The History of Rome, Book IV - Theodor Mommsen
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Attempts at a Compromise
Death of Cinna
Carbo and the New Burgesses Arm against Sulla
On the other hand Sulla's letter, which in the circumstances might
be called extremely moderate, awakened in the middle-party hopes
of a peaceful adjustment. The majority of the senate resolved,
on the proposal of the elder Flaccus, to set on foot an attempt
at reconciliation, and with that view to summon Sulla to come under
the guarantee of a safe-conduct to Italy, and to suggest to the
consuls Cinna and Carbo that they should suspend their preparations
till the arrival of Sulla's answer. Sulla did not absolutely
reject the proposals. Of course he did not come in person, but
he sent a message that he asked nothing but the restoration of
the banished to their former status and the judicial punishment of
the crimes that had been perpetrated, and moreover that he did not
desire security to be provided for himself, but proposed to bring
it to those who were at home. His envoys found the state of things
in Italy essentially altered. Cinna had, without concerning
himself further about that decree of the senate, immediately after
the termination of its sitting proceeded to the army and urged
it embarkation. The summons to trust themselves to the sea at
that unfavourable season of the year provoked among the already
dissatisfied troops in the head-quarters at Ancona a mutiny, to
which Cinna fell a victim (beg. of 670); whereupon his colleague
Carbo found himself compelled to bring back the divisions that had
already crossed and, abandoning the idea of taking up the war in
Greece, to enter into winter-quarters in Ariminum. But Sulla's
offers met no better reception on that account; the senate rejected
his proposals without even allowing the envoys to enter Rome, and
enjoined him summarily to lay down arms. It was not the coterie of
the Marians which primarily brought about this resolute attitude.
That faction was obliged to abandon its hitherto usurped occupation
of the supreme magistracy at the very time when it was of moment,
and again to institute consular elections for the decisive year
671. The suffrages on this occasion were united not in favour
of the former consul Carbo or of any of the able officers of the
hitherto ruling clique, such as Quintus Sertorius or Gaius Marius
the younger, but in favour of Lucius Scipio and Gaius Norbanus,
two incapables, neither of whom knew how to fight and Scipio not
even how to speak; the former of these recommended himself to the
multitude only as the great-grandson of the conqueror of Antiochus,
and the latter as a political opponent of the oligarchy.(11) The
Marians were not so much abhorred for their misdeeds as despised
for their incapacity; but if the nation would have nothing to do
with these, the great majority of it would have still less to do
with Sulla and an oligarchic restoration. Earnest measures of
self-defence were contemplated. While Sulla crossed to Asia and
induced such defection in the army of Fimbria that its leader
fell by his own hand, the government in Italy employed the further
interval of a year granted to it by these steps of Sulla in
energetic preparations; it is said that at Sulla's landing 100,000
men, and afterwards even double that number of troops, were arrayed
in arms against him.
Difficult Position of Sulla
Against this Italian force Sulla had nothing to place in the scale
except his five legions, which, even including some contingents
levied in Macedonia and the Peloponnesus, probably amounted to
scarce 40,000 men. It is true that this army had been, during
its seven years' conflicts in Italy, Greece, and Asia, weaned from
politics, and adhered to its general--who pardoned everything in
his soldiers, debauchery, brutality, even mutiny against their
officers, required nothing but valour and fidelity towards their
general, and set before them the prospect of the most extravagant
rewards in the event of victory--with all that soldierly
enthusiasm, which is the more powerful that the noblest and the
meanest passions often combine to produce it in the same breast.
The soldiers of Sulla voluntarily according to the Roman custom
swore mutual oaths that they would stand firmly by each other, and
each voluntarily brought to the general his savings as a contribution
to the costs of the war. But considerable as was the weight
of this solid and select body of troops in comparison with the
masses of the enemy, Sulla saw very well that Italy could not
be subdued with five legions if it remained united in resolute
resistance. To settle accounts with the popular party and their
incapable autocrats would not have been difficult; but he saw
opposed to him and united with that party the whole mass of those
who desired no oligarchic restoration with its terrors, and above
all the whole body of new burgesses--both those who had been
withheld by the Julian law from taking part in the insurrection,
and those whose revolt a few years before had brought Rome to
the brink of ruin.
