Caesar. Life of a Colossus (Adrian Goldsworthy) Yale University Press by Adrian Goldsworthy Page B

been expelled from Roman territory and his armies humiliatingly defeated in battle. Sulla was not able to return to Italy immediately, for there was much administrative work to be done to settle the eastern provinces. In 84 BC Cinna had decided to fight his rival in Greece rather than Italy, but there were severe delays when the weather in the Adriatic turned bad and one convoy of soldiers was blown back to Italy. Soon afterwards the soldiers mutinied – probably through a reluctance to fight other Romans, although our sources are contradictory on this point –
    and Cinna was killed by his own men. The leadership of his supporters was taken over by Cnaeus Papirius Carbo, who was his fellow consul in this and the preceding year. In 82 BC he would hold a third term as consul with Marius’ son as his colleague, in spite of the fact that the latter was too young for the post. A growing number of senators had already either decided that Italy was no longer safe for them, or perhaps guessed which way the wind was blowing, and had fled to join Sulla in the east. More would rally to his cause when he finally landed at Brundisium (modern Brindisi) in southern Italy in the autumn of 83 BC.12
    The odds against Sulla were huge, but his opponents consistently failed to make the most of their numbers, and army after army was defeated, or on one occasion persuaded to defect en masse. Few of the leaders opposing him displayed much military talent. After a lull during the winter months the campaign resumed and Sulla was able to take Rome in 82 BC. A sudden enemy counter-offensive led to a desperate battle outside the Colline Gate. During the fighting Sulla himself narrowly escaped being killed and one wing of his army collapsed, but in the end the remainder of his troops carried on to win a victory. As their fortunes failed the enemy leaders became more vindictive. The Younger Marius ordered the execution of Scaevola, the Pontifex Maximus , an action that his mother Julia is supposed to have condemned. Marius himself was besieged in Praeneste and either killed or committed 55
    the rise to the consulship, 100–59 bc
    suicide when the city surrendered. When his head was taken to Sulla the victor commented that such a stripling ought to have ‘learned to pull an oar before he tried to steer the ship’. Carbo escaped to Sicily to continue the resistance, but was defeated and executed by one of Sulla’s subordinates.13
    Just as the Marian capture of Rome had greatly surpassed Sulla’s march on the City in the scale of massacre and execution it brought, now both were eclipsed by the savagery of Sulla’s return. Addressing the Senate in the Temple of Bellona on the outskirts of Rome, the victor’s speech was accompanied by the screams of thousands of captured soldiers – mostly Italians who were treated more harshly than Romans – being executed a short distance away. It was not simply the rank and file of the enemy who suffered. Most prominent leaders were executed as soon as they were taken or anticipated this outcome by taking their own lives. Many more senators and equestrians seen to be hostile to Sulla were killed by his men in the aftermath of victory.14
    At first the executions occurred without warning, but complaints from a nervous Senate wishing to know just who was going to suffer led to the process becoming more formal. Sulla ordered that the proscriptions – lists of names of men who thereby lost all protection of law – be posted up in the Forum, and copies were subsequently sent to other parts of Italy. Those proscribed could be killed by anyone and a reward claimed on presentation of their severed heads to Sulla, who had them displayed on and around the Rostra. Usually the victim’s property was confiscated and auctioned off, much of it being purchased at a knock-down price by Sulla’s associates. The victims were principally either senators or equestrians. Several lists were posted and, though we have no precise