Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 3.djvu/951

939 He resolved to extirpate root and branch the popular party. One of his first acts was to draw up a list of his enemies who were to be put to death, which list was exhibited in the forum to public inspection, and called a Proscriptio. It was the first instance of the kind in Roman history. All persons in this list were outlaws who might be killed by any one with impunity, even by slaves; their property was confiscated to the state, and was to be sold by public auction; their children and grandchildren lost their votes in the comitia, and were excluded from all public offices. Further, all who killed a proscribed person, or indicated the place of his concealment, received two talents as a reward, and whoever sheltered such a person was punished with death. Terror now reigned, not only at Rome, but throughout Italy. Fresh lists of the proscribed constantly appeared. No one was safe; for Sulla gratified his friends by placing in the fatal lists their personal enemies, or persons whose property was coveted by his adherents. An estate, a house, or even a piece of plate was to many a man, who belonged to no political party, his death warrant; for although the confiscated property belonged to the state, and had to be sold by public auction, the friends and dependents of Sulla purchased it at a nominal price, as no one dared to bid against them. Oftentimes Sulla did not require the purchase-money to be paid at all, and in many cases he gave such property to his favourites without even the formality of a sale. Metella, the wife of the dictator, and Chrysogonus his freedman, P. Sulla, M. Crassus, Vettius, and Sex. Naevius are especially mentioned among those who received such presents; and handsome Roman matrons, as likewise actors and actresses, were favoured in the same manner. The number of persons who perished by the proscriptions is stated differently, but it appears to have amounted to many thousands. At the commencement of these horrors Sulla had been appointed dictator. As both the consuls had perished, he caused the senate to elect Valerius Flaccus interrex, and the latter brought before the people a rogatio, conferring the dictatorship upon Sulla, for the purpose of restoring order to the republic, and for as long a time as he judged to be necessary. Thus the dictatorship was revived after being in abeyance for more than 120 years, and Sulla obtained absolute power over the lives and fortunes of all the citizens. This was towards the close of 81. Sulla's great object in being invested with the dictatorship was to carry into execution in a legal manner the great reforms which he meditated in the constitution and the administration of justice, by which he hoped to place the government of the republic on a firm and secure basis. He had no intention of abolishing the republic, and consequently he caused consuls to be elected for the following year, 81, and was elected to the office himself in  80, while he continued to hold the dictatorship.

At the beginning of the following year, 81, Sulla celebrated a splendid triumph on account of his victory over Mithridates. In a speech which he delivered to the people at the close of the gorgeous ceremony, he claimed for himself the surname of Felix as he attributed his success in life to the favour of the gods. He believed himself to have been in particular under the protection of Venus, who had granted him victory in battle as well as in love. Hence, in writing to Greeks, he called himself Epaphroditus. All ranks in Rome bowed in awe before their master; and among other marks of distinction which were voted to him by the obsequious senate, a gilt equestrian statue was erected to his honour before the Rostra, bearing the inscription "Cornelio Sullae Imperatori Felici."

During the years 80 and 79, Sulla carried into execution his various reforms in the constitution, of which an account is given at the close of his life. But at the same time he adopted measures in order to crush his enemies more completely, and to consolidate the power of his party. These measures require a few words of explanation, as they did not form a part of his constitutional reforms, though they were intended for the support of the latter. The first of these measures has been already mentioned, namely the destruction of his enemies by the proscription. He appears to have published his list of victims immediately after the defeat of the Samnites and Lucanians at the Colline gate, without communicating, as Plutarch says (Sull. 31), with any magistrate; but when he was dictator he proposed a law in the comitia centuriata, which ratified his proscriptions, and which is usually called Lex Cornelia de Proscriptione or De Proscriptis. By this law it was enacted that all proscriptions should cease on the 1st of June, 81. The lex Valeria, which conferred the dictatorship upon Sulla, gave him absolute power over the lives of Roman citizens, and hence Cicero says he does not know whether to call the proscription law a lex Valeria or lex Cornelia. (Cic. pro Rosc. Am. 43, 44, de Leg. Agr. iii. 2.)

Another of Sulla's measures, and one of still more importance for the support of his power, was the establishment of military colonies throughout Italy. The inhabitants of the Italian towns, which had fought against Sulla, were deprived of the full Roman franchise which had been lately conferred upon them, and were only allowed to retain the commercium: their land was confiscated and given to the soldiers who had fought under him. Twenty-three legions (Appian, B. C. i. 100), or, according to another statement (Liv. Epit. 89), forty-seven legions received grants of land in various parts of Italy. A great number of these colonies was settled in Etruria, the population of which was thus almost entirely changed. These colonies had the strongest interest in upholding the institutions of Sulla, since any attempt to invalidate the latter would have endangered their newly-acquired possessions. But though they were a support to the power of Sulla, they hastened the fall of the commonwealth; an idle and licentious soldiery supplanted an industrious and agricultural population; and Catiline found nowhere more adherents than among the military colonies of Sulla. While Sulla thus established throughout Italy a population devoted to his interests, he created at Rome a kind of bodyguard for his protection by giving the citizenship to a great number of slaves belonging to those who had been proscribed by him. The slaves thus rewarded are said to have been as many as 10,000, and were called Cornelii after him as their patron.

Sulla had completed his reforms by the beginning of 79, and as he longed for the undisturbed enjoyment of his pleasures, he resolved to resign his dictatorship. Accordingly, to the general surprise he summoned the people, resigned his dictatorship, and declared himself ready to render 