Aquillius Brings about WarNicomedes
Thus matters stood between peace and war, and looked quite as if they would drag on for long in the same indecisive position. But it was not the intention of Aquillius to allow this; and, as he could not compel his government to declare war against Mithradates, he made use of Nicomedes for that purpose. The latter, who was under the power of the Roman general and was, moreover, his debtor for the accumulated war expenses and for sums promised to the general in person, could not avoid complying with the suggestion that he should begin war with Mithradates. The declaration of war by Bithynia took place; but, even when the vessels of Nicomedes closed the Bosporus against those of Pontus, and his troops marched into the frontier districts of Pontus and laid waste the region of Amastris, Mithradates remained still unshaken in his policy of peace; instead of driving the Bithynians over the frontier, he lodged a complaint with the Roman envoys and asked them either to mediate or to allow him the privilege of self-defence. But he was informed by Aquillius, that he must under all circumstances refrain from war against Nicomedes. That indeed was plain. They had employed exactly the same policy against Carthage; they allowed the victim to be set upon by the Roman hounds and forbade its defending itself against them. Mithradates reckoned himself lost, just as the Carthaginians had done; but, while the Phoenicians yielded from despair, the king of Sinope did the very opposite and assembled his troops and ships. "Does not even he who must succumb," he is reported to have said, "defend himself against the robber?" His son Ariobarzanes received orders to advance into Cappadocia; a message was sent once more to the Roman envoys to inform them of the step to which necessity had driven the king, and to demand their ultimatum. It was to the effect which was to be anticipated. Although neither the Roman senate nor king Mithradates nor king Nicomedes had desired the rupture, Aquillius desired it and war ensued (end of 665).
Preparations of Mithradates
Mithradates prosecuted the political and military preparations for the passage of arms thus forced upon him with all his characteristic energy. First of all he drew closer his alliance with Tigranes king of Armenia, and obtained from him the promise of an auxiliary army which was to march into western Asia and to take possession of the soil there for king Mithradates and of the moveable property for king Tigranes. The Parthian king, offended by the haughty carriage of Sulla, though not exactly coming forward as an antagonist to the Romans, did not act as their ally. To the Greeks the king endeavoured to present himself in the character of Philip and Perseus, as the defender of the Greek nation against the alien rule of the Romans. Pontic envoys were sent to the king of Egypt and to the last remnant of free Greece, the league of the Cretan cities, and adjured those for whom Rome had already forged her chains to rise now at the last moment and save Hellenic nationality; the attempt was in the case of Crete at least not wholly in vain, and numerous Cretans took service in the Pontic army. Hopes were entertained that the lesser and least of the protected states—Numidia, Syria, the Hellenic republics—would successively rebel, and that the provinces would revolt, particularly the west of Asia Minor, the victim of unbounded oppression. Efforts were made to excite a Thracian rising, and even to arouse Macedonia to revolt. Piracy, which even previously was flourishing, was now everywhere let loose as a most welcome ally, and with alarming rapidity squadrons of corsairs, calling themselves Pontic privateers, filled the Mediterranean far and wide. With eagerness and delight accounts were received of the commotions among the Roman burgesses, and of the Italian insurrection subdued yet far from extinguished. No direct relations, however, were formed with the discontented and the insurgents in Italy; except that a foreign corps armed and organized in the Roman fashion was created in Asia, the flower of which consisted of Roman and Italian refugees. Forces like those of Mithradates had not been seen in Asia since the Persian wars. The statements that, leaving out of account the Armenian auxiliary army, he took the field with 250,000 infantry and 40,000 cavalry, and that 300 Pontic decked and 100 open vessels put to sea, seem not too exaggerated in the case of a warlike sovereign who had at his disposal the numberless inhabitants of the steppes. His generals, particularly the brothers Neoptolemus and Archelaus, were experienced and cautious Greek captains; among the soldiers of the king there was no want of brave men who despised death; and the armour glittering with gold and silver and the rich dresses of the Scythians and Medes mingled gaily with the bronze and steel of the Greek troopers. No unity of military organization, it is true, bound together these party-coloured masses; the army of Mithradates was just one of those unwieldy Asiatic war-machines, which had so often already—on the last occasion exactly a century before at Magnesia— succumbed to a superior military organization; but still the east was in arms against the Romans, while in the western half of the empire also matters looked far from peaceful.
Weak Counterpreparatons of the Romans
However much it was in itself a political necessity for Rome to declare war against Mithradates, yet the particular moment was as unhappily chosen as possible; and for this reason it is very probable that Manius Aquillius brought about the rupture between Rome and Mithradates at this precise time primarily from regard to his own interests. For the moment they had no other troops at their disposal in Asia than the small Roman division under Lucius Cassius and the militia of western Asia, and, owing to the military and financial distress in which they were placed at home in consequence of the insurrectionary war, a Roman army could not in the most favourable case land in Asia before the summer of 666. Hitherto the Roman magistrates there had a difficult position; but they hoped to protect the Roman province and to be able to hold their ground as they stood—the Bithynian army under king Nicomedes in its position taken up in the previous year in the Paphlagonian territory between Amastris and Sinope, and the divisions under Lucius Cassius, Manius Aquillius, and Quintus Oppius, farther back in the Bithynian, Galatian, and Cappadocian territories, while the Bithyno-Roman fleet continued to blockade the Bosporus.
Mithradates Occupies Asia MinorAnti-Roman Movements There
In the beginning of the spring of 666 Mithradates assumed the offensive. On a tributary of the Halys, the Amnias (near the modern Tesch Kopri), the Pontic vanguard of cavalry and light-armed troops encountered the Bithynian army, and notwithstanding its very superior numbers so broke it at the first onset that the beaten army dispersed and the camp and military chest fell into the hands of the victors. It was mainly to Neoptolemus and Archelaus that the king was indebted for this brilliant success. The far more wretched Asiatic militia, stationed farther back, thereupon gave themselves up as vanquished, even before they encountered the enemy; when the generals of Mithradates approached them, they dispersed. A Roman division was defeated in Cappadocia; Cassius sought to keep the field in Phrygia with the militia, but he discharged it again without venturing on a battle, and threw himself with his few trustworthy troops into the townships on the upper Maeander, particularly into Apamea. Oppius in like manner evacuated Pamphylia and shut himself up in the Phrygian Laodicea; Aquillius was overtaken while retreating at the Sangarius in the Bithynian territory, and so totally defeated that he lost his camp and had to seek refuge at Pergamus in the Roman province; the latter also was soon overrun, and Pergamus itself fell into the hands of the king, as likewise the Bosporus and the ships that were there. After each victory Mithradates had dismissed all the prisoners belonging to the militia of Asia Minor, and had neglected no step to raise to a higher pitch the national sympathies that were from the first turned towards him. Now the whole country as far as the Maeander was with the exception of a few fortresses in his power; and news at the same time arrived, that a new revolution had broken out at Rome, that the consul Sulla destined to act against Mithradates had instead of embarking for Asia marched on Rome, that the most celebrated Roman generals were fighting battles with each other in order to settle to whom the chief command in the Asiatic war should belong. Rome seemed zealously employed in the work of self-destruction: it is no wonder that, though even now minorities everywhere adhered to Rome, the great body of the natives of Asia Minor joined the Pontic king. Hellenes and Asiatics united in the rejoicing which welcomed the deliverer; it became usual to compliment the king, in whom as in the divine conqueror of the Indians Asia and Hellas once more found a common meeting-point, under the name of the new Dionysus. The cities and islands sent messengers to meet him, wherever he went, and to invite "the delivering god" to visit them; and in festal attire the citizens flocked forth in front of their gates to receive him. Several places delivered the Roman officers sojourning among them in chains to the king; Laodicea thus surrendered Quintus Oppius, the commandant of the town, and Mytilene in Lesbos the consular Manius Aquillius.(12) The whole fury of the barbarian, who gets the man before whom he has trembled into his power, discharged itself on the unhappy author of the war. The aged man was led throughout Asia Minor, sometimes on foot chained to a powerful mounted Bastarnian, sometimes bound on an ass and proclaiming his own name; and, when at length the pitiful spectacle again arrived at the royal quarters in Pergamus, by the king's orders molten gold was poured down his throat—in order to satiate his avarice, which had really occasioned the war— till he expired in torture.