His Moderation
Sulla fully surveyed the situation of affairs, and was far
removed from the blind exasperation and the obstinate rigour which
characterized the majority of his party. While the edifice of the
state was in flames, while his friends were being murdered, his
houses destroyed, his family driven into exile, he had remained
undisturbed at his post till the public foe was conquered and the
Roman frontier was secured. He now treated Italian affairs in the
same spirit of patriotic and judicious moderation, and did whatever
he could to pacify the moderate party and the new burgesses, and
to prevent the civil war from assuming the far more dangerous form
of a fresh war between the Old Romans and the Italian allies.
The first letter which Sulla addressed to the senate had asked
nothing but what was right and just, and had expressly disclaimed
a reign of terror. In harmony with its terms, he now presented
the prospect of unconditional pardon to all those who should even
now break off from the revolutionary government, and caused his
soldiers man by man to swear that they would meet the Italians
thoroughly as friends and fellow-citizens. The most binding
declarations secured to the new burgesses the political rights
which they had acquired; so that Carbo, for that reason, wished
hostages to be furnished to him by every civic community in Italy,
but the proposal broke down under general indignation and under the
opposition of the senate. The chief difficulty in the position of
Sulla really consisted in the fact, that in consequence of the
faithlessness and perfidy which prevailed the new burgesses had
every reason, if not to suspect his personal designs, to doubt at
any rate whether he would be able to induce his party to keep their
word after the victory.
Sulla Lands in Italy
And Is Reinforced by Partisans and Deserters
In the spring of 671 Sulla landed with his legions in the port
of Brundisium. The senate, on receiving the news, declared the
commonwealth in danger, and committed to the consuls unlimited
powers; but these incapable leaders had not looked before them,
and were surprised by a landing which had nevertheless been
foreseen for years. The army was still at Ariminum, the ports
were not garrisoned, and--what is almost incredible--there was
not a man under arms at all along the whole south-eastern coast.
The consequences were soon apparent Brundisium itself, a considerable
community of new burgesses, at once opened its gates without
resistance to the oligarchic general, and all Messapia and Apulia
followed its example. The army marched through these regions as
through a friendly country, and mindful of its oath uniformly
maintained the strictest discipline. From all sides the scattered
remnant of the Optimate party flocked to the camp of Sulla.
Quintus Metellus came from the mountain ravines of Liguria, whither
he had made his escape from Africa, and resumed, as colleague of
Sulla, the proconsular command committed to him in 667,(12) and
withdrawn from him by the revolution. Marcus Crassus in like
manner appeared from Africa with a small band of armed men. Most
of the Optimates, indeed, came as emigrants of quality with great
pretensions and small desire for fighting, so that they had to
listen to bitter language from Sulla himself regarding the noble
lords who wished to have themselves preserved for the good of the
state and could not even be brought to arm their slaves. It was of
more importance, that deserters already made their appearance from
the democratic camp--for instance, the refined and respected Lucius
Philippus, who was, along with one or two notoriously incapable
persons, the only consular that had come to terms with the
revolutionary government and accepted offices under it He met with
the most gracious reception from Sulla, and obtained the honourable
and easy charge of occupying for him the province of Sardinia.
Quintus Lucretius Ofella and other serviceable officers were
likewise received and at once employed; even Publius Cethegus,
one of the senators banished after the Sulpician -emeute- by Sulla,
obtained pardon and a position in the army.
Pompeius
Still more important than these individual accessions was the gain
of the district of Picenum, which was substantially due to the son
of Strabo, the young Gnaeus Pompeius. The latter, like his father
originally no adherent of the oligarchy, had acknowledged the
revolutionary government and even taken service in Cinna's army;
but in his case the fact was not forgotten, that his father had
borne arms against the revolution; he found himself assailed in
various forms and even threatened with the loss of his very
considerable wealth by an indictment charging him to give up
the booty which was, or was alleged to have been, embezzled by his
father after the capture of Asculum. The protection of the consul
Carbo, who was personally attached to him, still more than the
eloquence of the consular Lucius Philippus and of the young
Quintus Hortensius, averted from him financial ruin; but the
dissatisfaction remained. On the news of Sulla's landing he
went to Picenum, where he had extensive possessions and the best
municipal connections derived from his father and the Social war,
and set up the standard of the Optimate party in Auximum (Osimo).
