The history of Rome. Book IV

Having been ordered to go on to Africa, Pompeius with his army which was certainly far more numerous, defeated the not inconsiderable forces collected by Ahenobarbus and Hiarbas, and, declining for the time to be saluted as imperator, he at once gave the signal for assault on the hostile camp. He thus became master of the enemy in one day; Ahenobarbus was among the fallen: with the aid of king Bogud, Hiarbas was seized and slain at Bulla, and Hiempsal was reinstated in his hereditary kingdom; a great razzia against the inhabitants of the desert, among whom a number of Gaetulian tribes recognized as free by Marius were made subject to Hiempsal, revived in Africa also the fallen repute of the Roman name: in forty days after the landing of Pompeius in Africa all was at an end (674?). The senate instructed him to break up his army - an implied hint that he was not to be allowed a triumph, to which as an extraordinary magistrate he could according to precedent make no claim. The general murmured secretly, the soldiers loudly; it seemed for a moment as if the African army would revolt against the senate and Sulla would have to take the field against his son-in-law. But Sulla yielded, and allowed the young man to boast of being the only Roman who had become a triumphator before he was a senator (12 March 675); in fact the 'Fortunate', not perhaps without a touch of irony, saluted the youth on his return from these easy exploits as the 'Great'.

Fresh Difficulties with Mithradates

In the east also, after the embarkation of Sulla in the spring of 671, there had been no cessation of warfare. The restoration of the old state of things and the subjugation of individual towns cost in Asia as in Italy various bloody struggles. Against the free city of Mytilene in particular Lucius Lucullus was obliged at length to bring up troops, after having exhausted all gentler measures; and even a victory in the open field did not put an end to the obstinate resistance of the citizens.

Meanwhile the Roman governor of Asia, Lucius Murena, had fallen into fresh difficulties with king Mithradates. The latter had since the peace busied himself in strengthening anew his rule, which was shaken even in the northern provinces; he had pacified the Colchians by appointing his able son Mithradates as their governor; he had then made away with that son, and was now preparing for an expedition into his Bosporan kingdom. The assurances of Archelaus who had meanwhile been obliged to seek an asylum with Murena[18], that these preparations were directed against Rome, induced Murena, under the pretext that Mithradates still kept possession of Cappadocian frontier districts, to move his troops towards the Cappadocian Comana and thus to violate the Pontic frontier (671). Mithradates contented himself with complaining to Murena and, when this was in vain, to the Roman government.

In fact commissioners from Sulla made their appearance to dissuade the governor, but he did not submit; on the contrary he crossed the Halys and entered on the undisputed territory of Pontus, whereupon Mithradates resolved to repel force by force. His general Gordius had to detain the Roman army till the king came up with far superior forces and compelled battle; Murena was vanquished and with great loss driven back over the Roman frontier to Phrygia, and the Roman garrisons were expelled from all Cappadocia. Murena had the effrontery, no doubt, to call himself the victor and to assume the title of imperator on account of these events (672); but the sharp lesson and a second admonition from Sulla induced him at last to push the matter no farther; the peace between Rome and Mithradates was renewed (673).

Second Peace - Capture of Mytilene

This foolish feud, while it lasted, had postponed the reduction of the Mytilenaeans; it was only after a long siege by land and by sea, in which the Bithynian fleet rendered good service, that Murena's successor succeeded in taking the city by storm (675).

General Peace

The ten years' revolution and insurrection were at an end in the west and in the east; the state had once more unity of government and peace without and within. After the terrible convulsions of the last years even this rest was a relief. Whether it was to furnish more than a mere relief; whether the remarkable man, who had succeeded in the difficult task of vanquishing the public foe and in the more difficult work of subduing the revolution, would be able to meet satisfactorily the most difficult task of all - the re-establishing of social and political order shaken to its very foundations - could not but be speedily decided.

Chapter X The Sullan Constitution

The Restoration

About the time when the first pitched battle was fought between Romans and Romans, in the night of the 6th July 671, the venerable temple, which had been erected by the kings, dedicated by the youthful republic, and spared by the storms of five hundred years - the temple of the Roman Jupiter in the Capitol - perished in the flames.

It was no augury, but it was an image of the state of the Roman constitution. This, too, lay in ruins and needed reconstruction.

The revolution was no doubt vanquished, but the victory was far from implying as a matter of course the restoration of the old government. The mass of the aristocracy certainly was of opinion that now, after the death of the two revolutionary consuls, it would be sufficient to make arrangements for the ordinary supplemental election and to leave it to the senate to take such steps as should seem farther requisite for the rewarding of the victorious army, for the punishment of the most guilty revolutionists, and possibly also for the prevention of similar outbreaks. But Sulla, in whose hands the victory had concentrated for the moment all power, formed a more correct judgment of affairs and of men. The aristocracy of Rome in its best epoch had not risen above an adherence - partly noble and partly narrow - to traditional forms; how should the clumsy collegiate government of this period be in a position to carry out with energy and thoroughness a comprehensive reform of the state? And at the present moment, when the last crisis had swept away almost all the leading men of the senate, the vigour and intelligence requisite for such an enterprise were less than ever to be found there.

How thoroughly useless was the pure aristocratic blood, and how little doubt Sulla had as to its worthlessness, is shown by the fact that, with the exception of Quintus Metellus who was related to him by marriage, he selected all his instruments out of what was previously the middle party and the deserters from the democratic camp - such as Lucius Flaccus, Lucius Philippus, Quintus Ofella, Gnaeus Pompeius.

Sulla was as much in earnest about the re-establishment of the old constitution as the most vehement aristocratic emigrant; he understood however, not perhaps to the full extent - for how in that case could he have put hand to the work at all? - but better at any rate than his party, the enormous difficulties which attended this work of restoration. Comprehensive concessions so far as concession was possible without affecting the essence of oligarchy, and the establishment of an energetic system of repression and prevention, were regarded by him as unavoidable; and he saw clearly that the senate as it stood would refuse or mutilate every concession, and would parliamentarily ruin every systematic reconstruction. If Sulla had already after the Sulpician revolution carried out what he deemed necessary in both respects without asking much of their advice, he was now determined, under circumstances of far more severe and intense excitement, to restore the oligarchy - not with the aid, but in spite, of the oligarchs - by his own hand.

Sulla Regent of Rome

Sulla, however, was not now consul as he had been then, but was furnished merely with proconsular, that is to say, purely military power: he needed an authority keeping as near as possible to constitutional forms, but yet