whatever. It was necessary, no doubt, that this excessive power of Lysander should be curtailed, and he himself forced to take the second place: but yet to disgrace and ruin a friend and one from whom he had received great benefits, would have been unworthy of Agesilaus. Consequently at first he did not entrusthim with the conduct of matters of importance, and did not give him any separate command. In the next place, he invariably disobliged, and refused the applications, of any persons on whose behalf he understood Lysander to be interested, and thus gradually undermined his power. When however after many failures Lysander perceived that his interest on his friends' behalf was a drawback rather than an advantage to them, he ceased from urging their claims, and moreover begged them not to pay their court to him, but to attach themselves to the king, and to those who were able to promote and reward their followers. Most of them on hearing this no longer troubled him on matters of business, but continued on the most friendly terms with him, and angered Agesilaus more than ever by the manner in which they flocked round him in public places and walks, showing thereby their dislike to the king. Agesilaus now bestowed the government of cities and the conduct of important expeditions upon various obscure soldiers, but appointed Lysander his carver, and then in an insulting manner told the Ionians to go and pay their court to his carver. At this Lysander determined to have an interview with him, and there took place a short and truly Laconian dialogue between them. Lysander said, "You know well, Agesilaus, how to humble your friends." "Yes," answered he, "if they desire to be greater than I am: but those who increase my power have a right to share it." "Perhaps," said Lysander, "you have spoken better than I have acted; however, if it be only on account of the multitude whose eyes are upon us, I beg you to appoint me to some post in which I may be of more use to you, and cause you less annoyance than at present."

XXIV.Upon this he was sent on a special mission to the Hellespont, where although he was at enmity with Agesilaus, he did not neglect his duty, but, finding that the Persian Spithridates, a man of noble birth and commanding a considerable force, was on bad terms with Pharnabazus, he induced him to revolt, and brought him back with him to Agesilaus. After this Lysander was given no further share in the conduct of the war, and after some time sailed back to Sparta in disgrace, full ofrage against Agesilaus, and hating the whole Spartan constitution more than ever. He now determined without any further delay to put in practice the revolutionary plans which he had so long meditated. These were as follows:—When the descendants of Herakles, after associating with the Dorians, returned to Peloponnesus, their race grew and flourished at Sparta. Yet it was not every family of the descendants of Herakles, but only the children of Eurypon and Agis who had a right to the throne, while the others gained no advantage from their noble birth, as all honours in the state were given according to merit. Now Lysander, being a descendant of Herakles, after he had gained great glory by his achievements and obtained many friends and immense influence, could not endure that the state should reap such great advantages from his success, and yet continue to be ruled by men of no better family than himself. He meditated, therefore, the abolition of the exclusive right to the throne possessed by these two families, and throwing it open to all the descendants of Herakles, or even, according to some historians, to all Spartans alike, in order that the crown might not belong to the descendants of Herakles, but to those who were judged to be like Herakles in glory, which had raised Herakles himself to a place among the gods themselves. If the throne were disposed of in this manner he imagined that no Spartan would be chosen king before himself.

XXV.First then he proposed to endeavour to win over his countrymen to his views by his own powers of persuasion, and with this object studied an oration written for him by Kleon of Halikarnassus. Soon, however, he perceived that so new and important a scheme of reform would require more violent means to carry it into effect, and, just as in plays supernatural machinery is resorted to where ordinary human means would fail to produce the wished-for termination, even so did Lysander invent oracular responses and prophecies and bring them to bear on the minds of his countrymen, feeling that he would gain but little by pronouncing Kleon's oration, unless the Spartans had previously, by superstition and religious terrors, been brought into a state of feeling suitable forits reception. Ephorus relates in his history that Lysander endeavoured by means of one Pherekles to bribe the priestess at Delphi, and afterwards those of Dodona; and that, as this attempt failed, he himself went to the oracle of Ammon and had an interview with the priests there, to whom he offered a large sum of money. They also indignantly refused to aid his schemes, and sent an embassy to Sparta to charge him with having attempted to corrupt them. He was tried and acquitted, upon which the Libyans, as they were leaving the country, said:—"We at any rate, O Spartans, will give more righteous judgments when you come to dwell amongst us"—for there is an ancient oracle which says that the Lacedæmonians shall some day settle in Libya. Now as to the whole framework of Lysander's plot, which was of no ordinary kind, and did not take its rise from accidental circumstances, but consisted, like a mathematical demonstration, of many complicated intrigues all tending to one fixed point, I will give a short abstract of it extracted from the works of Ephorus, who was both an historian and a philosopher.

XXVI.There was a woman in Pontus who gave out that she was pregnant by Apollo. As might be expected, many disbelieved in her pretensions, but many more believed in them, so that when a male child was born of her, it was cared for and educated at the charge of many eminent persons. The child, for some reason or other, was given the name of Silenus. Lysander, starting with these materials, constructed the rest of the story out of his own imagination. He was assisted in his scheme by many persons of the highest respectability, who unsuspiciously propagated the fable about the birth of the child: and who also procured another mysterious story from Delphi, which they carefully spread abroad at Sparta, to the effect that some oracles of vast antiquity are guarded by the priests at Delphi, in writings which it is not lawful to read; nor may any one examine them or look upon them, until in the fulness of time one born of Apollo shall come, and after clearly proving his birth to the guardians of these writings, shall take the tablets which contain them. This having been previously arranged, Silenus's partwas to go and demand the oracles as Apollo's child, while those of the priests who were in the plot were to make inquiries and examine carefully into his birth, and at length were to appear convinced of the truth of the story, and show the writings to him, as being really the child of Apollo. He was to read aloud in the presence of many persons all the oracles contained in the tablets, especially one which said that it would be better for the Spartans to choose their kings from the best of the citizens. Silenus was nearly grown up, and the time to make the attempt had almost arrived, when the whole plot was ruined by the cowardice of one of the principal conspirators, whose heart failed him when the moment for action arrived. None of these particulars, however, were discovered till after Lysander's death.