Orders Issued from Ephesus for a General Massacre
But the king was not content with this savage mockery, which alone suffices to erase its author's name from the roll of true nobility. From Ephesus king Mithradates issued orders to all the governors and cities dependent on him to put to death on one and the same day all Italians residing within their bounds, whether free or slaves, without distinction of sex or age, and on no account, under severe penalties, to aid any of the proscribed to escape; to cast forth the corpses of the slain as a prey to the birds; to confiscate their property and to hand over one half of it to the murderers, and the other half to the king. The horrible orders were—excepting in a few districts, such as the island of Cos—punctually executed, and eighty, or according to other accounts one hundred and fifty, thousand—if not innocent, at least defenceless—men, women, and children were slaughtered in cold blood in one day in Asia Minor; a fearful execution, in which the good opportunity of getting rid of debts and the Asiatic servile willingness to perform any executioner's office at the bidding of the sultan had at least as much part as the comparatively noble feeling of revenge. In a political point of view this measure was not only without any rational object—for its financial purpose might have been attained without this bloody edict, and the natives of Asia Minor were not to be driven into warlike zeal even by the consciousness of the most blood-stained guilt—but even opposed to the king's designs, for on the one hand it compelled the Roman senate, so far as it was still capable of energy at all, to an energetic prosecution of the war, and on the other hand it struck at not the Romans merely, but the king's natural allies as well, the non-Roman Italians. This Ephesian massacre was altogether a mere meaningless act of brutally blind revenge, which obtains a false semblance of grandeur simply through the colossal proportions in which the character of sultanic rule was here displayed.
Organization of the Conquered Provinces
The king's views altogether grew high; he had begun the war from despair, but the unexpectedly easy victory and the non-arrival of the dreaded Sulla occasioned a transition to the most highflown hopes. He set up his home in the west of Asia Minor; Pergamus the seat of the Roman governor became his new capital, the old kingdom of Sinope was handed over to the king's son Mithradates to be administered as a viceroyship; Cappadocia, Phrygia, Bithynia were organized as Pontic satrapies. The grandees of the empire and the king's favourites were loaded with rich gifts and fiefs, and not only were the arrears of taxes remitted, but exemption from taxation for five years was promised, to all the communities- a measure which was as much a mistake as the massacre of the Romans, if the king expected thereby to secure the fidelity of the inhabitants of Asia Minor.
The king's treasury was, no doubt, copiously replenished otherwise by the immense sums which accrued from the property of the Italians and other confiscations; for instance in Cos alone 800 talents (195,000 pounds) which the Jews had deposited there were carried of by Mithradates. The northern portion of Asia Minor and most of the islands belonging to it were in the king's power; except some petty Paphlagonian dynasts, there was hardly a district which still adhered to Rome; the whole Aegean Sea was commanded by his fleets. The south- west alone, the city-leagues of Caria and Lycia and the city of Rhodes, resisted him. In Caria, no doubt, Stratonicea was reduced by force of arms; but Magnesia on the Sipylus successfully withstood a severe siege, in which Mithradates' ablest officer Archelaus was defeated and wounded. Rhodes, the asylum of the Romans who had escaped from Asia with the governor Lucius Cassius among them, was assailed on the part of Mithradates by sea and land with immense superiority of force. But his sailors, courageously as they did their duty under the eyes of the king, were awkward novices, and so Rhodian squadrons vanquished those of Pontus four times as strong and returned home with captured vessels. By land also the siege made no progress; after a part of the works had been destroyed, Mithradates abandoned the enterprise, and the important island as well as the mainland opposite remained in the hands of the Romans.
Pontic Invasion of EuropePredatory Inroads of the ThraciansThrace and Macedonia Occupied by the Pontic ArmiesPontic Fleet in the Aegean
But not only was the Asiatic province occupied by Mithradates almost without defending itself, chiefly in consequence of the Sulpician revolution breaking out at a most unfavourable time; Mithradates even directed an attack against Europe. Already since 662 the neighbours of Macedonia on her northern and eastern frontier had been renewing their incursions with remarkable vehemence and perseverance; in the years 664, 665 the Thracians overran Macedonia and all Epirus and plundered the temple of Dodona. Still more singular was the circumstance, that with these movements was combined a renewed attempt to place a pretender on the Macedonian throne in the person of one Euphenes. Mithradates, who from the Crimea maintained connections with the Thracians, was hardly a stranger to all these events. The praetor Gaius Sentius defended himself, it is true, against these intruders with the aid of the Thracian Dentheletae; but it was not long before mightier opponents came against him. Mithradates, carried away by his successes, had formed the bold resolution that he would, like Antiochus, bring the war for the sovereignty of Asia to a decision in Greece, and had by land and sea directed thither the flower of his troops. His son Ariarathes penetrated from Thrace into the weakly-defended Macedonia, subduing the country as he advanced and parcelling it into Pontic satrapies. Abdera and Philippi became the principal bases for the operations of the Pontic arms in Europe. The Pontic fleet, commanded by Mithradates' best general Archelaus, appeared in the Aegean Sea, where scarce a Roman sail was to be found. Delos, the emporium of the Roman commerce in those waters, was occupied and nearly 20,000 men, mostly Italians, were massacred there; Euboea suffered a similar fate; all the islands to the east of the Malean promontory were soon in the hands of the enemy; they might proceed to attack the mainland itself. The assault, no doubt, which the Pontic fleet made from Euboea on the important Demetrias, was repelled by Bruttius Sura, the brave lieutenant of the governor of Macedonia, with his handful of troops and a few vessels hurriedly collected, and he even occupied the island of Sciathus; but he could not prevent the enemy from establishing himself in Greece proper.
The Pontic Proceedings in Greece
There Mithradates carried on his operations not only by arms, but at the same time by national propagandism. His chief instrument for Athens was one Aristion, by birth an Attic slave, by profession formerly a teacher of the Epicurean philosophy, now a minion of Mithradates; an excellent master of persuasion, who by the brilliant career which he pursued at court knew how to dazzle the mob, and with due gravity to assure them that help was already on the way to Mithradates from Carthage, which had been for about sixty years lying in ruins. These addresses of the new Pericles were so far effectual that, while the few persons possessed of judgment escaped from Athens, the mob and one or two literati whose heads were turned formally renounced the Roman rule. So the ex-philosopher became a despot who, supported by his bands of Pontic mercenaries, commenced an infamous and bloody rule; and the Piraeeus was converted into a Pontic harbour. As soon as the troops of Mithradates gained a footing on the Greek continent, most of the small free states—the Achaeans, Laconians, Boeotians—as far as Thessaly joined them. Sura, after having drawn some reinforcements from Macedonia, advanced into Boeotia to bring help to the besieged Thespiae and engaged in conflicts with Archelaus and Aristion during three days at Chaeronea; but they led to no decision and Sura was obliged to retire when the Pontic reinforcements from the Peloponnesus approached (end of 666, beg. of 667). So commanding was the position of Mithradates, particularly by sea, that an embassy of Italian insurgents could invite him to make an attempt to land in Italy; but their cause was already by that time lost, and the king rejected the suggestion.
