The Historians' History of the World 05

“The judgment pronounced on Marius by posterity is not, like that on many other eminent men, wavering and contradictory. He is not one of those who to some have appeared heroes, to others malefactors, nor has he had to wait for ages, like Tiberius, before his true character became known. Disregarding the conscious misrepresentations of his personal enemies, we may say that he has always been taken for a good specimen of the genuine old Roman, uniting in his person in an exceptional degree the virtues and the faults of the rude illiterate peasant and the intrepid soldier. No one has ever ventured to deny that by his eminent military ability he rendered essential service to his country. Nobody has doubted his austere virtues, his simplicity and honesty, qualities by which, no less than by his genius for war, he gained for himself the veneration of the people. On the other hand, it is universally admitted that as a politician he was incompetent, and that he was only a tool in the hands of those with whom he acted. But morbid ambition and revengeful passion urged him at last to deeds which make it doubtful whether it would not have been better for Rome if he had never been born. He has, therefore, neither deserved nor obtained unmixed admiration; but as his darkest deeds were committed in moments when he was half mad from sufferings and indignities he had endured, and when perhaps he hardly knew what he was doing, he may, in the opinion of humane judges, gain by comparison with Sulla, who acted from reflection and in cool blood when he consigned thousands to death and enacted the horrid spectacle of the proscriptions.”e

Cinna now chose for his colleague Valerius Flaccus, the same who, as consul fourteen years before, had aided Marius to crush the conspiracy of Saturninus; an appointment which seems to betoken considerable respect for the usages of the state; for Flaccus, though formerly both consul and censor, had taken much less part in the recent contest than either Carbo or Sertorius, whose inferior rank counterbalanced their higher services. Cinna was now actively engaged in fulfilling his pledges to his allies. Censors were elected on purpose to effect the complete emancipation of Italy by suppressing the ten Italian tribes, and enrolling the new citizens of the Plautian law among the thirty-five tribes of the city. Whether this inscription was based upon a principle of numerical equalisation, or of geographical distribution, or whether it was attempted to combine the two, we have, perhaps, no means of determining; but thus the last remaining distinction between the Romans and Italians was effaced, for as many at least of the latter class as chose to avail themselves of the proffered privilege. The Samnites, Lucanians, and others still scorned to accept it. Another measure, undertaken by Flaccus, was more delicate, and more generally interesting. The consul ventured to enact an adjustment of debts, and relieve the accumulating distress of the poorer citizens, by enabling all obligations to be cancelled by the payment of one-fourth of the principal. He exchanged, as the Romans phrased it, silver for coppers; for the copper coin called the as was made equivalent for the purpose to the silver sesterce, which at this time was of four times its intrinsic value. After so long a series of wars and revolutions, and the fatal changes which had long been operating in the possession of property, it is possible that this measure was adopted as a necessary expedient. But whatever the urgency of the occasion may have been, the stroke was of fearful augury for the future, and did not fail to kindle criminal hopes in the dissolute and discontended for more than one succeeding generation. Having accomplished this important measure, Flaccus placed himself at the head of the legions destined for the Pontic War, and proceeded to the East to watch the movements of Sulla.

While yet unchecked by the best troops and most accomplished generals of the republic, Mithridates had obtained the most astounding successes. The kingdoms of Bithynia and Cappadocia had fallen without resistance into his hands. The Roman province of Asia had succumbed, and even received its new master with acclamations. From thence he had crossed the Ægean Sea, accepting the submission of its rich and flourishing islands, and his admiral Archelaus had captured Athens itself, with its harbour in the Piræus and all its naval stores and equipments. The Greek cities were, for the most part, favourably disposed towards the liberator, who promised to break the rod of proconsular oppression. It was impossible to foresee how far the contagion of provincial disaffection might spread; and when Sulla landed on the eastern shores of the Adriatic, his task had swelled to the reconquest of one hemisphere of the empire.

SULLA IN GREECE