XXVII.Before Agesilaus returned from Asia Lysander perished in a Bœotian war in which he had become involved, or rather had involved Greece; for various accounts are given of it, some laying the blame upon him, some upon the Thebans, and some upon both. It was urged against the Thebans that they overturned the altar at Aulis and scattered the sacrifice,[156]and also that Androkleides and Amphitheus, having been bribed by Persia to induce all the Greek states to attack the Lacedæmonians, had invaded the Phokian territory and laid it waste. On the other hand Lysander is said to have been angry that the Thebans alone should claim their right to a tenth part of the plunder obtained in the war, though the other allies made no such demand, and that they should have expressed indignation at Lysander's sending such large sums of money to Sparta. He was especially wroth with them for having afforded the Athenians the means of freeing themselves from the domination of the Thirty, which he had himself established, and which the Lacedæmonians had endeavoured to support by decreeing that all exiled Athenians of the popular party might be brought backto Athens from whatever place they might be found in, and that those who protected them against being forcibly brought back should be treated as outlaws. In answer to this the Thebans passed a decree worthy of themselves, and deserving of comparison with the great acts of Herakles and Dionysus, the benefactors of mankind. Its provisions were, that every city and every house in Bœotia should be open to those Athenians who required shelter, that whoever did not assist an Athenian exile against any one who tried to force him away should be fined a talent, and that if any marched under arms through Bœotia to attack the despots at Athens, no Theban should either see or hear them. Not only did they make this kindly and truly Hellenic decree, but they also acted up to the spirit of it; for when Thrasybulus and his party seized Phyle, they started from Thebes, supplied with arms and necessaries by the Thebans, who also assisted them to keep their enterprise secret and to begin it successfully. These were the charges brought against the Thebans by Lysander.

XXVIII.His naturally harsh temper was now soured by age, and he urged on the Ephors into declaring war against the Thebans, and appointing him their general to carry it on. Subsequently, however, they sent the king, Pausanias, with an army, to co-operate with him. Pausanias marched in a circuitous course over Mount Kithæron, meaning to invade Bœotia on that side, while Lysander with a large force came to meet him through Phokis. He took the city of Orchomenus, which voluntarily came over to his side, and he took Lebadeia by storm and plundered it. He now sent a letter to Pausanias bidding him march through the territory of Platæa and join him at Haliartus, promising that at daybreak he would be before the walls of Haliartus. The messenger who carried this letter fell into the hands of the enemy, and the letter was taken to Thebes. Hereupon the Thebans entrusted their city to the care of the Athenians, who had come to their aid, and themselves started early in the evening, reached Haliartus a little before Lysander, and threw a body of troops into the town. Lysander, on discovering this, at first determined to halt his army on a hill in the neighbourhood and await the arrival of Pausanias: but as the day went on he couldremain quiet no longer, but got his men under arms, harangued the allied troops, and led them in a close column down the road directly towards the city. Upon this those of the Thebans who had remained outside the walls, leaving the city on their left hand, marched to attack the extreme rear of the Lacedæmonians, near the fountain which is called Kissousa,[157]in which there is a legend that Dionysus was washed by his nurses after his birth; for the water is wine-coloured and clear, and very sweet-tasted. Round the fountain is a grove of the Cretan Storax-trees,[158]which the people of Haliartus point to as a proof of Rhadamanthus having lived there. They also show his tomb, which they call Alea. The sepulchre of Alkmena too is close by: for the story goes that she married Rhadamanthus here after the death of Amphitryon. Meanwhile the Thebans in the city, together with the citizens of Haliartus themselves, remained quiet until Lysander and the first ranks of the enemy came close to the walls, and then suddenly opening the gates they charged and slew him together with his soothsayer and some few more: for most of them fled quickly back to the main body. However as the Thebans did not desist but pressed on, the whole mass took to flight, and escaped to the neighbouring hills with a loss of about one thousand men. Three hundred of the Thebans also fell in an attack which they made on the enemy in rough and difficult ground. These men had been accused of favouring the Lacedæmonians, and it was to wipe out this unjust imputation before the eyes of their fellow citizens that they showed themselves so reckless of their lives.

XXIX.When Pausanias heard of this disaster, he was marching from Platæa towards Thespiæ. He at once put his troops in array and proceeded to Haliartus. Here likewise arrived Thrasybulus from Thebes, with an Athenian force. On his arrival, Pausanias proposed to apply for permissionto carry away the dead. This proposal greatly shocked the older Spartans, who could not refrain from going to the king and imploring him not to receive back Lysander's corpse by a truce[159]which was in itself a confession of defeat, but to let them fight for his body and either bury it as victors, or else to share their general's fate as became them. However, in spite of these representations, Pausanias, perceiving that it would be no easy task to overcome the Thebans, flushed as they were with the victory of the day before, and that, as Lysander's body lay close under the walls of the town, it would be almost impossible, even if they were victorious, to recover it otherwise than by treaty, sent a herald, obtained the necessary truce, and led away his forces. As soon as the Spartans crossed the Bœotian frontier they buried the body of Lysander in the territory of the friendly and allied city of Panope, in Phokis, where at the present day his monument stands by the side of the road from Chæronea to Delphi.[160]It is said that while the army was encamped there one of the Phokians, while describing the battle to another who had not been present, said that the enemy fell upon them just after Lysander had crossed the Hoplites.[161]A Spartan who was present was surprised at this word, and enquired of Lysander's friend, what he meant by the Hoplites, for he did not understand it. "It was where," answered he, "the enemy overthrew our front ranks; for they call the stream which runs past the city the Hoplites." On hearing these words the Spartan burst into tears, and exclaimed, "How impossible is it for a man to escape his fate:"—for it seems Lysander had received an oracular warning in these words:

"I warn thee, shun Hoplites roaring track.And th' earth-born snake that stings behind thy back."

Some say that the Hoplites does not run by Haliartus, but that it is the name of a torrent which joins the river Philarus near Koronea, which used to be called the Hoplias, and is now called Isomantus. The man who killed Lysander was a citizen of Haliartus named Neochorus, who bore a snake as the device upon his shield, which it is supposed was alluded to by the oracle.

We are also told that during the Peloponnesian war the Thebans received an oracle from Apollo Ismenius, referring immediately to the battle of Delium, and also to this battle at Haliartus, which took place thirty years afterwards. It ran as follows:

"Beware the boundary, when you huntThe wolf with spears;And shun the Orchalian hill, the fox's haunt,For endless years."

The boundary alludes to the country near Delium, which is on the borders of Attica and Bœotia, and the Orchalian hill, which is now called Fox-hill, lies in the territory of Haliartus, on the side nearest Mount Helikon.