Position of the Romans
The position of the Roman government began to be critical. Asia Minor and Hellas were wholly, Macedonia to a considerable extent, in the enemy's hands; by sea the Pontic flag ruled without a rival. Then there was the Italian insurrection, which, though baffled on the whole, still held the undisputed command of wide districts of Italy; the barely hushed revolution, which threatened every moment to break out afresh and more formidably; and, lastly, the alarming commercial and monetary crisis(13) occasioned by the internal troubles of Italy and the enormous losses of the Asiatic capitalists, and the want of trustworthy troops. The government would have required three armies, to keep down the revolution in Rome, to crush completely the insurrection in Italy, and to wage war in Asia; it had but one, that of Sulla; for the northern army was, under the untrustworthy Gnaeus Strabo, simply an additional embarrassment. Sulla had to choose which of these three tasks he would undertake; he decided, as we have seen, for the Asiatic war. It was no trifling matter—we should perhaps say, it was a great act of patriotism—that in this conflict between the general interest of his country and the special interest of his party the former retained the ascendency; and that Sulla, in spite of the dangers which his removal from Italy involved for his constitution and his party, landed in the spring of 667 on the coast of Epirus.
Sulla's LandingGreece Occupied
But he came not, as Roman commanders-in-chief had been wont to make their appearance in the East. That his army of five legions or of at most 30,000 men,(14) was little stronger than an ordinary consular army, was the least element of difference. Formerly in the eastern wars a Roman fleet had never been wanting, and had in fact without exception commanded the sea; Sulla, sent to reconquer two continents and the islands of the Aegean sea, arrived without a single vessel of war. Formerly the general had brought with him a full chest and drawn the greatest portion of his supplies by sea from home; Sulla came with empty hands—for the sums raised with difficulty for the campaign of 666 were expended in Italy—and found himself exclusively left dependent on requisitions. Formerly the general had found his only opponent in the enemy's camp, and since the close of the struggle between the orders political factions had without exception been united in opposing the public foe; but Romans of note fought under the standards of Mithradates, large districts of Italy desired to enter into alliance with him, and it was at least doubtful whether the democratic party would follow the glorious example that Sulla had set before it, and keep truce with him so long as he was fighting against the Asiatic king. But the vigorous general, who had to contend with all these embarrassments, was not accustomed to trouble himself about more remote dangers before finishing the task immediately in hand. When his proposals of peace addressed to the king, which substantially amounted to a restoration of the state of matters before the war, met with no acceptance, he advanced just as he had landed, from the harbours of Epirus to Boeotia, defeated the generals of the enemy Archelaus and Aristion there at Mount Tilphossium, and after that victory possessed himself almost without resistance of the whole Grecian mainland with the exception of the fortresses of Athens and the Piraeeus, into which Aristion and Archelaus had thrown themselves, and which he failed to carry by a coup de main. A Roman division under Lucius Hortensius occupied Thessaly and made incursions into Macedonia; another under Munatius stationed itself before Chalcis, to keep off the enemy's corps under Neoptolemus in Euboea; Sulla himself formed a camp at Eleusis and Megara, from which he commanded Greece and the Peloponnesus, and prosecuted the siege of the city and harbour of Athens. The Hellenic cities, governed as they always were by their immediate fears, submitted unconditionally to the Romans, and were glad when they were allowed to ransom themselves from more severe punishment by supplying provisions and men and paying fines.
Protracted Siege of Athens and the PiraeusAthens Falls
The sieges in Attica advanced less rapidly. Sulla found himself compelled to prepare all sorts of heavy besieging implements for which the trees of the Academy and the Lyceum had to supply the timber. Archelaus conducted the defence with equal vigour and judgment; he armed the crews of his vessels, and thus reinforced repelled the attacks of the Romans with superior strength and made frequent and not seldom successful sorties. The Pontic army of Dromichaetes advancing to the relief of the city was defeated under the walls of Athens by the Romans after a severe struggle, in which Sulla's brave legate Lucius Licinius Murena particularly distinguished himself; but the siege did not on that account advance more rapidly. From Macedonia, where the Cappadocians had meanwhile definitively established themselves, plentiful and regular supplies arrived by sea, which Sulla was not in a condition to cut off from the harbour- fortress; in Athens no doubt provisions were beginning to fail, but from the proximity of the two fortresses Archelaus was enabled to make various attempts to throw quantities of grain into Athens, which were not wholly unsuccessful. So the winter of 667-8 passed away tediously without result. As soon as the season allowed, Sulla threw himself with vehemence on the Piraeus; he in fact succeeded by missiles and mines in making a breach in part of the strong walls of Pericles, and immediately the Romans advanced to the assault; but it was repulsed, and on its being renewed crescent-shaped entrenchments were found constructed behind the fallen walls, from which the invaders found themselves assailed on three sides with missiles and compelled to retire. Sulla then raised the siege, and contented himself with a blockade. In the meanwhile the provisions in Athens were wholly exhausted; the garrison attempted to procure a capitulation, but Sulla sent back their fluent envoys with the hint that he stood before them not as a student but as a general, and would accept only unconditional surrender. When Aristion, well knowing what fate was in store for him, delayed compliance, the ladders were applied and the city, hardly any longer defended, was taken by storm (1 March 668). Aristion threw himself into the Acropolis, where he soon afterwards surrendered. The Roman general left the soldiery to murder and plunder in the captured city and the more considerable ringleaders of the revolt to be executed; but the city itself obtained back from him its liberty and its possessions— even the important Delos,—and was thus once more saved by its illustrious dead.
Critical Position of SullaWant of a Fleet
The Epicurean schoolmaster had thus been vanquished; but the position of Sulla remained in the highest degree difficult, and even desperate. He had now been more than a year in the field without having advanced a step worth mentioning; a single port mocked all his exertions, while Asia was utterly left to itself, and the conquest of Macedonia by Mithradates' lieutenants had recently been completed by the capture of Amphipolis. Without a fleet—it was becoming daily more apparent—it was not only impossible to secure his communications and supplies in presence of the ships of the enemy and the numerous pirates, but impossible to recover even the Piraeeus, to say nothing of Asia and the islands; and yet it was difficult to see how ships of war were to be got. As early as the winter of 667-8 Sulla had despatched one of his ablest and most dexterous officers, Lucius Licinius Lucullus, into the eastern waters, to raise ships there if possible. Lucullus put to sea with six open boats, which he had borrowed from the Rhodians and other small communities; he himself merely by an accident escaped from a piratic squadron, which captured most of his boats; deceiving the enemy by changing his vessels he arrived by way of Crete and Cyrene at Alexandria; but the Egyptian court rejected his request for the support of ships of war with equal courtesy and decision. Hardly anything illustrates so clearly as does this fact the sad decay of the Roman state, which had once been able gratefully to decline the offer of the kings of Egypt to assist the Romans with all their naval force, and now itself seemed to the Alexandrian statesmen bankrupt. To all this fell to be added the financial embarrassment; Sulla had already been obliged to empty the treasuries of the Olympian Zeus, of the Delphic Apollo, and of the Epidaurian Asklepios, for which the gods were compensated by the moiety, confiscated by way of penalty, of the Theban territory. But far worse than all this military and financial perplexity was the reaction of the political revolution in Rome; the rapid, sweeping, violent accomplishment of which had far surpassed the worst apprehensions. The revolution conducted the government in the capital; Sulla had been deposed, his Asiatic command had been entrusted to the democratic consul Lucius Valerius Flaccus, who might be daily looked for in Greece. The soldiers had no doubt adhered to Sulla, who made every effort to keep them in good humour; but what could be expected, when money and supplies were wanting, when the general was deposed and proscribed, when his successor was on the way, and, in addition to all this, the war against the tough antagonist who commanded the sea was protracted without prospect of a close?
