Plutarch: Lives of the noble Grecians and Romans
any men of Halaeae surviving?" For after his victory at Orchomenus,
in the heat of a pursuit, he had destroyed three cities of Boeotia,
Anthedon, Larymna, and Halaeae. The men not knowing what to say for
fear, Sylla with a smile bade them cheer up and return in peace, as
they had brought with them no insignificant intercessors. The
Halaeans say that this first gave them courage to reunite and return
to their city.
Sylla, having marched through Thessaly and Macedon to the sea-coast,
prepared, with twelve hundred vessels, to cross over from Dyrrhachium
to Brundisium. Not far from hence is Apollonia, and near it the
Nymphaeum, a spot of ground where, from among green trees and
meadows, there are found at various points springs of fire
continually streaming out. Here, they say, a satyr, such as
statuaries and painters represent, was caught asleep, and brought
before Sylla, where he was asked by several interpreters who he was,
and, after much trouble, at last uttered nothing intelligible, but a
harsh noise, something between the neighing of a horse and crying of
a goat. Sylla, in dismay, and deprecating such an omen, bade it be
removed.
At the point of transportation, Sylla being in alarm, lest at their
first setting foot upon Italy, the soldiers should disband and
disperse one by one among the cities, they of their own accord first
took an oath to stand firm by him, and not of their good-will to
injure Italy; then seeing him in distress for money, they made, so to
say, a freewill offering, and contributed each man according to his
ability. However Sylla would not accept of their offering, but
praising their good-will, and arousing up their courage, put over (as
he himself writes) against fifteen hostile generals in command of
four hundred and fifty cohorts; but not without the most unmistakable
divine intimations of his approaching happy successes. For when he
was sacrificing at his first landing near Tarentum, the victim's
liver showed the figure of a crown of laurel with two fillets hanging
from it. And a little while before his arrival in Campania, near the
mountain Hephaeus, two stately goats were seen in the daytime,
fighting together, and performing all the motions of men in battle.
It proved to be an apparition, and rising up gradually from the
ground, dispersed in the air, like fancied representations in the
clouds, and so vanished out of sight. Not long after, in the
selfsame place, when Marius the younger, and Norbanus the consul,
attacked him with two great armies, without prescribing the order of
battle, or arranging his men according to their divisions, by the
sway only of one common alacrity and transport of courage, he
overthrew the enemy, and shut up Norbanus into the city of Capua,
with the loss of seven thousand of his men. And this was the reason,
he says, that the soldiers did not leave him and disperse into the
different towns, but held fast to him, and despised the enemy, though
infinitely more in number.
At Silvium, (as he himself relates it,) there met him a servant of
Pontius, in a state of divine possession, saying that he brought him
the power of the sword and victory from Bellona, the goddess of war,
and if he did not make haste, that the capitol would be burnt, which
fell out on the same day the man foretold it, namely, on the sixth
day of the month Quintilis, which we now call July.
At Fidentia, also, Marcus Lucullus, one of Sylla's commanders,
reposed such confidence in the forwardness of the soldiers, as to
dare to face fifty cohorts of the enemy, with only sixteen of his
own; but because many of them were unarmed, delayed the onset. As he
stood thus waiting, and considering with himself, a gentle gale of
wind, bearing along with it from the neighboring meadows a quantity
of flowers, scattered them down upon the army, on whose shields and
helmets they settled, and arranged themselves spontaneously, so as to
give the soldiers, in the eyes of the enemy, the appearance of being
crowned with chaplets. Upon this, being yet further animated, they
joined battle, and victoriously slaying eight thousand men, took the
camp. This Lucullus was brother to that Lucullus who in after-times
conquered Mithridates and Tigranes.
Sylla, seeing himself still surrounded by so many armies, and such
mighty hostile powers, had recourse to art, inviting Scipio, the
other consul, to a treaty of peace. The motion was willingly
embraced, and several meetings and consultations ensued, in all which
Sylla, still interposing matter of delay and new pretences, in the
meanwhile debauched Scipio's men by means of his own, who were as
well practiced as the general himself, in all the artifices of
inveigling. For entering into the enemy's quarters and joining in
conversation, they gained some by present money, some by promises,
others by fair words and persuasions; so that in the end, when Sylla
with twenty cohorts drew near, on his men saluting Scipio's soldiers,
they returned the greeting and came over, leaving Scipio behind them
in his tent, where he was found all alone and dismissed. And having
used his twenty cohorts as decoys to ensnare the forty of the enemy,
he led them all back into the camp. On this occasion, Carbo was
heard to say, that he had both a fox and a lion in the breast of
Sylla to deal with, and was most troubled with the fox.
Some time after, at Signia, Marius the younger, with eighty-five
cohorts, offered battle to Sylla, who was extremely desirous to have
it decided on that very day; for the night before he had seen a
vision in his sleep, of Marius the elder, who had been some time
dead, advising his son to beware of the following day, as of fatal
consequence to him. For this reason, Sylla, longing to come to a
battle, sent off for Dolabella, who lay encamped at some distance.