XXX.The death of Lysander, as related above, grieved the Spartans so much that they impeached their king on a capital charge, and he, fearing the result of the trial, fled to Tegea, where he spent the remainder of his life in the sanctuary of Athena as a suppliant of the goddess. Moreover the poverty of Lysandor, which was discovered after his death, made his virtue more splendid, for although he had handled great sums of money, and possessed immense power; though his favour had been courted by wealthy cities, and even by the great king of Persia himself, yet Theopompus tells us that he did not in the least degree improve his family estate: an account which we may the more readily believe, as it is told us by a historian who is more prone to censure than to admiration. In later times we learn from the historian Ephorus that some dispute arose between the allied cities which rendered it necessary to examine Lysander's papers, and that Agesilaus went to his house for this purpose. Here he found the scroll upon which was written the speech about altering the constitution; advising the Spartans to abolishthe hereditary right to the throne enjoyed by the old royal families of Eurypon and Agis, and to throw it open to the best of the citizens without restriction. Agesilaus was eager to publish this speech abroad, and show his fellow-countrymen what sort of a man Lysander had really been; but Lakratides, a wise man, who was at that time chief of the board of Ephors, restrained him, pointing out that it would be wrong to disturb Lysander in his grave, and that it would be better that so clever and insidious a composition should be buried with him. Among other honours which were paid to Lysander after death, the Spartans fined the suitors of his daughters, because when after his death his poverty was discovered, they refused to marry them, thus showing that they had paid their court to him when they believed him to be rich, and neglected him when his poverty proved him to have been just and honourable. It appears that in Sparta there were actions at law against men who did not marry, or who married too late in life or unbecomingly: under which last head came those who tried to marry into rich families, instead of marrying persons of good birth and their own friends. This is what we have found to tell about the life of Lysander.

FOOTNOTES:[146]A Persian gold coin, first coined by Darius the son of Hystaspes, worth £1 1s. 10d. English money.[147]All ancient ships were managed with two rudders.[148]Alluding to the cruelties practised by Philokles on the Andrians and Corinthians, and the decree for the mutilation of the captives, of which Philokles was the author.[149]Golden crowns, at this period of Greek history, was the name applied to large sums of money voted by cities to men whose favour they hoped to gain.[150]A spit is called obelus in Greek.[151]Probably of each of the Spartan admirals who had commanded during the war. It should be remembered that Lysander was nominally admiral when he won the battle of Ægospotami.[152]The Greek word probably means papyrus. Clough translates it "parchment."—cf. Aulus Gellius, xvii. 9.[153]Ulysses.[154]An Egyptian divinity, represented with ram's horns, and identified by the Romans with Jupiter, and by the Greeks with Zeus. He possessed a celebrated temple and oracle in the oasis of Ammonium (Siwah) in the Libyan desert.—Smith'sClassical Dict.s.v.[155]Megara was always treated by the Greeks with the utmost contempt, as possessing no importance, political or otherwise.[156]Agesilaus offered sacrifice at Aulis, in imitation of Agamemnon, before starting for Asia. But before he had completed the rite, the Bœotarchs sent a party of horse to enjoin him to desist, and the men did not merely deliver the message, but scattered the parts of the victim which they found on the altar.—Thirlwall'sHistory of Greece, ch. xxxv.[157]The name of this fountain should probably be corrected from Strabo and Pausanias, and read Tilphusa, or Tilphosa,—Langhorne.[158]Strabo tells us, Haliartus was destroyed by the Romans in the war with Perseus. He also mentions a lake near it, which produces canes or reeds, not for shafts of javelins, but for pipes or flutes. Compare Plutarch's Life of Sulla, ch. xx.ad fin.[159]The Greeks attached great importance to the burial of the dead, and after a battle, that party which demanded a truce for collecting and burying its dead was thought to have admitted itself to have been defeated. Naturally, therefore, the proposal was regarded as humiliating by the Spartans of 395 B.C.[160]It should be remembered that Chæronea was Plutarch's own city, and that he was a priest at Delphi, and, consequently, was especially familiar with the country here described.[161]Hoplites, in Greek, usually means a warrior fully armed.

[146]A Persian gold coin, first coined by Darius the son of Hystaspes, worth £1 1s. 10d. English money.

[147]All ancient ships were managed with two rudders.

[148]Alluding to the cruelties practised by Philokles on the Andrians and Corinthians, and the decree for the mutilation of the captives, of which Philokles was the author.

[149]Golden crowns, at this period of Greek history, was the name applied to large sums of money voted by cities to men whose favour they hoped to gain.

[150]A spit is called obelus in Greek.

[151]Probably of each of the Spartan admirals who had commanded during the war. It should be remembered that Lysander was nominally admiral when he won the battle of Ægospotami.

[152]The Greek word probably means papyrus. Clough translates it "parchment."—cf. Aulus Gellius, xvii. 9.

[153]Ulysses.

[154]An Egyptian divinity, represented with ram's horns, and identified by the Romans with Jupiter, and by the Greeks with Zeus. He possessed a celebrated temple and oracle in the oasis of Ammonium (Siwah) in the Libyan desert.—Smith'sClassical Dict.s.v.

[155]Megara was always treated by the Greeks with the utmost contempt, as possessing no importance, political or otherwise.

[156]Agesilaus offered sacrifice at Aulis, in imitation of Agamemnon, before starting for Asia. But before he had completed the rite, the Bœotarchs sent a party of horse to enjoin him to desist, and the men did not merely deliver the message, but scattered the parts of the victim which they found on the altar.—Thirlwall'sHistory of Greece, ch. xxxv.

[157]The name of this fountain should probably be corrected from Strabo and Pausanias, and read Tilphusa, or Tilphosa,—Langhorne.

[158]Strabo tells us, Haliartus was destroyed by the Romans in the war with Perseus. He also mentions a lake near it, which produces canes or reeds, not for shafts of javelins, but for pipes or flutes. Compare Plutarch's Life of Sulla, ch. xx.ad fin.

[159]The Greeks attached great importance to the burial of the dead, and after a battle, that party which demanded a truce for collecting and burying its dead was thought to have admitted itself to have been defeated. Naturally, therefore, the proposal was regarded as humiliating by the Spartans of 395 B.C.

[160]It should be remembered that Chæronea was Plutarch's own city, and that he was a priest at Delphi, and, consequently, was especially familiar with the country here described.

[161]Hoplites, in Greek, usually means a warrior fully armed.