Pontic Armies Enter GreeceEvacuation of the Piraeus
King Mithradates undertook to deliver his antagonist from his perilous position. He it was, to all appearance, who disapproved the defensive system of his generals and sent orders to them to vanquish the enemy with the utmost speed. As early as 667 his son Ariarathes had started from Macedonia to combat Sulla in Greece proper; only the sudden death, which overtook the prince on the march at the Tisaean promontory in Thessaly, had at that time led to the abandonment of the expedition. His successor Taxiles now appeared (668), driving before him the Roman corps stationed in Thessaly, with an army of, it is said, 100,000 infantry and 10,000 cavalry at Thermopylae. Dromichaetes joined him. Archelaus also—compelled, apparently, not so much by Sulla's arms as by his master's orders— evacuated the Piraeeus first partially and then entirely, and joined the Pontic main army in Boeotia. Sulla, after the Piraeeus with all its greatly-admired fortifications had been by his orders destroyed, followed the Pontic army, in the hope of being able to fight a pitched battle before the arrival of Flaccus. In vain Archelaus advised that they should avoid such a battle, but should keep the sea and the coast occupied and the enemy in suspense. Now just as formerly under Darius and Antiochus, the masses of the Orientals, like animals terrified in the midst of a fire, flung themselves hastily and blindly into battle; and did so on this occasion more foolishly than ever, since the Asiatics might perhaps have needed to wait but a few months in order to be the spectators of a battle between Sulla and Flaccus.
Battle of Chaerones
In the plain of the Cephissus not far from Chaeronea, in March 668, the armies met. Even including the division driven back from Thessaly, which had succeeded in accomplishing its junction with the Roman main army, and including the Greek contingents, the Roman army found itself opposed to a foe three times as strong and particularly to a cavalry fur superior and from the nature of the field of battle very dangerous, against which Sulla found it necessary to protect his flanks by digging trenches, while in front he caused a chain of palisades to be introduced between his first and second lines for protection against the enemy's war-chariots. When the war chariots rolled on to open the battle, the first line of the Romans withdrew behind this row of stakes: the chariots, rebounding from it and scared by the Roman slingers and archers, threw themselves on their own line and carried confusion both into the Macedonian phalanx and into the corps of the Italian refugees. Archelaus brought up in haste his cavalry from both flanks and sent it to engage the enemy, with a view to gain time for rearranging his infantry; it charged with great fury and broke through the Roman ranks; but the Roman infantry rapidly formed in close masses and courageously withstood the horsemen assailing them on every side. Meanwhile Sulla himself on the right wing led his cavalry against the exposed flank of the enemy; the Asiatic infantry gave way before it was even properly engaged, and its giving way carried confusion also into the masses of the cavalry. A general attack of the Roman infantry, which through the wavering demeanour of the hostile cavalry gained time to breathe, decided the victory. The closing of the gates of the camp which Archelaus ordered to check the flight, only increased the slaughter, and when the gates at length were opened, the Romans entered at the same time with the Asiatics. It is said that Archelaus brought not a twelfth part of his force in safety to Chalcis; Sulla followed him to the Euripus; he was not in a position to cross that narrow arm of the sea.
Slight Effect of the VictorySulla and Flaccus
It was a great victory, but the results were trifling, partly because of the want of a fleet, partly because the Roman conqueror, instead of pursuing the vanquished, was under the necessity in the first instance of protecting himself against his own countrymen. The sea was still exclusively covered by Pontic squadrons, which now showed themselves even to the westward of the Malean promontory; even after the battle of Chaeronea Archelaus landed troops on Zacynthus and made an attempt to establish himself on that island. Moreover Lucius Flaccus had in the meanwhile actually landed with two legions in Epirus, not without having sustained severe loss on the way from storms and from the war-vessels of the enemy cruising in the Adriatic; his troops were already in Thessaly; thither Sulla had in the first instance to turn. The two Roman armies encamped over against each other at Melitaea on the northern slope of Mount Othrys; a collision seemed inevitable. But Flaccus, after he had opportunity of convincing himself that Sulla's soldiers were by no means inclined to betray their victorious leader to the totally unknown democratic commander-in chief, but that on the contrary his own advanced guard began to desert to Sulla's camp, evaded a conflict to which he was in no respect equal, and set out towards the north, with the view of getting through Macedonia and Thrace to Asia and there paving the way for further results by subduing Mithradates. That Sulla should have allowed his weaker opponent to depart without hindrance, and instead of following him should have returned to Athens, where he seems to have passed the winter of 668-9, is in a military point of view surprising. We may suppose perhaps that in this also he was guided by political motives, and that he was sufficiently moderate and patriotic in his views willingly to forgo a victory over his countrymen, at least so long as they had still the Asiatics to deal with, and to find the most tolerable solution of the unhappy dilemma in allowing the armies of the revolution in Asia and of the oligarchy in Europe to fight against the common foe.
Second Pontic Army Sent to GreeceBattle of Orchomenus
In the spring of 669 there was again fresh work in Europe. Mithradates, who continued his preparations indefatigably in Asia Minor, had sent an army not much less than that which had been extirpated at Chaeronea, under Dorylaus to Euboea; thence it had, after a junction with the remains of the army of Archelaus, passed over the Euripus to Boeotia. The Pontic king, who judged of what his army could do by the standard of victories over the Bithynian and Cappadocian militia, did not understand the unfavourable turn which things had taken in Europe; the circles of the courtiers were already whispering as to the treason of Archelaus; peremptory orders were issued to fight a second battle at once with the new army, and not to fail on this occasion to annihilate the Romans. The master's will was carried out, if not in conquering, at least in fighting. The Romans and Asiatics met once more in the plain of the Cephissus, near Orchomenus. The numerous and excellent cavalry of the latter flung itself impetuously on the Roman infantry, which began to waver and give way: the danger was so urgent, that Sulla seized a standard and advancing with his adjutants and orderlies against the enemy called out with a loud voice to the soldiers that, if they should be asked at home where they had abandoned their general, they might reply—at Orchomenus. This had its effect; the legions rallied and vanquished the enemy's horse, after which the infantry were overthrown with little difficulty. On the following day the camp of the Asiatics was surrounded and stormed; far the greatest portion of them fell or perished in the Copaic marshes; a few only, Archelaus among the rest, reached Euboea. The Boeotian communities had severely to pay for their renewed revolt from Rome, some of them even to annihilation. Nothing opposed the advance into Macedonia and Thrace; Philippi was occupied, Abdera was voluntarily evacuated by the Pontic garrison, the European continent in general was cleared of the enemy. At the end of the third year of the war (669) Sulla was able to take up winter-quarters in Thessaly, with a view to begin the Asiatic campaign in the spring of 670,(15) for which purpose he gave orders to build ships in the Thessalian ports.