But because the enemy had beset and blocked up the passes, his
soldiers got tired with skirmishing and marching at once. To these
difficulties was added, moreover, tempestuous rainy weather, which
distressed them most of all. The principal officers therefore came
to Sylla, and besought him to defer the battle that day, showing him
how the soldiers lay stretched on the ground, where they had thrown
themselves down in their weariness, resting their heads upon their
shields to gain some repose. When, with much reluctance, he had
yielded, and given order for pitching the camp, they had no sooner
begun to cast up the rampart and draw the ditch, but Marius came
riding up furiously at the head of his troops, in hopes to scatter
them in that disorder and confusion. Here the gods fulfilled Sylla's
dream. For the soldiers, stirred up with anger, left off their work,
and sticking their javelins into the bank, with drawn swords and a
courageous shout, came to blows with the enemy, who made but small
resistance, and lost great numbers in the flight. Marius fled to
Praeneste, but finding the gates shut, tied himself round by a rope
that was thrown down to him, and was taken up on the walls. Some
there are (as Fenestella for one) who affirm that Marius knew nothing
of the fight, but, overwatched and spent with hard duty, had reposed
himself, when the signal was given, beneath some shade, and was
hardly to be awakened at the flight of his men. Sylla, according to
his own account, lost only twenty-three men in this fight, having
killed of the enemy twenty thousand, and taken alive eight thousand.
The like success attended his lieutenants, Pompey, Crassus, Metellus,
Servilius, who with little or no loss cut off vast numbers of the
enemy, insomuch that Carbo, the prime supporter of the cause, fled by
night from his charge of the army, and sailed over into Libya.
In the last struggle, however, the Samnite Telesinus, like some
champion, whose lot it is to enter last of all into the lists and
take up the wearied conqueror, came nigh to have foiled and
overthrown Sylla before the gates of Rome. For Telesinus with his
second, Lamponius the Lucanian, having collected a large force, had
been hastening towards Praeneste, to relieve Marius from the siege;
but perceiving Sylla ahead of him, and Pompey behind, both hurrying
up against him, straightened thus before and behind, as a valiant and
experienced soldier, he arose by night, and marching directly with
his whole army, was within a little of making his way unexpectedly
into Rome itself. He lay that night before the city, at ten furlongs
distance from the Colline gate, elated and full of hope, at having
thus out-generalled so many eminent commanders. At break of day,
being charged by the noble youth of the city, among many others he
overthrew Appius Claudius, renowned for high birth and character.
The city, as is easy to imagine, was all in an uproar, the women
shrieking and running about, as if it had already been entered
forcibly by assault, till at last Balbus, sent forward by Sylla, was
seen riding up with seven hundred horse at full speed. Halting only
long enough to wipe the sweat from the horses, and then hastily
bridling again, he at once attacked the enemy. Presently Sylla
himself appeared, and commanding those who were foremost to take
immediate refreshment, proceeded to form in order for battle.
Dolabella and Torquatus were extremely earnest with him to desist
awhile, and not with spent forces to hazard the last hope, having
before them in the field, not Carbo or Marius, but two warlike
nations bearing immortal hatred to Rome, the Samnites and Lucanians,
to grapple with. But he put them by, and commanded the trumpets to
sound a charge, when it was now about four o'clock in the afternoon.
In the conflict which followed, as sharp a one as ever was, the
right wing where Crassus was posted had clearly the advantage; the
left suffered and was in distress, when Sylla came to its succor,
mounted on a white courser, full of mettle and exceedingly swift,
which two of the enemy knowing him by, had their lances ready to
throw at him; he himself observed nothing, but his attendant behind
him giving the horse a touch, he was, unknown to himself, just so far
carried forward, that the points, falling beside the horse's tail,
stuck in the ground. There is a story that he had a small golden
image of Apollo from Delphi, which he was always wont in battle to
carry about him in his bosom, and that he then kissed it with these
words, "O Apollo Pythius, who in so many battles hast raised to honor
and greatness the Fortunate Cornelius Sylla, wilt thou now cast him
down, bringing him before the gate of his country, to perish
shamefully with his fellow-citizens?" Thus, they say, addressing
himself to the god, he entreated some of his men, threatened some,
and seized others with his hand, till at length the left wing being
wholly shattered, he was forced, in the general rout, to betake
himself to the camp, having lost many of his friends and
acquaintance. Many, likewise, of the city spectators who had come
out, were killed or trodden underfoot. So that it was generally
believed in the city that all was lost, and the siege of Praeneste
was all but raised; many fugitives from the battle making their way
thither, and urging Lucretius Ofella, who was appointed to keep on
the siege, to rise in all haste, for that Sylla had perished, and
Rome fallen into the hands of the enemy.
About midnight there came into Sylla's camp messengers from Crassus,
to fetch provision for him and his soldiers; for having vanquished
the enemy, they had pursued him to the walls of Antemna, and had sat
down there. Sylla, hearing this, and that most of the enemy were
destroyed, came to Antemna by break of day, where three thousand of
the besieged having sent forth a herald, he promised to receive them
to mercy, on condition they did the enemy some mischief in their