I.Lucius Cornelius Sulla,[162]by birth, belonged to the Patricians, whom we may consider as corresponding to the Eupatridæ. Among his ancestors is enumerated Rufinus,[163]who became consul; but is less noted for attaining this honour than for the infamy which befell him. He was detected in possessing above ten pounds' weight of silver plate, which amount the law did not permit, and he was ejected from the Senate. His immediate descendants continued in a mean condition, and Sulla himself was brought up with no great paternal property. When he was a young man he lived in lodgings, for which he paid some moderate sum, which he was afterwards reproached with, when he was prospering beyond his deserts, as some thought. It was after the Libyan expedition, when he was assuming airs of importance and a haughty tone, that a man of high rank and character said to him, How can you be an honest man who are now so rich, and yet your father left you nothing? For though the Romans no longer remained true to their former integrity and purity of morals, but had declined from the old standard, and let in luxury and expense among them, they still considered it equally a matter of reproach for a man to have wasted the property that he once had, and not to remain as poor as his ancestors. Subsequently when Sulla was in the possession of power and was putting many to death, a man of the class of Libertini, who was suspected of concealing a proscribed person, and for this offence was going to be thrown down the Tarpeian rock, reproached Sulla with the fact that they had lived together for some time in one house; that he had paid two thousand sestertii for his lodgings, which were in the upper part of the house, and Sulla three thousand for the lower rooms; and, consequently, that between their fortunes there was only the difference of a thousand sestertii, which is equivalent to two hundred and fifty Attic drachmæ. This is what is recorded of Sulla's early condition.

II.As for his person, we may judge of it by his statues, except his eyes and complexion. His eyes were an uncommonly pure and piercing blue, which the colour ofhis face rendered still more terrific, being spotted with rough red blotches, interspersed with the white; from which circumstance, it is said, he got his name Sulla, which had reference to his complexion; and one of the Athenian satirists[164]in derision made the following verse in allusion to it:

"Sulla is a mulberry besprinkled with meal."

It is not out of place to avail ourselves of such traits of a man who is said to have had so strong a natural love of buffoonery, that when he was still young and of no repute, he spent his time and indulged himself among mimi[165]and jesters; and when he was at the head of the state, he daily got together from the scena and the theatre the lewdest persons, with whom he would drink and enter into a contest of coarse witticisms, in which he had no regard to his age, and, besides degrading the dignity of his office, he neglected many matters that required attention. It was not Sulla's habit when he was at table to trouble himself about anything serious, but though he was energetic and rather morose at other times, he underwent a complete change as soon as he went into company and was seated at an entertainment, for he was then exceedingly complaisant to singers of mimi and dancers, and easy of access and affable. This habit of relaxation seems to have produced in him the vice of being exceedingly addicted to women and that passion for enjoyment which stuck to him to his old age. In his youth he was for along time attached to one Metrobius,[166]an actor. The following incident also happened to him:—He formed an attachment to a woman named Nicopolis, who was of mean condition, but rich, and from long familiarity and the favour which he found on account of his youth, he came to be considered as a lover, and when the woman died she left him her heir. He also succeeded to the inheritance of his step-mother, who loved him as her own son; and in this way he acquired a moderate fortune.

III.On being appointed Quæstor to Marius in his first consulship, he sailed with him to Libya, to prosecute the war against Jugurtha.[167]In this campaign he showed himself a man of merit, and by availing himself of a favourable opportunity he made a friend of Bocchus, king of the Numidians. Some ambassadors of Bocchus who had escaped from Numidian robbers were hospitably received by Sulla, and sent back with presents and a safe conduct. Now Bocchus happened for some time to have disliked his son-in-law Jugurtha, whom he was also afraid of; and as Jugurtha had been defeated by the Romans and had fled to Bocchus, he formed a design to make him his prisoner and deliver him to his enemies; but as he wished Sulla to be the agent rather than himself, he invited Sulla to come and see him. Sulla communicated the message to Marius, and, taking a few soldiers with him, ventured on the hazardous enterprise of putting himself in the hands of a barbarian who never kept his faith even with his friends, and this for the purpose of having another man betrayed to him. Bocchus, having got both of them in his power, was under the necessity of being treacherous to one of them, and after great fluctuations in his resolution, he finally carried into effect his original perfidious design, and surrendered Jugurtha to Sulla. Marius enjoyed the triumph for the capture of Jugurtha, but the honour of the success was given to Sulla through dislike of Marius, which caused Marius some uneasiness; for Sulla was naturally of an arrogant disposition, and as this was the first occasion, on whichhe had been raised from a mean condition and obscurity to be of some note among his fellow-citizens, and had tasted the sweets of distinction, he carried his pride so far as to have a seal-ring cut, on which the occurrence was represented, and he wore it constantly. The subject represented was Bocchus surrendering and Sulla receiving the surrender of Jugurtha.

IV.Though Marius was annoyed at this, yet as he still thought Sulla beneath his jealousy, he employed him in his campaigns—in his second consulship in the capacity of legate, and in his third consulship as tribune;[168]and by his instrumentality Marius effected many important objects. In his capacity of legate Sulla took Copillius, king of the Tectosages;[169]and when he was a tribune he persuaded the powerful and populous nation of the Marsi[170]to become friends and allies to Rome. But now perceiving that Marius was jealous of him, and was no longer willing to give him the opportunity of distinguishing himself, but opposed his further rise, Sulla attached himself to Catulus, the colleague of Marius, who was an honest man, but inactive as a soldier. Sulla being entrusted by Catulus with all matters of the greatest moment, thus attained both influence and reputation. In his military operations he reduced a large part of the Alpine barbarians; and on one occasion, when there was a scarcity of provisions in the camp, he undertook to supply the want, which he did so effectually that the soldiers of Catulus had not only abundance for themselves, but were enabled to relieve the army of Marius. This, as Sulla himself says, greatly annoyed Marius. Now this enmity, so slight and childish in its foundation andorigin, was continued through civil war and the inveterate animosity of faction, till it resulted in the establishment of a tyranny and the complete overthrow of the constitution; which shows that Euripides[171]was a wise man and well acquainted with the diseases incident to states, when he warned against ambition, as the most dangerous and the worst of dæmons to those who are governed by her.