Reaction in Asia Minor against Mithradates
Meanwhile the circumstances of Asia Minor also had undergone a material change. If king Mithradates had once come forward as the liberator of the Hellenes, if he had introduced his rule with the recognition of civic independence and with remission of taxes, they had after this brief ecstasy been but too rapidly and too bitterly undeceived. He had very soon emerged in his true character, and had begun to exercise a despotism far surpassing the tyranny of the Roman governors—a despotism which drove even the patient inhabitants of Asia Minor to open revolt. The sultan again resorted to the most violent expedients. His decrees granted independence to the townships which turned to him, citizenship to the -metoeci-, full remission of debts to the debtors, lands to those that had none, freedom to the slaves; nearly 15,000 such manumitted slaves fought in the army of Archelaus. The most fearful scenes were the result of this high-handed subversion of all existing order. The most considerable mercantile cities, Smyrna, Colophon, Ephesus, Tralles, Sardes, closed their gates against the king's governors or put them to death, and declared for Rome.(16) On the other hand the king's lieutenant Diodorus, a philosopher of note like Aristion, of another school, but equally available for the worst subservience, under the instructions of his master caused the whole town-council of Adramyttium to be put to death. The Chians, who were suspected of an inclination to Rome, were fined in the first instance in 2000 talents (480,000 pounds) and, when the payment was found not correct, they were en masse put on board ship and deported in chains under the charge of their own slaves to the coast of Colchis, while their island was occupied with Pontic colonists. The king gave orders that the chiefs of the Celts in Asia Minor should all be put to death along with their wives and children in one day, and that Galatia should be converted into a Pontic satrapy. Most of these bloody edicts were carried into effect either at Mithradates' own headquarters or in Galatia, but the few who escaped placed themselves at the head of their powerful tribes and expelled Eumachus, the governor of the king, out of their bounds. It may readily be conceived that such a king would be pursued by the daggers of assassins; sixteen hundred men were condemned to death by the royal courts of inquisition as having been implicated in such conspiracies.
Lucullus and the Fleet on the Asiatic Coast
While the king was thus by his suicidal fury provoking his temporary subjects to rise in arms against him, he was at the same time hard pressed by the Romans in Asia, both by sea and by land. Lucullus, after the failure of his attempt to lead forth the Egyptian fleet against Mithradates, had with better success repeated his efforts to procure vessels of war in the Syrian maritime towns, and reinforced his nascent fleet in the ports of Cyprus, Pamphylia, and Rhodes till he found himself strong enough to proceed to the attack. He dexterously avoided measuring himself against superior forces and yet obtained no inconsiderable advantages. The Cnidian island and peninsula were occupied by him, Samos was assailed, Colophon and Chios were wrested from the enemy.
Flaccus Arrives in AsiaFimbriaFimbria's Victory at MiletopolisPerilous Position of Mithradates
Meanwhile Flaccus had proceeded with his army through Macedonia and Thrace to Byzantium, and thence, passing the straits, had reached Chalcedon (end of 668). There a military insurrection broke out against the general, ostensibly because he embezzled the spoil from the soldiers. The soul of it was one of the chief officers of the army, a man whose name had become a proverb in Rome for a true mob-orator, Gaius Flavius Fimbria, who, after having differed with his commander-in-chief, transferred the demagogic practices which he had begun in the Forum to the camp. Flaccus was deposed by the army and soon afterwards put to death at Nicomedia, not far from Chalcedon; Fimbria was installed by decree of the soldiers in his stead. As a matter of course he allowed his troops every indulgence; in the friendly Cyzicus, for instance, the citizens were ordered to surrender all their property to the soldiers on pain of death, and by way of warning example two of the most respectable citizens were at once executed. Nevertheless in a military point of view the change of commander-in-chief was a gain; Fimbria was not, like Flaccus, an incapable general, but energetic and talented. At Miletopolis (on the Rhyndacus to the west of Brussa) he defeated the younger Mithradates, who as governor of the satrapy of Pontus had marched against him, completely in a nocturnal assault, and by this victory opened his way to Pergamus, the capital formerly of the Roman province and now of the Pontic king, whence he dislodged the king and compelled him to take flight to the port of Pitane not far off, with the view of there embarking. Just at that moment Lucullus appeared in those waters with his fleet; Fimbria adjured him to render assistance so that he might be enabled to capture the king. But the Optimate was stronger in Lucullus than the patriot; he sailed onward and the king escaped to Mitylene. The situation of Mithradates was even thus sufficiently embarrassed. At the end of 669 Europe was lost, Asia Minor was partly in rebellion against him, partly occupied by a Roman army; and he was himself threatened by the latter in his immediate vicinity. The Roman fleet under Lucullus had maintained its position on the Trojan coast by two successful naval engagements at the promontory of Lectum and at the island of Tenedos; it was joined there by the ships which had in the meanwhile been built by Sulla's orders in Thessaly, and by it position commanding the Hellespont it secured to the general of the Roman senatorial army a safe and easy passage next spring to Asia.
Negotiations for Peace
Mithradates attempted to negotiate. Under other circumstances no doubt the author of the edict for the Ephesian massacre could never have cherished the hope of being admitted at all to terms of peace with Rome; but amidst the internal convulsions of the Roman republic, when the ruling government had declared the general sent against Mithradates an outlaw and subjected his partisans at home to the most fearful persecutions, when one Roman general opposed the other and yet both stood opposed to the same foe, he hoped that he should be able to obtain not merely a peace, but a favourable peace. He had the choice of applying to Sulla or to Fimbria; he caused negotiations to be instituted with both, yet it seems from the first to have been his design to come to terms with Sulla, who, at least from the king's point of view, seemed decidedly superior to his rival. His general Archelaus, a instructed by his master, asked Sulla to cede Asia to the king and to expect in return the king's aid against the democratic party in Rome. But Sulla, cool and clear as ever, while urgently desiring a speedy settlement of Asiatic affairs on account of the position of things in Italy, estimated the advantages of the Cappadocian alliance for the war impending over him in Italy as very slight, and was altogether too much of a Roman to consent to so disgraceful and so injurious a concession.
Preliminaries of Delium
In the peace conferences, which took place in the winter of 669-70, at Delium on the coast of Boeotia opposite to Euboea, Sulla distinctly refused to cede even a foot's-breadth of land, but, with good reason faithful to the old Roman custom of not increasing after victory the demands made before battle, did not go beyond the conditions previously laid down. He required the restoration of all the conquests made by the king and not wrested from him again— Cappadocia, Paphlagonia, Galatia, Bithynia, Asia Minor and the islands—the surrender of prisoners and deserters, the delivering up of the eighty war-vessels of Archelaus to reinforce the still insignificant Roman fleet; lastly, pay and provisions for the army and the very moderate sum of 3000 talents (720,000 pounds) as indemnity for the expenses of the war. The Chians carried off to the Black Sea were to be sent home, the families of the Macedonians who were friendly to Rome and had become refugees were to be restored, and a number of war-vessels were to be delivered to the cities in alliance with Rome. Respecting Tigranes, who in strictness should likewise have been included in the peace, there was silence on both sides, since neither of the contracting parties cared for the endless further steps which would be occasioned by making him a party. The king thus retained the state of possession which he had before the war, nor was he subjected to any humiliation affecting his honour.(17) Archelaus, clearly perceiving that much comparatively beyond expectation was obtained and that more was not obtainable, concluded the preliminaries and an armistice on these conditions, and withdrew the troops from the places which the Asiatics still possessed in Europe.