The district, which was mostly inhabited by old burgesses, joined
him; the young men, many of whom had served with him under his
father, readily ranged themselves under the courageous leader who,
not yet twenty-three years of age, was as much soldier as general,
sprang to the front of his cavalry in combat, and vigorously
assailed the enemy along with them. The corps of Picenian
volunteers soon grew to three legions; divisions under Cloelius,
Gaius Carrinas, Lucius Junius Brutus Damasippus,(13) were
despatched from the capital to put down the Picenian insurrection,
but the extemporized general, dexterously taking advantage of the
dissensions that arose among them, had the skill to evade them or
to beat them in detail and to effect his junction with the main
army of Sulla, apparently in Apulia. Sulla saluted him as
-imperator-, that is, as an officer commanding in his own name
and not subordinate but co-ordinate, and distinguished the youth
by marks of honour such as he showed to none of his noble
clients--presumably not without the collateral design of thereby
administering an indirect rebuke to the lack of energetic character
among his own partisans.
Sulla in Campania Opposed by Norbanus and Scipio
Sulla Gains a Victory over Norbanus at Mount Tifata
Defection of Scipio's Army
Reinforced thus considerably both in a moral and material point
of view, Sulla and Metellus marched from Apulia through the still
insurgent Samnite districts towards Campania. The main force of
the enemy also proceeded thither, and it seemed as if the matter
could not but there be brought to a decision. The army of the
consul Gaius Norbanus was already at Capua, where the new colony
had just established itself with all democratic pomp; the second
consular army was likewise advancing along the Appian road. But,
before it arrived, Sulla was in front of Norbanus. A last attempt
at mediation, which Sulla made, led only to the arrest of his
envoys. With fresh indignation his veteran troops threw themselves
on the enemy; their vehement charge down from Mount Tifata at the
first onset broke the enemy drawn up in the plain; with the remnant
of his force Norbanus threw himself into the revolutionary colony
of Capua and the new-burgess town of Neapolis, and allowed himself
to be blockaded there. Sulla's troops, hitherto not without
apprehension as they compared their weak numbers with the masses
of the enemy, had by this victory gained a full conviction of their
military superiority, instead of pausing to besiege the remains of
the defeated army, Sulla left the towns where they took shelter to
be invested, and advanced along the Appian highway against Teanum,
where Scipio was posted. To him also, before beginning battle,
he made fresh proposals for peace; apparently in good earnest.
Scipio, weak as he was, entered into them; an armistice was
concluded; between Cales and Teanum the two generals, both members
of the same noble -gens-, both men of culture and refinement
and for many years colleagues in the senate, met in personal
conference; they entered upon the several questions; they had
already made such progress, that Scipio despatched a messenger
to Capua to procure the opinion of his colleague. Meanwhile the
soldiers of the two camps mingled; the Sullans, copiously furnished
with money by their general, had no great difficulty in persuading
the recruits--not too eager for warfare--over their cups that it
was better to have them as comrades than as foes; in vain Sertorius
warned the general to put a stop to this dangerous intercourse.
The agreement, which had seemed so near, was not effected; it was
Scipio who denounced the armistice. But Sulla maintained that it
was too late and that the agreement had been already concluded;
whereupon Scipio's soldiers, under the pretext that their general
had wrongfully denounced the armistice, passed over en masse to the
ranks of the enemy. The scene closed with an universal embracing,
at which the commanding officers of the revolutionary army had to
look on. Sulla gave orders that the consul should be summoned to
resign his office--which he did--and should along with his staff be
escorted by his cavalry to whatever point they desired; but Scipio
was hardly set at liberty when he resumed the insignia of his
dignity and began afresh to collect troops, without however
executing anything further of moment. Sulla and Metellus took
up winter-quarters in Campania and, after the failure of a second
attempt to come to terms with Norbanus, maintained the blockade
of Capua during the winter.
Preparations on Either Side
The results of the first campaign in favour of Sulla were the
submission of Apulia, Picenum, and Campania, the dissolution of
the one, and the vanquishing and blockading of the other, consular
army. The Italian communities, compelled severally to choose
between their twofold oppressors, already in numerous instances
entered into negotiations with him, and caused the political
rights, which had been won from the opposition party, to be
guaranteed to them by formal separate treaties on the part
of the general of the oligarchy. Sulla cherished the distinct
expectation, and intentionally made boast of it, that he would
overthrow the revolutionary government in the next campaign and
again march into Rome.
But despair seemed to furnish the revolution with fresh energies.