V.Sulla now thought that his military reputation entitled him to aspire to a political career, and accordingly as soon as the campaign was ended he began to seek the favour of the people, and became a candidate for the prætorship; but he was disappointed in his expectations. He attributed his failure to the populace, for he says that they knew he was a friend of Bocchus, and if he filled the office of ædile before that of prætor, they expected to have brilliant hunting exhibitions and fights of Libyan[172]wild beasts, and that therefore they elected others to the prætorship, with the view of forcing him to serve as ædile. But that Sulla does not state the real cause of his failure appears evident from what followed. In the next year he obtained the prætorship, having gained the votes of the people, partly by solicitation and partly by bribery. It was in allusion to this, and during his prætorship when he wasthreatening Cæsar[173]to use his own authority against him, that Cæsar replied with a laugh, You are right in considering your authority as your own, for you bought it. After the expiration of his prætorship he was sent to Cappadocia, for the purpose, as it was given out, of restoring Ariobarzanes[174]to his power, but in reality to check Mithridates,[175]who was very active and was acquiring new territory and dominion as extensive as what he already had. Sulla took with him no large force of his own, but meeting with zealous co-operation on the part of the allies, he slaughtered a great number of the Cappadocians, and on another occasion a still greater number of Armenians who had come to the relief of the Cappadocians, drove out Gordius, and declared Ariobarzanes king. While he was staying near the Euphrates, the Parthian general Orobazus, a commander of King Arsaces,[176]had an interview with him, which was the first occasion on which the two nations met; and this also may be considered as one of the very fortunate events in Sulla's successful career, that he was the first Roman to whom the Parthians addressed themselves in their request for an alliance and friendship with Rome. Sulla is said to have had three chairs placed, one for Ariobarzanes, another for Orobazus, and a third for himself, on which he took his seat between the two, while the business was transacted. The king of the Parthians is said to have put Orobazus to death for submitting to this indignity; as to Sulla, some commended him for his haughty treatment of the barbarians, while others blamed him for his arrogance and ill-timed pride. It is said there was a man among the attendants of Orobazus, a Chaldæan,[177]who examined the countenance of Sulla and observed the movements of his mind and body, not as an idle spectator, but studying his character according to the principles of his art, and he declared that of necessity that man must become the first of men, and he wondered that he could endure not to be the first already. On his return to Rome Censorinus[178]instituted proceedings against Sulla on the charge of having received large sums of money, contrary to express law, from a king who was a friend and ally of the Romans. Censorinus did not bring the matter to a trial, but gave up the prosecution.

VI.His quarrel with Marius was kindled anew by fresh matter supplied by the ostentation of King Bocchus, who, with the view of flattering the Roman people and pleasing Sulla, dedicated in the Capitol some figures bearingtrophies, and by the side of them placed a gilded figure of Jugurtha being surrendered by himself to Sulla. Marius was highly incensed and attempted to take the figures down, while others were ready to support Sulla, and the city was all but in a flame through the two factions, when the Social War which had long smouldered burst forth in a blaze upon Rome and stopped the civil discord. In this most serious war, which was attended with many variations of fortune, and brought on the Romans the greatest misery and the most formidable dangers, Marius by his inability to accomplish anything of importance showed that military excellence requires bodily vigour and strength: but Sulla by his great exploits obtained among his own citizens the reputation of a great commander, among his friends the reputation of the very greatest, and among his enemies too the reputation of the most fortunate of generals. Sulla did not behave like Timotheus[179]the son of Konon, whose success was attributed by his enemies to fortune, and they had paintings made in which he was represented asleep while Fortune was throwing a net over the cities, all which he took in a very boorish way, and got into a passion with his enemies, as if they were thus attempting to deprive him of the honour due to his exploits; and on one occasion, returning from a successful expedition, he said to the people, "Well, Fortune has had no share in this campaign, at least, Athenians." Now, as the story goes, Fortune[180]showed her spite to Timotheusin return for his arrogance, and he never did anything great afterwards, but failing in all his undertakings and becoming odious to the people, he was at last banished from the city. But Sulla by gladly accepting such felicitations on his prosperity and such admiration, and even contributing to strengthen these notions and to invest them with somewhat of a sacred character, made all his exploits depend on Fortune; whether it was that he did this for the sake of display, or because he really had such opinions of the deity. Indeed he has recorded in his memoirs, that the actions which he resolved upon without deliberation, and on the spur of the moment, turned out more successfully than those which appeared to have been best considered. And again, from the passage in which he says that he was made more for fortune than for war, he appears to attribute more to fortune than to his merit, and to consider himself completely as the creature of the dæmon;[181]nay, he cites as aproof of good fortune due to the favour of the gods his harmony with Metellus, a man of the same rankwith himself, and his father-in-law, for he expected that Metellus would cause him a good deal of trouble, whereashe was a most accommodating colleague.[182]Further, in his memoirs which he dedicated to Lucullus, he advises him to think nothing so safe as what the dæmon enjoins during the night. When he was leaving the city with his troops for the Social War, as he tells us in his memoirs, a great chasm opened in the earth near Laverna,[183]from which a quantity of fire burst forth, and a bright flame rose like a column to the skies. The diviners said that a brave man, of an appearance different from and superior to ordinary men, would obtain the command and relieve the city from its present troubles, Sulla says this manwas himself, for the golden colour of his hair was a peculiarity in his personal appearance, and that he had no diffidence about bearing testimony to his own merits after so many illustrious exploits. So much as to his religious opinions. As to the other parts of his character, he was irregular and inconsistent: he would take away much, and give more; he would confer honours without any good reason, and do a grievous wrong with just as little reason; he courted those whose assistance he wanted, and behaved with arrogance to those who wanted his aid; so that one could not tell whether he had naturally more haughtiness or subserviency. For as to his inconsistency in punishing, sometimes inflicting death for the slightest matters, and at others quietly bearing the greatest wrongs, his ready reconciliations with his deadly enemies, and his prosecution of slight and trifling offences with death and confiscation of property—all this may be explained on the supposition that he was naturally of a violent and vindictive temper, but sometimes moderated his passion upon calculations of interest. During this Social War his soldiers killed with sticks and stones a man of Prætorian rank, who was his legatus, Albinus[184]by name, an outrage which Sulla overlooked, and made no inquiry about: he went so far as to say, with apparent seriousness, that the soldiers would bestir themselves the more in the war and make amends for their fault by their courage. As to any blame that was imputed to him, he cared not for it; but having already formed the design of overthrowing the power of Marius and of getting himself appointed to the command against Mithridates, as the Social War was now considered at an end, he endeavoured to ingratiate himself with his army. On coming to Rome he was elected consul with Quintus Pompeius[185]for his colleague, being now fifty years of age, and he formed adistinguished matrimonial alliance with Cæcilia,[186]the daughter of Metellus,[187]the chief Pontifex. This gave occasion to the populace to assail him with satirical songs; and many of the highest class were displeased at the marriage, as if they did not think him worthy of such a wife, whom they had judged to be worthy of the consulship, as Titus Livius[188]remarks. Cæcilia was not the only wife that Sulla had. When he was a very young man he married Ilia, who bore him a daughter; his second wife was Ælia; and his third wife was Clœlia, whom he divorced on the ground of barrenness, yet in a manner honourable to the lady, with an ample testimony to her virtues and with presents. But as he married Metella a few days after, it was believed that his alleged ground of divorce was merely a pretext. However, he always paid great respect to Metella, which induced the Romans, when they wished to recall from exile the partisans of Marius, and Sulla refused his assent, to apply to Metella to intercede for them. After the capture of Athens also, it was supposed that he treated the citizens with more severity, because they had cast aspersions upon Metella from their walls. But of this hereafter.