New DifficultiesSulla Proceeds to Asia
But Mithradates rejected the peace and demanded at least that the Romans should not insist on the surrender of the war-vessels and should concede to him Paphlagonia; while he at the same time asserted that Fimbria was ready to grant him far more favourable conditions. Sulla, offended by this placing of his offers on an equal footing with those of an unofficial adventurer, and having already gone to the utmost measure of concession, broke off the negotiations. He had employed the interval to reorganize Macedonia and to chastise the Dardani, Sinti, and Maedi, in doing which he at once procured booty for his army and drew nearer Asia; for he was resolved at any rate to go thither, in order to come to a reckoning with Fimbria. He now at once put his legions stationed in Thrace as well as his fleet in motion towards the Hellespont. Then at length Archelaus succeeded in wringing from his obstinate master a reluctant consent to the treaty; for which he was subsequently regarded with an evil eye at court as the author of the injurious peace, and even accused of treason, so that some time afterwards he found himself compelled to leave the country and to take refuge with the Romans, who readily received him and loaded him with honours. The Roman soldiers also murmured; their disappointment doubtless at not receiving the expected spoil of Asia probably contributed to that murmuring more than their indignation—in itself very justifiable— that the barbarian prince, who had murdered eighty thousand of their countrymen and had brought unspeakable misery on Italy and Asia, should be allowed to return home unpunished with the greatest part of the treasures which he had collected by the pillage of Asia. Sulla himself may have been painfully sensible that the political complications thwarted in a most vexatious way a task which was in a military point of view so simple, and compelled him after such victories to content himself with such a peace. But the self- denial and the sagacity with which he had conducted this whole war were only displayed afresh in the conclusion of this peace; for war with a prince, to whom almost the whole coast of the Black Sea belonged, and whose obstinacy was clearly displayed by the very last negotiations, would still under the most favourable circumstances require years, and the situation of Italy was such that it seemed almost too late even for Sulla to oppose the party in power there with the few legions which he possessed.(18) Before this could be done, however, it was absolutely necessary to overthrow the bold officer who was at the head of the democratic army in Asia, in order that he might not at some future time come from Asia to the help of the Italian revolution, just as Sulla now hoped to return from Asia and crush it. At Cypsela on the Hebrus Sulla obtained accounts of the ratification of the peace by Mithradates; but the march to Asia went on. The king, it was said, desired personally to confer with the Roman general and to cement the peace with him; it may be presumed that this was simply a convenient pretext for transferring the army to Asia and there putting an end to Fimbria.
Peace at DardanusSulla against FimbriaFimbria's Death
So Sulla, attended by his legions and by Archelaus, crossed the Hellespont; after he had met with Mithradates on its Asiatic shore at Dardanus and had orally concluded the treaty, he made his army continue its march till he came upon the camp of Fimbria at Thyatira not far from Pergamus, and pitched his own close beside it. The Sullan soldiers, far superior to the Fimbrians in number, discipline, leadership, and ability, looked with contempt on the dispirited and demoralized troops and their uncalled commander-in- chief. Desertions from the ranks of the Fimbrians became daily more numerous. When Fimbria ordered an attack, the soldiers refused to fight against their fellow-citizens, or even to take the oath which he required that they would stand faithfully by each other in battle. An attempt to assassinate Sulla miscarried; at the conference which Fimbria requested Sulla did not make his appearance, but contented himself with suggesting to him through one of his officers a means of personal escape. Fimbria was of an insolent temperament, but he was no poltroon; instead of accepting the vessel which Sulla offered to him and fleeing to the barbarians, he went to Pergamus and fell on his own sword in the temple of Asklepios. Those who were most compromised in his army resorted to Mithradates or to the pirates, with whom they found ready reception; the main body placed itself under the orders of Sulla.
Regulation of Asiatic Affairs
Sulla determined to leave these two legions, whom he did not trust for the impending war, behind in Asia, where the fearful crisis left for long its lingering traces in the several cities and districts. The command of this corps and the governorship of Roman Asia he committed to his best officer, Lucius Licinius Murena. The revolutionary measures of Mithradates, such as the liberation of the slaves and the annulling of debts, were of course cancelled; a restoration, which in many places could not be carried into effect without force of arms. The towns of the territory on the eastern frontier underwent a comprehensive reorganization, and reckoned from the year 670 as the date of their being constituted. Justice moreover was exercised, as the victors understood the term. The most noted adherents of Mithradates and the authors of the massacre of the Italians were punished with death. The persons liable to taxes were obliged immediately to pay down in cash according to valuation the whole arrears of tenths and customs for the last five years; besides which they had to pay a war-indemnity of 20,000 talents (4,800,000 pounds), for the collection of which Lucius Lucullus was left behind. These were measures fearful in their rigour and dreadful in their effects; but when we recall the Ephesian decree and its execution, we feel inclined to regard them as a comparatively mild retaliation. That the exactions in other respects were not unusually oppressive, is shown by the value of the spoil afterwards carried in triumph, which amounted in precious metal to only about 1,000,000 pounds. The few communities on the other hand that had remained faithful—particularly the island of Rhodes, the region of Lycia, Magnesia on the Maeander—were richly rewarded: Rhodes received back at least a portion of the possessions withdrawn from it after the war against Perseus.(19) In like manner compensation was made as far as possible by free charters and special favours to the Chians for the hardships which they had borne, and to the Ilienses for the insanely cruel maltreatment inflicted on them by Fimbria on account of the negotiations into which they had entered with Sulla. Sulla had already brought the kings of Bithynia and Cappadocia to meet the Pontic king at Dardanus, and had made them all promise to live in peace and good neighbourhood; on which occasion, however, the haughty Mithradates had refused to admit Ariobarzanes who was not descended of royal blood—the slave, as he called him—to his presence. Gaius Scribonius Curio was commissioned to superintend the restoration of the legal order of things in the two kingdoms evacuated by Mithradates.
Sulla Embarks for Italy
The goal was thus attained. After four years of war the Pontic king was again a client of the Romans, and a single and settled government was re-established in Greece, Macedonia, and Asia Minor; the requirements of interest and honour were satisfied, if not adequately, yet so far as circumstances would allow; Sulla had not only brilliantly distinguished himself as a soldier and general, but had the skill, in his path crossed by a thousand obstacles, to preserve the difficult mean between bold perseverance and prudent concession. Almost like Hannibal he had fought and conquered, in order that with the forces, which the first victory gave him, he might prepare forthwith for a second and severer struggle. After he had in some degree 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.
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.
CinnaCarboSertorius
The name of the man whom the discontented had summoned to the head of the state, Lucius Cornelius Cinna, had been hitherto scarcely heard of, except so far as he had borne himself well as an officer in the Social war. We have less information regarding the personality and the original designs of Cinna than regarding those of any other party leader in the Roman revolution. The reason is, to all appearance, simply that this man, altogether vulgar and guided by the lowest selfishness, had from the first no ulterior political plans whatever. It was asserted at his very first appearance that he had sold himself for a round sum of money to the new burgesses and the coterie of Marius, and the charge looks very credible; but even were it false, it remains nevertheless significant that a suspicion of the sort, such as was never expressed against Saturninus and Sulpicius, attached to Cinna. In fact the movement, at the head of which he put himself, has altogether the appearance of worthlessness both as to motives and as to aims. It proceeded not so much from a party as from a number of malcontents without proper political aims or notable support, who had mainly undertaken to effect the recall of the exiles by legal or illegal means. Cinna seems to have been admitted into the conspiracy only by an afterthought and merely because the intrigue, which in consequence of the restriction of the tribunician powers needed a consul to bring forward its proposals, saw in him among the consular candidates for 667 its fittest instrument and so pushed him forward as consul. Among the leaders appearing in the second rank of the movement were some abler heads; such was the tribune of the people Gnaeus Papirius Carbo, who had made himself a name by his impetuous popular eloquence, and above all Quintus Sertorius, one of the most talented of Roman officers and a man in every respect excellent, who since his candidature for the tribunate of the people had been a personal enemy to Sulla and had been led by this quarrel into the ranks of the disaffected to which he did not at all by nature belong. The proconsul Strabo, although at variance with the government, was yet far from going along with this faction.