The consulship was committed to two of its most decided leaders,
to Carbo for the third time and to Gaius Marius the younger; the
circumstance that the latter, who was just twenty years of age,
could not legally be invested with the consulship, was as little
heeded as any other point of the constitution. Quintus Sertorius,
who in this and other matters proved an inconvenient critic, was
ordered to proceed to Etruria with a view to procure new levies,
and thence to his province Hither Spain. To replenish the
treasury, the senate was obliged to decree the melting down of
the gold and silver vessels of the temples in the capital; how
considerable the produce was, is clear from the fact that after
several months' warfare there was still on hand nearly 600,000
pounds (14,000 pounds of gold and 6000 pounds of silver). In the
considerable portion of Italy, which still voluntarily or under
compulsion adhered to the revolution, warlike preparations were
prosecuted with vigour. Newly-formed divisions of some strength
came from Etruria, where the communities of new burgesses were very
numerous, and from the region of the Po. The veterans of Marius
in great numbers ranged themselves under the standards at the call
of his son. But nowhere were preparations made for the struggle
against Sulla with such eagerness as in the insurgent Samnium and
some districts of Lucania. It was owing to anything but devotion
towards the revolutionary Roman government, that numerous
contingents from the Oscan districts reinforced their armies;
but it was well understood there that an oligarchy restored by
Sulla would not acquiesce, like the lax Cinnan government, in
the independence of these lands as now de facto subsisting; and
therefore the primitive rivalry between the Sabellians and
the Latins was roused afresh in the struggle against Sulla.
For Samnium and Latium this war was as much a national struggle
as the wars of the fifth century; they strove not for a greater
or less amount of political rights, but for the purpose of appeasing
long-suppressed hate by the annihilation of their antagonist.
It was no wonder, therefore, that the war in this region bore
a character altogether different from the conflicts elsewhere,
that no compromise was attempted there, that no quarter was given
or taken, and that the pursuit was continued to the very uttermost.
Thus the campaign of 672 was begun on both sides with augmented
military resources and increased animosity. The revolution in
particular threw away the scabbard: at the suggestion of Carbo
the Roman comitia outlawed all the senators that should be found
in Sulla's camp. Sulla was silent; he probably thought that
they were pronouncing sentence beforehand on themselves.
Sulla Proceeds to Latium to Oppose the Younger Marius
His Victory at Sacriportus
Democratic Massacres in Rome
The army of the Optimates was divided. The proconsul Metellus
undertook, resting on the support of the Picenian insurrection, to
advance to Upper Italy, while Sulla marched from Campania straight
against the capital. Carbo threw himself in the way of the former;
Marius would encounter the main army of the enemy in Latium.
Advancing along the Via Latina, Sulla fell in with the enemy not
far from Signia; they retired before him as far as the so-called
"Port of Sacer," between Signia and the chief stronghold of the
Marians, the strong Praeneste. There Marius drew up his force for
battle. His army was about 40,000 strong, and he was in savage
fury and personal bravery the true son of his father; but his
troops were not the well trained bands with which the latter had
fought his battles, and still less might this inexperienced young
man bear comparison with the old master of war. His troops soon
gave way; the defection of a division even during the battle
accelerated the defeat. More than the half of the Marians were
dead or prisoners; the remnant, unable either to keep the field or
to gain the other bank of the Tiber, was compelled to seek
protection in the neighbouring fortresses; the capital, which they
had neglected to provision, was irrecoverably lost. In consequence
of this Marius gave orders to Lucius Brutus Damasippus, the praetor
commanding there, to evacuate it, but before doing so to put to
death all the esteemed men, hitherto spared, of the opposite party.
This injunction, by which the son even outdid the proscriptions of
his father, was carried into effect; Damasippus made a pretext for
convoking the senate, and the marked men were struck down partly in
the sitting itself, partly on their flight from the senate-house.
Notwithstanding the thorough clearance previously effected, there
were still found several victims of note. Such were the former
aedile Publius Antistius, the father-in-law of Gnaeus Pompeius,
and the former praetor Gaius Carbo, son of the well-known friend
and subsequent opponent of the Gracchi,(14) since the death of
so many men of more distinguished talent the two best orators in
the judicial courts of the desolated Forum; the consular Lucius
Domitius, and above all the venerable -pontifex maximus- Quintus
Scaevola, who had escaped the dagger of Fimbria only to bleed to
death during these last throes of the revolution in the vestibule
of the temple of Vesta entrusted to his guardianship. With
speechlesshorror the multitude saw the corpses of these last
victims of the reign of terror dragged through the streets,
and thrown into the river.