VII.Sulla looked on the consulship as only a small matter compared with what he expected to attain: the great object of his desires was the command in the war against Mithridates. But he had a rival in Marius, who was moved by an insane love of distinction and by ambition, passions which never grow old in a man, for though he was now unwieldy and had done no service in the late campaigns by reason of his age, he still longed for thecommand in a distant war beyond the seas. While Sulla was with the army completing some matters that still remained to be finished, Marius kept at home and hatched that most pestilent faction which did more mischief to Rome than all her wars; and indeed the deity[189]showed by signs what was coming. Fire spontaneously blazed from the wooden shafts which supported the military standards, and was quenched with difficulty; and three crows brought their young into the public road, and after devouring them, carried the fragments back to their nest. The mice in a temple gnawed the gold which was kept there, and the keeper of the temple caught one of the mice, a female, in a trap, which produced in the trap five young ones, and devoured three of them. But what was chief of all, from a cloudless and clear sky there came the sound of a trumpet, so shrill and mournful, that by reason of the greatness thereof men were beside themselves and crouched for fear. The Tuscan seers interpreted this to portend the commencement of a new period, and a general change. They say that there are in all eight periods, which differ in mode of life and habits altogether from one another, and to each period is assigned by the deity a certain number of years determined by the revolution of a great year. When a period is completed, the commencement of another is indicated by some wondrous sign on the earth or from the heavens, so as to make it immediately evident to those who attend to such matters and have studied them, that men are now adopting other habits and modes of life, and are less or more an object of care to the gods than the men of former periods. They say, in the change from one period to another there are great alterations, and that the art of the seer at one time is held in high repute, and is successful in its predictions, when the deity gives clear and manifest signs, but that in the course of another period the art falls into a low condition, being for the most part conjectural, and attempting to know the future by equivocal and misty signs. Now this is what the Tuscan wise men said, who are supposed to know more of suchthings than anybody else. While the senate was communicating on these omens with the seers, in the temple of Bellona,[190]a sparrow flew in before the whole body with a grasshopper in his mouth, part of which he dropped, and the rest he carried off with him out of the place. From this the interpreters of omens apprehended faction and divisions between the landholders on the one side and the city folk and the merchant class on the other, for the latter were loud and noisy like a grasshopper, but the owners of land kept quiet on their estates.

VIII.Now Marius contrived to gain over the tribune Sulpicius,[191]a man without rival in any kind of villainy, and so one need not inquire whom he surpassed in wickedness, but only wherein he surpassed himself. For in him were combined cruelty, audacity, and rapaciousness, without any consideration of shame or of any crime, inasmuch as he sold the Roman citizenship to libertini[192]and resident aliens, and publicly received the money at a table in the Forum. He maintained three thousand men armed with daggers, and also a number of young men of the equestrian class always about him, and ready for anything, whom he called the Opposition Senate. He caused a law to be passed that no Senator should contract debt[193]to the amount of more than two thousand drachmæ, and yet at his death he left behind him a debt[193]of three millions. This man being let loose upon the people by Marius, and putting everything into a state of confusion by violence and force of arms, framed various pernicious laws, and among them that which gave to Marius the command in the Mithridatic war. The consuls accordinglydeclared a cessation[194]of all public business; but while they were holding a meeting of the people near the temple of Castor and Pollux, Sulpicius with his rabble attacked them, and among many others massacred the youthful son of Pompeius in the Forum; Pompeius only escaped by hiding himself. Sulla was pursued into the house of Marius, from which he was compelled to come out and repeal the edict for the cessation of public business; and it was for this reason that Sulpicius, though he deprived Pompeius of his office, did not take the consulship from Sulla, but, merely transferred the command of the Mithridatic war to Marius, and sent some tribunes forthwith to Nola to take the army and lead it to Marius.

