154 ROMAN HISTORY : 



power. Both within the City and without, save among a few 

 old republican enthusiasts, there existed the feeling that a 

 change was at hand inevitable if not desirable. 



The epoch of Marius and Sylla, and the civil war begotten 

 by their ambition and jealousy, form a threshold to the 

 events which occupy the still more remarkable period before 

 us. These extraordinary men, each victorious over foreign 

 enemies, each taking the badge of a party and contending 

 fiercely for superiority at home, did much to hasten the 

 catastrophe in progress. Marius an admirable soldier, 

 but coldly and brutally unprincipled is readily understood. 

 He assumed the cause of the Italian states against the ruling 

 aristocracy of Borne, from the personal motives just named, 

 and to recruit the armies which subserved to these objects. 

 He probably had no real purpose beyond, though party spirit 

 gave him credit for such. Sylla was of higher stamp ; 

 one of those who stand out in bold relief on the world's 

 history ; great in intellect, constant in purpose, intrepid and 

 powerful in action ; but blasted in his moral part by a con- 

 temptuous indifference to human life, virtue, and happiness, 

 which led to the perpetration or permission of cruelties, 

 hateful in their very record. It needs a large view of the 

 contradictions of human character to explain the anomalies 

 of this man's mind and career. It is usual to speak of him 

 as the champion of the nobility and old senatorial families 

 against the encroachments of democracy within the City, and 

 the pressure of the new citizenship created without : and such 

 undoubtedly he was in the changes he effected during the 

 two years of his dictatorship. But we stop short of believing, 

 as some do, that his single and settled purpose was that of 

 restoring the integrity of the Eepublic. Personal passions 

 mingled themselves with, if they did not decide, his public 

 acts. An early hatred of his rugged rival Marius was em- 

 bittered by time, and by the cruelties of their protracted con- 



