Plutarch: Lives of the noble Grecians and Romans
Etruscan sages affirmed, that this prodigy betokened the mutation of
the age, and a general revolution in the world. For according to
them there are in all eight ages, differing one from another in the
lives and the characters of men, and to each of these God has
allotted a certain measure of time, determined by the circuit of the
great year. And when one age is run out, at the approach of another,
there appears some wonderful sign from earth or heaven, such as makes
it manifest at once to those who have made it their business to study
such things, that there has succeeded in the world a new race of men,
differing in customs and institutes of life, and more or less
regarded by the gods, than the preceding. Amongst other great
changes that happen, as they say, at the turn of ages, the art of
divination, also, at one time rises in esteem, and is more successful
in its predictions, clearer and surer tokens being sent from God, and
then again, in another generation declines as low, becoming mere
guesswork for the most part, and discerning future events by dim and
uncertain intimations. This was the mythology of the wisest of the
Tuscan sages, who were thought to possess a knowledge beyond other
men. Whilst the Senate sat in consultation with the soothsayers,
concerning these prodigies, in the temple of Bellona, a sparrow came
flying in, before them all, with a grasshopper in its mouth, and
letting fall one part of it, flew away with the remainder. The
diviners foreboded commotions and dissension between the great landed
proprietors and the common city populace; the latter, like the
grasshopper, being loud and talkative; while the sparrow might
represent the "dwellers in the field."
Marius had taken into alliance Sulpicius, the tribune, a man second
to none in any villanies, so that it was less the question what
others he surpassed, but rather in what respects he most surpassed
himself in wickedness. He was cruel, bold, rapacious, and in all
these points utterly shameless and unscrupulous; not hesitating to
offer Roman citizenship by public sale to freed slaves and aliens,
and to count out the price on public money-tables in the forum. He
maintained three thousand swordsmen, and had always about him a
company of young men of the equestrian class ready for all occasions,
whom he styled his Anti-Senate. Having had a law enacted, that no
senator should contract a debt of above two thousand drachmas, he
himself, after death, was found indebted three millions. This was
the man whom Marius let in upon the Commonwealth, and who,
confounding all things by force and the sword, made several
ordinances of dangerous consequence, and amongst the rest, one giving
Marius the conduct of the Mithridatic war. Upon this the consuls
proclaimed a public cessation of business, but as they were holding
an assembly near the temple of Castor and Pollux, he let loose the
rabble upon them, and amongst many others slew the consul Pompeius's
young son in the forum, Pompeius himself hardly escaping in the
crowd. Sylla being closely pursued into the house of Marius, was
forced to come forth and dissolve the cessation; and for his doing
this, Sulpicius, having deposed Pompeius, allowed Sylla to continue
his consulship, only transferring the Mithridatic expedition to
Marius.
There were immediately dispatched to Nola tribunes, to receive the
army, and bring it to Marius; but Sylla having got first to the camp,
and the soldiers, upon hearing of the news, having stoned the
tribunes, Marius, in requital, proceeded to put the friends of Sylla
in the city to the sword, and rifled their goods. Every kind of
removal and flight went on, some hastening from the camp to the city,
others from the city to the camp. The senate, no more in its own
power, but wholly governed by the dictates of Marius and Sulpicius,
alarmed at the report of Sylla's advancing with his troops towards
the city, sent forth two of the praetors, Brutus and Servilius, to
forbid his nearer approach. The soldiers would have slain these
praetors in a fury, for their bold language to Sylla; contenting
themselves, however, with breaking their rods, and tearing off their
purple-edged robes, after much contumelious usage they sent them
back, to the sad dejection of the citizens, who beheld their
magistrates despoiled of their badges of office, and announcing to
them, that things were now manifestly come to a rupture past all
cure. Marius put himself in readiness, and Sylla with his colleague
moved from Nola, at the head of six complete legions, all of them
willing to march up directly against the city, though he himself as
yet was doubtful in thought, and apprehensive of the danger. As he
was sacrificing, Postumius the soothsayer, having inspected the
entrails, stretching forth both hands to Sylla, required to be bound
and kept in custody till the battle was over, as willing, if they had
not speedy and complete success, to suffer the utmost punishment. It
is said, also, that there appeared to Sylla himself in a dream, a
certain goddess, whom the Romans learnt to worship from the
Cappadocians, whether it be the Moon, or Pallas, or Bellona. This
same goddess, to his thinking, stood by him, and put into his hand
thunder and lightning, then naming his enemies one by one, bade him
strike them, who, all of them, fell on the discharge and disappeared.
Encouraged by this vision, and relating it to his colleague, next day
he led on towards Rome. About Picinae being met by a deputation,
beseeching him not to attack at once, in the heat of a march, for
that the senate had decreed to do him all the right imaginable, he
consented to halt on the spot, and sent his officers to measure out
the ground, as is usual, for a camp; so that the deputation,
believing it, returned. They were no sooner gone, but he sent a
party on under the command of Lucius Basillus and Caius Mummius, to
secure the city gate, and the walls on the side of the Esquiline
hill, and then close at their heels followed himself with all speed.