IX.But Sulla made his escape to the camp before the tribunes arrived, and the soldiers hearing of what had passed, stoned them to death; upon which the partisans of Marius murdered the friends of Sulla who were in the city, and seized their property. This caused many persons to betake themselves to flight, some going to the city from the camp, and others from the camp to the city. The Senate was not its own master, but was compelled to obey the orders of Marius and Sulpicius; and on hearing that Sulla was marching upon Rome, they sent to him two of the prætors, Brutus and Servilius, to forbid him to advance any further. The prætors, who assumed a bold tone before Sulla, narrowly escaped being murdered; as it was, the soldiers broke their fasces, stripped them of their senatorial dress, and sent them back with every insult. It caused dejection in the city to see the prætors return without their insignia of office, and to hear them report that the commotion could not be checked, and was past all remedy. Now the partisans of Marius were making their preparations, while Sulla with his colleague and six complete legions was moving from Nola; he saw that the army was ready to march right to the city, but he had some hesitation himself, and feared the risk.[195]However uponSulla making a sacrifice, the seer Postumius, after inspecting the signs, stretched out his hands to Sulla and urged him to put him in chains and keep him a prisoner till the battle took place, declaring that if everything did not speedily turn out well, he was ready to be put to death. It is said also that Sulla in his sleep had a vision of the goddess, whose worship the Romans had learned from the Cappadocians, whatever her name may be, Selene,[196]Athena, or Enyo. Sulla dreamed that the goddess stood by him and put a thunderbolt into his hand, and as she named each of his enemies bade him dart the bolt at them, which he did, and his enemies were struck to the ground and destroyed. Being encouraged by the dream, which he communicated to his colleague, at daybreak Sulla led his forces against Rome. When he was near Picinæ[197]he was met by a deputation which entreated him not to march forthwith against the city, for all justice would be done pursuant to a resolution of the Senate. Sulla consented to encamp there, and ordered the officers to measure out the ground for the encampment, according to the usual practice, and the deputation went away trusting to his promise. But as soon as they were gone, Sulla sent Lucius Bacillus and Caius Mummius, who seized the gate and that part of the walls which surrounds the Esquiline hill, and Sulla set out to join them with all speed. Bacillus and his soldiers broke into the city and attempted to gain possession of it, but the people in large numbers, being unarmed, mounted the house-tops, and by pelting the soldiers with tiles and stones stopped their further progress, and drove them back to the wall. In the mean time Sulla had come up, and seeing how matters stood, he called out that the houses must be fired, and taking a flaming torch, he was the first to advance: he also ordered the bowmen to shoot firebrands, and to aimat the roofs; in which he acted without any rational consideration, giving way to passion, and surrendering the direction of his enterprize to revenge, for he saw before him only his enemies, and without thought or pity for his friends and kinsmen, would force his way into Rome with the help of flames, which know no distinction between the guilty and the innocent. While this was going on, Marius, who had been driven as far as the temple of Earth,[198]invited the slaves to join him by offering them their freedom, but being overpowered by his enemies who pressed on him, he left the city.

X.Sulla assembled the Senate, who condemned[199]to death Marius and a few others, among whom was the tribune Sulpicius. Sulpicius was put to death, being betrayed by a slave, to whom Sulla gave his freedom, and then ordered him to be thrown down the Tarpeian rock: he set a price on the head of Marius, which was neither a generous nor a politic measure, as Marius had shortly before let Sulla off safe when Sulla put himself into his power by going to the house of Marius. Now if Marius had not let Sulla go, but had given him up to Sulpicius to be put to death, he might have secured the supreme power; but he spared Sulla; and yet a few days after, when Sulla had the same opportunity, Marius did not obtain from him a like return. The conduct of Sulla offended the Senate, though they durst not show it; but the dislike of the people and their dissatisfaction were made apparent to him by their acts. They contemptuously rejected Nonius, the son of Sulla's sister, and Servius, who were candidates for offices, and elected those whose elevation they thought would be most disagreeable to Sulla. But Sulla pretended to be pleased at this, and to view it as a proof that the people, by doing what they liked, were really indebted to him for their liberty; and for the purpose of diminishing his general unpopularityhe managed the election of Lucius Cinna,[200]who was of the opposite faction, to the consulship, having first bound him by solemn imprecations and oaths to favour his measures. Cinna ascended the Capitol with a stone in his hand and took the oath; then pronouncing an imprecation on himself, that, if he did not keep faithful to Sulla, he might be cast out of the city as the stone from his hand, he hurled it to the ground in the presence of a large number of persons. But as soon as Cinna had received the consulship, he attempted to disturb the present settlement of affairs, and prepared to institute a process against Sulla, and induced Virginius, one of the tribunes, to be the accuser; but Sulla,[201]without caring for him or the court, set out with his army against Mithridates.

XI.It is said that about the time when Sulla was conducting his armament from Italy, many omens occurred to Mithridates, who was staying in Pergamum, and that a Victory, bearing a crown, which the people of Pergamum were letting down upon him by some machinery from above, was broken in pieces just as it was touching his head, and the crown falling upon the theatre, came to the ground and was destroyed, which made the spectators shudder and greatly dispirited Mithridates, though his affairs were then going on favourably beyond all expectation. For he had taken Asia[202]from the Romans, andBithynia and Cappadocia from their kings, and had fixed himself at Pergamum, where he was distributing wealth and provinces and kingdoms among his friends; one of his sons also held without any opposition the ancient dominions in Pontus, and the Bosporus[203]as far as the uninhabited regions beyond the Mæotis; Ariarathes[204]occupied Thrace and Macedonia with a large army; and his generals with their forces were subduing other places. Archelaus,[205]the greatest of his generals, was master of all the sea with his navy, and was subjugating the Cyclades[206]and all the other islands east of Malea, and had alreadytaken Eubœa, while with his army, advancing from Athens as his starting-point, he was gaining over all the nations of Greece as far north as Thessaly, and had only sustained a slight check near Chæroneia. For there he was met by Bruttius Sura,[207]a legatus of Sentius, prætor of Macedonia, and a man of signal courage and prudence. Archelaus was sweeping through Bœotia like a torrent, when he was vigorously opposed by Sura, who, after fighting three battles near Chæroneia, repulsed him and drove him back to the coast. On receiving orders from Lucius Lucullus[208]to make room for Sulla, who was coming, and to allow him to carry on the war, for which he had received his commission, Sura immediately left Bœotia and went back to Sentius, though he had succeeded beyond his expectations, and Greece was well disposed to change sides on account of his great merit. However, these exploits of Bruttius were very brilliant.

