History of Julius Caesar | Page 5

with Marius. Political parties rise and fall, in almost all ages of the
world, in alternate fluctuations, like those of the tides. The faction of
Marius had been for some time in the ascendency, and it was now its
turn to fall. Sylla found, therefore, as he advanced, every thing
favorable to the restoration of his own party to power. He destroyed the
armies which came out to oppose him. He shut up the young Marius in
a city not far from Rome, where he had endeavored to find shelter and
protection, and then advanced himself and took possession of the city.
There he caused to be enacted again the horrid scenes of massacre and
murder which Marius had perpetrated before, going, however, as much
beyond the example which he followed as men usually do in the
commission of crime. He gave out lists of the names of men whom he
wished to have destroyed, and these unhappy victims of his revenge
were to be hunted out by bands of reckless soldiers, in their dwellings,
or in the places of public resort in the city, and dispatched by the sword
wherever they could be found. The scenes which these deeds created in
a vast and populous city can scarcely be conceived of by those who
have never witnessed the horrors produced by the massacres of civil
war. Sylla himself went through with this work in the most cool and
unconcerned manner, as if he were performing the most ordinary duties
of an officer of state. He called the Senate together one day, and, while
he was addressing them, the attention of the Assembly was suddenly
distracted by the noise of outcries and screams in the neighboring
streets from those who were suffering military execution there. The

senators started with horror at the sound. Sylla, with an air of great
composure and unconcern, directed the members to listen to him, and
to pay no attention to what was passing elsewhere. The sounds that
they heard were, he said, only some correction which was bestowed by
his orders on certain disturbers of the public peace.
[Sidenote: Executions.] [Sidenote: Extent of Sylla's proscriptions.]
[Sidenote: Man's nature.]
Sylla's orders for the execution of those who had taken an active part
against him were not confined to Rome. They went to the neighboring
cities and to distant provinces, carrying terror and distress every where.
Still, dreadful as these evils were, it is possible for us, in the
conceptions which we form, to overrate the extent of them. In reading
the history of the Roman empire during the civil wars of Marius and
Sylla, one might easily imagine that the whole population of the
country was organized into the two contending armies, and were
employed wholly in the work of fighting with and massacring each
other. But nothing like this can be true. It is obviously but a small part,
after all, of an extended community that can be ever actively and
personally engaged in these deeds of violence and blood. Man is not
naturally a ferocious wild beast. On the contrary, he loves, ordinarily,
to live in peace and quietness, to till his lands and tend his flocks, and
to enjoy the blessings of peace and repose. It is comparatively but a
small number in any age of the world, and in any nation, whose
passions of ambition, hatred, or revenge become so strong as that they
love bloodshed and war. But these few, when they once get weapons
into their hands, trample recklessly and mercilessly upon the rest. One
ferocious human tiger, with a spear or a bayonet to brandish, will
tyrannize as he pleases over a hundred quiet men, who are armed only
with shepherds' crooks, and whose only desire is to live in peace with
their wives and their children.
[Sidenote: Husbandmen.] [Sidenote: How the Roman edifices were
built.] [Sidenote: Standing armies.]
Thus, while Marius and Sylla, with some hundred thousand armed and
reckless followers, were carrying terror and dismay wherever they went,

there were many millions of herdsmen and husbandmen in the Roman
world who were dwelling in all the peace and quietness they could
command, improving with their peaceful industry every acre where
corn would ripen or grass grow. It was by taxing and plundering the
proceeds of this industry that the generals and soldiers, the consuls and
praetors, and proconsuls and propraetors, filled their treasuries, and fed
their troops, and paid the artisans for fabricating their arms. With these
avails they built the magnificent edifices of Rome, and adorned its
environs with sumptuous villas. As they had the power and the arms in
their hands, the peaceful and the industrious had no alternative but to
submit. They went on as well as they could with their labors, bearing
patiently every interruption,