Basillus made his way successfully into the city, but the unarmed
multitude, pelting him with stones and tiles from off the houses,
stopped his further progress, and beat him back to the wall. Sylla
by this time was come up, and seeing what was going on, called aloud
to his men to set fire to the houses, and taking a flaming torch, he
himself led the way, and commanded the archers to make use of their
fire-darts, letting fly at the tops of houses; all which he did, not
upon any plan, but simply in his fury, yielding the conduct of that
day's work to passion, and as if all he saw were enemies, without
respect or pity either to friend, relations, or acquaintance, made
his entry by fire, which knows no distinction betwixt friend or foe.
In this conflict, Marius being driven into the temple of
Mother-Earth, thence invited the slaves by proclamation of freedom,
but the enemy coming on he was overpowered and fled the city.
Sylla having called a senate, had sentence of death passed on Marius,
and some few others, amongst whom was Sulpicius, tribune of the
people. Sulpicius was killed, being betrayed by his servant, whom
Sylla first made free, and then threw him headlong down the Tarpeian
rock. As for Marius, he set a price on his life, by proclamation,
neither gratefully nor politicly, if we consider into whose house,
not long before he put himself at mercy, and was safely dismissed.
Had Marius at that time not let Sylla go, but suffered him to be
slain by the hands of Sulpicius, he might have been lord of all;
nevertheless he spared his life, and a few days after, when in a
similar position himself, received a different measure.
By these proceedings, Sylla excited the secret distaste of the
senate; but the displeasure and free indignation of the commonalty
showed itself plainly by their actions. For they ignominiously
rejected Nonius, his nephew, and Servius, who stood for offices of
state by his interest, and elected others as magistrates, by honoring
whom they thought they should most annoy him. He made semblance of
extreme satisfaction at all this, as if the people by his means had
again enjoyed the liberty of doing what seemed best to them. And to
pacify the public hostility, he created Lucius Cinna consul, one of
the adverse party, having first bound him under oaths and
imprecations to be favorable to his interest. For Cinna, ascending
the capitol with a stone in his hand, swore solemnly, and prayed with
direful curses, that he himself, if he were not true to his
friendship with Sylla, might be cast out of the city, as that stone
out of his hand; and thereupon cast the stone to the ground, in the
presence of many people. Nevertheless Cinna had no sooner entered on
his charge, but he took measures to disturb the present settlement,
and having prepared an impeachment against Sylla, got Virginius, one
of the tribunes of the people, to be his accuser; but Sylla, leaving
him and the court of judicature to themselves, set forth against
Mithridates.
About the time that Sylla was making ready to put oft with his forces
from Italy, besides many other omens which befell Mithridates, then
staying at Pergamus, there goes a story that a figure of Victory,
with a crown in her hand, which the Pergamenians by machinery from
above let down on him, when it had almost reached his head, fell to
pieces, and the crown tumbling down into the midst of the theater,
there broke against the ground, occasioning a general alarm among the
populace, and considerably disquieting Mithridates himself, although
his affairs at that time were succeeding beyond expectation. For
having wrested Asia from the Romans, and Bithynia and Cappadocia
from their kings, he made Pergamus his royal seat, distributing among
his friends riches, principalities, and kingdoms. Of his sons, one
residing in Pontus and Bosporus held his ancient realm as far as the
deserts beyond the lake Maeotis, without molestation; while
Ariarathes, another, was reducing Thrace and Macedon, with a great
army, to obedience. His generals, with forces under them, were
establishing his supremacy in other quarters. Archelaus, in
particular, with his fleet, held absolute mastery of the sea, and was
bringing into subjection the Cyclades, and all the other islands as
far as Malea, and had taken Euboea itself. Making Athens his
head-quarters, from thence as far as Thessaly he was withdrawing the
States of Greece from the Roman allegiance, without the least ill
success, except at Chaeronea. For here Bruttius Sura, lieutenant to
Sentius, governor of Macedon, a man of singular valor and prudence,
met him, and, though he came like a torrent pouring over Boeotia,
made stout resistance, and thrice giving him battle near Chaeronea,
repulsed and forced him back to the sea. But being commanded by
Lucius Lucullus to give place to his successor, Sylla, and resign the
war to whom it was decreed, he presently left Boeotia, and retired
back to Sentius, although his success had outgone all hopes, and
Greece was well disposed to a new revolution, upon account of his
gallant behavior. These were the glorious actions of Bruttius.
Sylla, on his arrival, received by their deputations the compliments
of all the cities of Greece, except Athens, against which, as it was
compelled by the tyrant Aristion to hold for the king, he advanced
with all his forces, and investing the Piraeus, laid formal siege to
it, employing every variety of engines, and trying every manner of
assault; whereas, had he forbore but a little while, he might without
hazard have taken the Upper City by famine, it being already reduced
to the last extremity, through want of necessaries. But eager to
return to Rome, and fearing innovation there, at great risk, with