XII.Now all the rest of the Grecian cities immediately sent deputations to Sulla and invited him to enter; but against Athens, which was compelled by the tyrant Aristion[209]to be on the king's side, he directed all hisenergies; he also hemmed in and blockaded the Peiræus,[210]employing every variety of engine and every mode of attack. If he had waited a short time, he might have taken the Upper City without danger, for through want of provisions it was reduced by famine to extreme necessity; but anxious to return to Rome, and fearing a new revolution there, at great risk fighting many battles and at great cost he urged on the war, wherein, besides the rest of the expenditure, the labour about the military engines required ten thousand pair of mules to be daily employed on this service. As wood began to fail, owing to many of the works being destroyed by their own weight, and burnt by the incessant fires thrown by the enemy, Sulla laid his hands on the several groves and levelled the trees in the Academia,[211]which was the best wooded of the suburbs, and those in the Lycæum. And as he wanted money also for the war, he violated the sacred depositaries of Greece, sending for the finest and most costly of the offerings dedicated in Epidaurus[212]andOlympia. He wrote also to the Amphiktyons[213]to Delphi, saying that it would be better for the treasures of the god to be brought to him, for he would either have them in safer keeping, or, if he used them, he would replace them; and he sent one of his friends, Kaphis, a Phokian, to receive all the things after they were first weighed. Kaphis went to Delphi, but he was afraid to touch the sacred things, and in the presence of the Amphiktyons he deeply lamented the task that was imposed on him. Upon some of them saying that they heard the lute in the shrine send forth a sound, Kaphis either believing what they said or wishing to inspire Sulla with some religious fear, sent him this information. But Sulla replied in a scoffing tone, he wondered Kaphis did not understand that such music was a sign of pleasure and not of anger, andhe bade him take courage and seize the property, as the deity was quite willing, and in fact offered it. Now all the things were secretly sent off unobserved by most of the Greeks; but the silver jar, one of the royal presents which still remained, could not be carried away by the beasts of burden owing to its weight and size, and the Amphiktyons were accordingly obliged to cut it in pieces; and this led them to reflect that Titus Flamininus,[214]and Manius Acilius, and also Æmilius Paulus—Acilius, who drove Antiochus out of Greece; and the two others, who totally defeated the kings of Macedonia—not only refrained from touching the Greek temples, but even gave them presents and showed them great honour and respect. These generals, however, were legally appointed to command troops consisting of well-disciplined soldiers, who had been taught to obey their leaders without a murmur: and the commanders themselves were men of kingly souls, and moderate in their living and satisfied with a small fixed expenditure, and they thought it baser to attempt to win the soldiers' favour than to fear their enemies. But the generals at this time, as they acquired their rank by violence and not by merit, and had more occasion to employ arms against one another than against the enemies of Rome, were compelled to act the demagogue while they were in command; and by purchasing the services of the soldiers by the money which they expended to gratify them, they made the Roman state a thing for bargain and sale, and themselves the slaves of the vilest wretches in order that they might domineer over honest men. This is what drove Marius into exile, and then brought him back to oppose Sulla; this made Cinna the murderer of Octavius,[215]and Fimbria[216]the murderer ofFlaccus. And Sulla mainly laid the foundation of all this by his profusion and expenditure upon his own soldiers, the object of which was to corrupt and gain over to his side the soldiers of other commanders; so that his attempts to seduce the troops of others and the extravagance by which his own soldiers were corrupted, made money always necessary to him; and most particularly during the siege of Athens.

XIII.Now Sulla was seized with a violent and irresistible desire to take Athens, whether it was that he was ambitious to contend against a city which retained only the shadow of its former glory, or that he was moved by passion to revenge the scoffs and jeers with which the tyrant Aristion irritated him and his wife Metella, by continually taunting them from the wall and insulting them. This Aristion was a compound of lewdness and cruelty, who combined in himself all the worst of the vices and passions of Mithridates, and now had brought as it were a mortal disease in its last extremities upon a city which had come safe out of so many wars and escaped from so many tyrannies and civil commotions. For now when a medimnus[217]of wheat was selling for a thousand drachmæ in the Upper City, and men were obliged to eat the parthenium[218]that grew about the Acropolis, and shoes and oil-flasks, he was drinking all day long and amusing himself with revels and pyrrhic dances, and making jokes at the enemy: he let the sacred light of the goddess go out for want of oil; when the hierophant sent to ask for the twelfth part of a medimnus of wheat, he sent her as much pepper; and when the members of the Senate and the priests entreated him to have pity on the city andcome to terms with Sulla, he dispersed them by ordering the archers to fire on them. At last being persuaded with great difficulty, he sent two or three of his boon companions to treat of peace; but instead of making any reasonable proposals, the men began to make a pompous harangue about Theseus and Eumolpus, and the Persian wars, on which Sulla said, "Be gone, my good fellows, with your fine talk. I was not sent to Athens by the Romans to learn a lesson, but to compel rebels to submit."

XIV.In the mean time, as the story goes, some soldiers in the Keramicus[219]overheard certain old men talking to one another, and abusing the tyrant for not guarding the approach to the wall about the Heptachalkum, which was the only part, they said, where it was practicable and easy for the enemy to get over; and the soldiers reported to Sulla what they heard. Sulla did not neglect the intelligence, but he went to the spot by night, and seeing that it was practicable, he set about the thing forthwith. He says in his Memoirs that the first man who mounted the wall was Marcus Teius,[220]who, finding a soldier in his way, struck him a violent blow on the helmet, which broke his sword; still Marcus did not retreat, but kept his ground. The city then was taken from this quarter, as the old Athenians said it might be. Sulla having destroyed and levelled that part of the wall which lies between the Peiræic and the Sacred[221]Gate, about midnight entered the city, striking terror with the sound of trumpets and horns, and the shouts and cries of the soldiers, who had his full licence to plunder and kill, and made their way through the streets with naked swords. The slain were not counted, but the number is even now measured by thespace over which the blood flowed. For besides those who were slaughtered in the other parts of the city, the blood of those who fell about the Agora[222]covered all the Keramicus within Dipylum: many say that it even flowed through the gates and deluged the suburbs. But though the number of those who perished by the sword was so great, as many killed themselves for sorrow and regret at the overthrow of their native city. For all the most honest citizens were driven to despair, expecting in Sulla neither humanity nor moderation. But, however, when Meidias and Kalliphon, who were exiles, fell down at his knees with entreaties, and the Senators who were in his army urged him to save the city, being now sated with vengeance and passing some encomiums upon the ancient Athenians, he said he would pardon the many for the sake of the few, and the living for the sake of the dead. Sulla states in his Memoirs, that he took Athens on the Calends of March,[223]which day nearly coincides with the new moon of Anthesterion, in which month it happens that the Athenians perform many ceremonies in commemoration of the great damage and loss occasioned by the heavy rain, for they suppose that the deluge happened pretty nearly about that time. When the city was taken the tyrant retreated to the Acropolis, where he was besieged by Curio, who was commissioned for this purpose: after he had held out for some time, Aristion was compelled to surrender for want of water; his surrender was immediately followed by a token from the deity, for on the very day and hour on which Curio took the tyrant from the Acropolis, the clouds gathered in the clear sky, and a violent shower descended which filled the Acropolis with water. Sulla soon took the Peiræus also, and burntthe greater part of it, including the arsenal of Philo,[224]which was a wonderful work.

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