Outbreak of the Cinnan RevolutionVictory of the Government
So long as Sulla was in Italy, the confederates for good reasons remained quiet. But when the dreaded proconsul, yielding not to the exhortations of the consul Cinna but to the urgent state of matters in the east, had embarked, Cinna, supported by the majority of the college of tribunes, immediately submitted the projects of law which had been concerted as a partial reaction against the Sullan restoration of 666. They embraced the political equalization of the new burgesses and the freedmen, as Sulpicius had proposed it, and the restitution of those who had been banished in consequence of the Sulpician revolution to their former status. The new burgesses flocked en masse to the capital, that along with the freedmen they might terrify, and in case of need force, their opponents into compliance. But the government party was determined not to yield, consul stood against consul, Gnaeus Octavius against Lucius Cinna, and tribune against tribune; both sides appeared in great part armed on the day and at the place of voting. The tribunes of the senatorial party interposed their veto; when swords were drawn against them even on the rostra, Octavius employed force against force. His compact bands of armed men not only cleared the Via Sacra and the Forum, but also, disregarding the commands of their more gentle-minded leader, exercised horrible atrocities against the assembled multitude. The Forum swam with blood on this "Octavius' day," as it never did before or afterwards—the number of corpses was estimated at ten thousand. Cinna called on the slaves to purchase freedom for themselves by sharing in the struggle; but his appeal was as unsuccessful as the like appeal of Marius in the previous year, and no course was left to the leaders of the movement but to take flight. The constitution supplied no means of proceeding farther against the chiefs of the conspiracy, so long as their year of office lasted. But a prophet presumably more loyal than pious had announced that the banishment of the consul Cinna and of the six tribunes of the people adhering to him would restore peace and tranquillity to the country; and, in conformity not with the constitution but with this counsel of the gods fortunately laid hold of by the custodiers of oracles, the consul Cinna was by decree of the senate deprived of his office, Lucius Cornelius Merula was chosen in his stead, and outlawry was pronounced against the chiefs who had fled. It seemed as if the whole crisis were about to end in a few additions to the number of the men who were exiles in Numidia.
The Cinnans in ItalyLanding of Marius
Beyond doubt nothing further would have come of the movement, had not the senate on the one hand with its usual remissness omitted to compel the fugitives at least rapidly to quit Italy, and had the latter on the other hand been, as champions of the emancipation of the new burgesses, in a position to renew to some extent in their own favour the revolt of the Italians. Without obstruction they appeared in Tibur, in Praeneste, in all the important communities of new burgesses in Latium and Campania, and asked and obtained everywhere money and men for the furtherance of the common cause. Thus supported, they made their appearance at the army besieging Nola, The armies of this period were democratic and revolutionary in their views, wherever the general did not attach them to himself by the weight of his personal influence; the speeches of the fugitive magistrates, some of whom, especially Cinna and Sertorius, were favourably remembered by the soldiers in connection with the last campaigns, made a deep impression; the unconstitutional deposition of the popular consul and the interference of the senate with the rights of the sovereign people told on the common soldier, and the gold of the consul or rather of the new burgesses made the breach of the constitution clear to the officers. The Campanian army recognized Cinna as consul and swore the oath of fidelity to him man by man; it became a nucleus for the bands that flocked in from the new burgesses and even from the allied communities; a considerable army, though consisting mostly of recruits, soon moved from Campania towards the capital. Other bands approached it from the north. On the invitation of Cinna those who had been banished in the previous year had landed at Telamon on the Etruscan coast. There were not more than some 500 armed men, for the most part slaves of the refugees and enlisted Numidian horsemen; but, as Gaius Marius had in the previous year been willing to fraternize with the rabble of the capital, so he now ordered the -ergastula- in which the landholders of this region shut up their field- labourers during the night to be broken open, and the arms which he offered to these for the purpose of achieving their freedom were not despised. Reinforced by these men and the contingents of the new burgesses, as well as by the exiles who flocked to him with their partisans from all sides, he soon numbered 6000 men under his eagles and was able to man forty ships, which took their station before the mouth of the Tiber and gave chase to the corn-ships sailing towards Rome. With these he placed himself at the disposal of the "consul" Cinna. The leaders of the Campanian army hesitated; the more sagacious, Sertorius in particular, seriously pointed out the danger of too closely connecting themselves with a man whose name would necessarily place him at the head of the movement, and who yet was notoriously incapable of any statesmanlike action and haunted by an insane thirst for revenge; but Cinna disregarded these scruples, and confirmed Marius in the supreme command in Etruria and at sea with proconsular powers.
Dubious Attitude of StraboThe Cinnans around Rome
Thus the storm gathered around the capital, and the government could no longer delay bringing forward their troops to protect it.(1) But the forces of Metellus were detained by the Italians in Samnium and before Nola; Strabo alone was in a position to hasten to the help of the capital. He appeared and pitched his camp at the Colline gate: with his numerous and experienced army he might doubtless have rapidly and totally annihilated the still weak bands of insurgents; but this seemed to be no part of his design. On the contrary he allowed Rome to be actually invested by the insurgents. Cinna with his corps and that of Carbo took post on the right bank of the Tiber opposite to the Janiculum, Sertorius on the left bank confronting Pompeius over against the Servian wall. Marius with his band which had gradually increased to three legions, and in possession of a number of war-vessels, occupied one place on the coast after another till at length even Ostia fell into his hands through treachery, and, by way of prelude as it were to the approaching reign of terror, was abandoned by the general to the savage band for massacre and pillage. The capital was placed, even by the mere obstruction of traffic, in great danger; by command of the senate the walls and gates were put in a state of defence and the burgess-levy was ordered to the Janiculum. The inaction of Strabo excited among all classes alike surprise and indignation. The suspicion that he was negotiating secretly with Cinna was natural, but was probably without foundation. A serious conflict in which he engaged the band of Sertorius, and the support which he gave to the consul Octavius when Marius had by an understanding with one of the officers of the garrison penetrated into the Janiculum, and by which in fact the insurgents were successfully beaten off again with much loss, showed that he was far from intending to unite with, or rather to place himself under, the leaders of the insurgents. It seems rather to have been his design to sell his assistance in subduing the insurrection to the alarmed government and citizens of the capital at the price of the consulship for the next year, and thereby to get the reins of government into his own hands.
