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Updated: May 10, 2025
Sulla also says, that Marius expected that the line would be engaged chiefly at the extremities and on the wings, and with the view of appropriating the victory to his own soldiers, and that Catulus might have no part in the contest, and not come to close quarters with the enemy, he took advantage of the hollow front of the centre, which usually results when the line is extended, and accordingly divided and placed his forces as already stated.
Cicero did afterward defend this Antony, as we learn from his speech Pro Domo Suâ; but his change of purpose in that respect has nothing to do with the argument. We have two speeches extant made this year: one on behalf of P. Sulla, nephew to the Dictator; the other for Archias the Greek scholar and poet, who had been Cicero's tutor and now claimed to be a citizen of Rome.
Crassus, also ineligible, also demanded the consulship, and both these lieutenants of Sulla obtained their ends. But both, in order to obtain the consulship, made great promises. Pompey, in particular, promised to restore the tribunitian power.
It has been suggested that his fame is in part due to the circumstance, fortunate for him, that he had to address the courts as reorganised by Sulla. The only blot on his character is his unscrupulousness in dealing with the judges. Cicero accuses him of bribing them on one occasion, and the fact that he was not contradicted, though his rival was present, makes the accusation more than probable.
When Sulla had done his work, he resigned his extraordinary powers with entire indifference. In a little more than a year he died. The Sullan constitution saved the Roman empire from imminent collapse; but it was impossible that it should be more than a makeshift, like Cromwell's protectorate.
Sulla, Catiline, Pompeius, Cato, Clodius, Caesar, all have their marked characteristics, familiar to all who read the history of the Roman revolution. Caesar is the most remarkable example of strong character among the men of high aristocratic descent, and it is interesting to notice how entirely he was without the exclusive tendency which we associate with aristocrats.
From Macedonia, where the Cappadocians had meanwhile definitively established themselves, plentiful and regular supplies arrived by sea, which Sulla was not in a condition to cut off from the harbour- fortress; in Athens no doubt provisions were beginning to fail, but from the proximity of the two fortresses Archelaus was enabled to make various attempts to throw quantities of grain into Athens, which were not wholly unsuccessful.
By so doing they were, in a military point of view, ruined; their line of retreat, the Latin road, would by such a movement fall into Sulla's hands; and even if they got possession of Rome, they would be infallibly crushed there, enclosed within a city by no means fitted for defence, and wedged in between the far superior armies of Metellus and Sulla.
But after Lucius Sulla, having recovered the government by force of arms, proceeded, after a fair commencement, to a pernicious termination, all became robbers and plunderers; some set their affections on houses, others on lands; his victorious troops knew neither restraint nor moderation, but inflicted on the citizens disgraceful and inhuman outrages.
The place of Marius in the Marsian army was taken by the consul of this year, Lucius Porcius Cato, who had fought with distinction in Etruria, and that of Caesar in the Campanian army by his lieutenant, Lucius Sulla, to whom were due some of the most material successes of the previous campaign; Gnaeus Strabo retained now as consul the command which he had held so successfully in the Picenian territory.
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