Siege of Praeneste
Occupation of Rome
The broken bands of Marius threw themselves into the neighbouring
and strong cities of new burgesses Norba and Praeneste: Marius in
person with the treasure and the greater part of the fugitives
entered the latter. Sulla left an able officer, Quintus Ofella,
before Praeneste just as he had done in the previous year before
Capua, with instructions not to expend his strength in the siege
of the strong town, but to enclose it with an extended line of
blockade and starve it into surrender. He himself advanced from
different sides upon the capital, which as well as the whole
surrounding district he found abandoned by the enemy, and occupied
without resistance. He barely took time to compose the minds of
the people by an address and to make the most necessary arrangements,
and immediately passed on to Etruria, that in concert with Metellus
he might dislodge his antagonists from Northern Italy.
Metellus against Carbo in Northern Italy
Carbo Assailed on Three Sides of Etruria
Metellus had meanwhile encountered and defeated Carbo's lieutenant
Carrinas at the river Aesis (Esino between Ancona and Sinigaglia),
which separated the district of Picenum from the Gallic province;
when Carbo in person came up with his superior army, Metellus had
been obliged to abstain from any farther advance. But on the news
of the battle at Sacriportus, Carbo, anxious about his communications,
had retreated to the Flaminian road, with a view to take up his
headquarters at the meeting-point of Ariminum, and from that point
to hold the passes of the Apennines on the one hand and the valley
of the Po on the other. In this retrograde movement different
divisions fell into the hands of the enemy, and not only so,
but Sena Gallica was stormed and Carbo's rearguard was broken
in a brilliant cavalry engagement by Pompeius; nevertheless Carbo
attained on the whole his object. The consular Norbanus took
the command in the valley of the Po; Carbo himself proceeded to
Etruria. But the march of Sulla with his victorious legions to
Etruria altered the position of affairs; soon three Sullan armies
from Gaul, Umbria, and Rome established communications with each
other. Metellus with the fleet went past Ariminum to Ravenna, and
at Faventia cut off the communication between Ariminum and the
valley of the Po, into which he sent forward a division along the
great road to Placentia under Marcus Lucullus, the quaestor of
Sulla and brother of his admiral in the Mithradatic war. The young
Pompeius and his contemporary and rival Crassus penetrated from
Picenum by mountain-paths into Umbria and gained the Flaminian road
at Spoletium, where they defeated Carbo's legate Carrinas and shut
him up in the town; he succeeded, however, in escaping from it on
a rainy night and making his way, though not without loss, to the
army of Carbo. Sulla himself marched from Rome into Etruria with
his army in two divisions, one of which advancing along the coast
defeated the corps opposed to it at Saturnia (between the rivers
Ombrone and Albegna); the second led by Sulla in person fell in
with the army of Carbo in the valley of the Clanis, and sustained
a successful conflict with his Spanish cavalry. But the pitched
battle which was fought between Carbo and Sulla in the region of
Chiusi, although it ended without being properly decisive, was
so far at any rate in favour of Carbo that Sulla's victorious
advance was checked.
Conflicts about Praeneste
In the vicinity of Rome also events appeared to assume a more
favourable turn for the revolutionary party, and the war seemed
as if it would again be drawn chiefly towards this region.
For, while the oligarchic party were concentrating all their
energies on Etruria, the democracy everywhere put forth the utmost
efforts to break the blockade of Praeneste. Even the governor of
Sicily Marcus Perpenna set out for that purpose; it does not appear,
however, that he reached Praeneste. Nor was the very considerable
corps under Marcius, detached by Carbo, more successful in this;
assailed and defeated by the troops of the enemy which were at
Spoletium, demoralized by disorder, want of supplies, and mutiny,
one portion went back to Carbo, another to Ariminum; the rest
dispersed. Help in earnest on the other hand came from Southern
Italy. There the Samnites under Pontius of Telesia, and the
Lucanians under their experienced general Marcus Lamponius, set
out without its being possible to prevent their departure, were
joined in Campania where Capua still held out by a division of
the garrison under Gutta, and thus to the number, it was said, of
70,000 marched upon Praeneste. Thereupon Sulla himself, leaving
behind a corps against Carbo, returned to Latium and took up a
well-chosen position in the defiles in front of Praeneste, where
he barred the route of the relieving army.(15) In vain the garrison
attempted to break through the lines of Ofella, in vain the
relieving army attempted to dislodge Sulla; both remained
immoveable in their strong positions, even after Damasippus,
sent by Carbo, had reinforced the relieving army with two legions.