Negotiations of Parties with the ItaliansDeath of Strabo
The senate was not, however, inclined to throw itself into the arms of one usurper in order to escape from another, and sought help elsewhere. The franchise was by decree of the senate supplementarily conferred on all the Italian communities involved in the Social war, which had laid down their arms and had in consequence thereof forfeited their old alliance.(2) It seemed as it were their intention officially to demonstrate that Rome in the war against the Italians had staked her existence for the sake not of a great object but of her own vanity: in the first momentary embarrassment, for the purpose of bringing into the field an additional thousand or two of soldiers, she sacrificed everything which had been gained at so terribly dear a cost in the Social war. In fact, troops arrived from the communities who were benefited by this concession; but instead of the many legions promised, their contingent on the whole amounted to not more than, at most, ten thousand men. It would have been of more moment that an agreement should be come to with the Samnites and Nolans, so that the troops of the thoroughly trustworthy Metellus might be employed for the protection of the capital. But the Samnites made demands which recalled the yoke of Caudium—restitution of the spoil taken from the Samnites and of their prisoners and deserters, renunciation of the booty wrested by the Samnites from the Romans, the bestowal of the franchise on the Samnites themselves as well as on the Romans who had passed over to them. The senate rejected even in this emergency terms of peace so disgraceful, but instructed Metellus to leave behind a small division and to lead in person all the troops that could at all be dispensed with in southern Italy as quickly as possible to Rome. He obeyed. But the consequence was, that the Samnites attacked and defeated Plautius the legate left behind by Metellus and his weak band; that the garrison of Nola marched out and set on fire the neighbouring town of Abella in alliance with Rome; that Cinna and Marius, moreover, granted to the Samnites everything they asked—what mattered Roman honour to them!—and a Samnite contingent reinforced the ranks of the insurgents. It was a severe loss also, when after a combat unfavourable to the troops of the government Ariminum was occupied by the insurgents and thus the important communication between Rome and the valley of the Po, whence men and supplies were expected, was interrupted. Scarcity and famine set in. The large populous city numerously garrisoned with troops was but inadequately supplied with provisions; and Marius in particular took care to cut off its supplies more and more. He had already blocked up the Tiber by a bridge of ships; now by the capture of Antium, Lanuvium, Aricia, and other townships he gained control over the means of land communication still open, and at the same time appeased temporarily his revenge by causing all the citizens, wherever resistance was offered, to be put to the sword with the exception of those who had possibly betrayed to him the town. Contagious diseases followed on the distress and committed dreadful ravages among the masses of soldiers densely crowded round the capital; of Strabo's veteran army 11,000, and of the troops of Octavius 6000 are said to have fallen victims to them. Yet the government did not despair; and the sudden death of Strabo was a fortunate event for it. He died of the pestilence;(3) the masses, exasperated on many grounds against him, tore his corpse from the bier and dragged it through the streets. The remnant of his troops was incorporated by the consul Octavius with his army.
Vacillation of the GovernmentRome Capitulates
After the arrival of Metellus and the decease of Strabo the army of the government was again at least a match for its antagonists, and was able to array itself for battle against the insurgents at the Alban Mount. But the minds of the soldiers of the government were deeply agitated; when Cinna appeared in front of them, they received him with acclamation as if he were still their general and consul; Metellus deemed it advisable not to allow the battle to come on, but to lead back the troops to their camp. The Optimates themselves wavered, and fell at variance with each other. While one party, with the honourable but stubborn and shortsighted consul Octavius at their head, perseveringly opposed all concession, Metellus more experienced in war and more judicious attempted to bring about a compromise; but his conference with Cinna excited the wrath of the extreme men on both sides: Cinna was called by Marius a weakling, Metellus was called by Octavius a traitor. The soldiers, unsettled otherwise and not without cause distrusting the leadership of the untried Octavius, suggested to Metellus that he should assume the chief command, and, when he refused, began in crowds to throw away their arms or even to desert to the enemy. The temper of the burgesses became daily more depressed and troublesome. On the proclamation of the heralds of Cinna guaranteeing freedom to the slaves who should desert, these flocked in troops from the capital to the enemy's camp. But the proposal that the senate should guarantee freedom to the slaves willing to enter the army was decidedly resisted by Octavius. The government could not conceal from itself that it was defeated, and that nothing remained but to come to terms if possible with the leaders of the band, as the overpowered traveller comes to terms with the captain of banditti. Envoys went to Cinna; but, while they foolishly made difficulties as to recognizing him as consul, and Cinna in the interval thus prolonged transferred his camp close to the city-gates, the desertion spread to so great an extent that it was no longer possible to settle any terms. The senate submitted itself unconditionally to the outlawed consul, adding only a request that he would refrain from bloodshed, Cinna promised this, but refused to ratify his promise by an oath; Marius, who kept by his side during the negotiations, maintained a sullen silence.
Marian Reign of Terror
The gates of the capital were opened. The consul marched in with his legions; but Marius, scoffingly recalling the law of outlawry, refused to set foot in the city until the law allowed him to do so and the burgesses hastily assembled in the Forum to pass the annulling decree. He then entered, and with him the reign of terror. It was determined not to select individual victims, but to have all the notable men of the Optimate party put to death and to confiscate their property. The gates were closed; for five days and five nights the slaughter continued without interruption; even afterwards the execution of individuals who had escaped or been overlooked was of daily occurrence, and for months the bloody persecution went on throughout Italy. The consul Gnaeus Octavius was the first victim. True to his often-expressed principle, that he would rather suffer death than make the smallest concession to men acting illegally, he refused even now to take flight, and in his consular robes awaited at the Janiculum the assassin, who was not slow to appear. Among the slain were Lucius Caesar (consul in 664) the celebrated victor of Acerrae;(4) his brother Gaius, whose unseasonable ambition had provoked the Sulpician tumult,(5) well known as an orator and poet and as an amiable companion; Marcus Antonius (consul in 655), after the death of Lucius Crassus beyond dispute the first pleader of his time; Publius Crassus (consul in 657) who had commanded with distinction in the Spanish and in the Social wars and also during the siege of Rome; and a multitude of the most considerable men of the government party, among whom the wealthy were traced out with especial zeal by the greedy executioners. Peculiarly sad seemed the death of Lucius Merula, who very much against his own wish had become Cinna's successor, and who now, when criminally impeached on that account and cited before the comitia, in order to anticipate the inevitable condemnation opened his veins, and at the altar of the Supreme Jupiter whose priest he was, after laying aside the priestly headband as the religious duty of the dying Flamen required, breathed his last; and still more the death of Quintus Catulus (consul in 652), once in better days the associate of the most glorious victory and triumph of that same Marius who now had no other answer for the suppliant relatives of his aged colleague than the monosyllabic order, "He must die."
The Last Days of Marius
The originator of all these outrages was Gaius Marius. He designated the victims and the executioners—only in exceptional cases, as in those of Merula and Catulus, was any form of law observed; not unfrequently a glance or the silence with which he received those who saluted him formed the sentence of death, which was always executed at once. His revenge was not satisfied even with the death of his victim; he forbade the burial of the dead bodies: he gave orders—anticipated, it is true, in this respect by Sulla—that the heads of the senators slain should be fixed to the rostra in the Forum; he ordered particular corpses to be dragged through the Forum, and that of Gaius Caesar to be stabbed afresh at the tomb of Quintus Varius, whom Caesar presumably had once impeached;(6) he publicly embraced the man who delivered to him as he sat at table the head of Antonius, whom he had been with difficulty restrained from seeking out in his hiding-place, an slaying with his own hand. His legions of slaves, and in particular a division of Ardyaeans,(7) chiefly served as his executioners, and did not neglect, amidst these Saturnalia of their new freedom, to plunder the houses of their former masters and to dishonour and murder all whom they met with there. His own associates were in despair at this insane fury; Sertorius adjured the consul to put a stop to it at any price, and even Cinna was alarmed. But in times such as these were, madness itself becomes a power; man hurls himself into the abyss, to save himself from giddiness. It was not easy to restrain the furious old man and his band, and least of all had Cinna the courage to do so; on the contrary, he chose Marius as his colleague in the consulship for the next year. The reign of terror alarmed the more moderate of the victors not much less than the defeated party; the capitalists alone were not displeased to see that another hand lent itself to the work of thoroughly humbling for once the haughty oligarchs, and that at the same time, in consequence of the extensive confiscations and auctions, the best part of the spoil came to themselves—in these times of terror they acquired from the people the surname of the "hoarders."