Historical Tales Volume Xi Part 14

And now we have a story of striking interest to tell. It would need the powers of invention of a romancer to devise a series of adventures as remarkable as those which befell old Marius in his flight. It is one of the strangest stories in all the annals of history, a marked ill.u.s.tration of the saying that fact is often stranger than fiction.

Marius fled to Ostia, at the mouth of the Tiber, in company with Granius, his son-in-law, and five slaves. He proposed to take s.h.i.+p there for Africa, where his influence was great. His son followed him by a different route, and arrived at Ostia to find that his father had put to sea. There was another vessel about to sail, which the son took, and in which he succeeded in reaching Africa.

The older fugitive had no such good fortune. The elements p.r.o.nounced against him, and a storm drove the vessel ash.o.r.e near Circeii. Here the party wandered in distress along the desolate coast, in imminent danger of capture, for emissaries of Sulla were scouring the sh.o.r.es of Italy in his pursuit. Fortunately for the old general, he was recognized by some herdsmen, who warned him that a troop of cavalry was approaching. Not knowing who they were, and fearing their purpose, the fugitives hastily left the road and sought shelter in the forest that there came down near to the coast.

Here the night was miserably pa.s.sed, the fugitives suffering for want of food and shelter. When the dawn of the next day broke, their forlorn walk was resumed, there being no enemy in sight. By this time the whole party, with the exception of Marius, was greatly depressed. He alone kept up his spirits, telling his followers that he had been six times consul of Rome, and that a seventh consuls.h.i.+p would yet be his.

There seemed little hope of such a turn of fortune as the hungry fugitives dragged wearily onward. For two days they kept on, making about forty miles of distance. At the end of that time peril of capture came frightfully near. A body of hors.e.m.e.n was visible at a distance, coming rapidly on. No friendly forest here offered shelter. The only hope of escape lay in two merchant vessels, which were moving slowly close in sh.o.r.e.

Calling loudly for aid, Marius and those with him plunged into the water and swam for these vessels. Granius reached one of them. Marius was so exhausted that he could not swim, and was supported with difficulty above the water by two slaves till the seamen of the other vessel drew him on board.

He had barely reached the deck when the troop of hors.e.m.e.n rode to the water's edge, and their leader called to the captain of the vessel, telling him that it was the proscribed Marius he had rescued, and bidding him at once to deliver him up.

What to do the captain did not know. The officer on sh.o.r.e threatened him with the vengeance of Sulla if he failed to yield the fugitive. Marius, with tears in his eyes, earnestly begged for protection from the captain and crew. The captain wavered in purpose, but finally yielded to Marius and sailed on. But he did so in doubt and fear, and on reaching the mouth of the river Liris he persuaded Marius to go ash.o.r.e, saying that the vessel must lie to till the land-wind rose. The instant the boat returned the faithless captain sailed away, leaving the aged fugitive absolutely alone on the beach.

Walking wearily to the sorry hut of an old peasant, which stood near, Marius told him who he was, and begged for shelter. The old man hid him in a hole near the river, and covered him with reeds. While he lay there the hors.e.m.e.n, who had followed the vessel along the sh.o.r.e, came up, and asked the tenant of the hut where Marius was.

The s.h.i.+vering fugitive, in fear of being betrayed, rose hastily from his hiding-place and dashed into the stream. Some of the hors.e.m.e.n saw him, he was pursued, and, covered with mud and nearly naked, the old conqueror was dragged from the river, placed on a horse, and carried as a captive to the neighboring town of Miturnae. Here he was confined in the house of a woman named Fannia till his fate could be determined.

A circular letter had been received by the magistrates from the consuls at Rome, ordering them to put Marius to death if he should fall into their hands. This was more than they cared to do on their own responsibility, and they called a meeting of the town council to decide the momentous question. The council decided that Marius should die, and sent a Gaulish slave to put him to death.

It was dark when the executioner entered the house of Fannia. The slave, little relis.h.i.+ng the task committed to his hands, entered the room where Marius lay. All the trembling wretch could see in the darkness were the glaring eyes of the old man fixed fiercely on him, while a deep voice came from the couch, "Fellow, darest thou slay Caius Marius?"

Throwing down his sword, the Gaul fled in terror from those accusing eyes, crying out, loudly, "I cannot slay Caius Marius!"

The magistrates made no further effort to put their prisoner to death.

They managed that he should escape, and he made his way to the island of Ischia, which Granius had already reached. Here a friendly s.h.i.+p took them on board, and they sailed for Africa.

But the perils of the fugitive were not yet at an end. The s.h.i.+p was forced to stop at Erycina, in Sicily, for water. Here a Roman official recognized Marius, fell upon the party with a company of soldiers, and slew sixteen of them. Marius was nearly taken, but managed to escape, the vessel hastily setting sail. He now reached Africa without further adventure.

His son and other friends had arrived earlier, and, encouraging news being told him, he landed near the site of ancient Carthage. The praetor, learning of his presence, and advised of the revolution at Rome, sent him word to quit the province without delay. As the messenger spoke Marius looked at him with silent indignation.

"What answer shall I take back to the praetor?" asked the man.

"Tell him," said the old general, with impressive dignity, "that you have seen Caius Marius sitting among the ruins of Carthage."

Meanwhile his son had reached Numidia, where he was outwardly well received by the king, yet held in captivity. He was at length enabled to escape by the aid of the king's daughter, and joined his father.

Marius was not further molested.

Yet it would have been well for the fame of Caius Marius had his life ended here. He would nave escaped the infamy of his later years, and the flood of blood and vengeance in which his career reached its end. He had friends still in Rome. Sulla had made many foes by his capture of the city. Among the new consuls elected was Cornelius Cinna, who quickly made trouble for the ruler of Rome. Sulla, finding his power abating, and fearing a.s.sa.s.sination by friends of Marius, concluded to let the senate fight its own battles, and s.h.i.+pped his troops for Greece, leaving Rome to its own devices, while he occupied himself with fighting its enemy in the East.

No sooner had he gone than civil war began. Fighting took place in the streets of Rome. Cinna moved in the senate that Marius should be restored to his rights. Failing in this, he gathered an army and threatened his enemies in Rome.

News of all this soon reached old Marius in Africa. At the head of a thousand desperate men he took s.h.i.+p and landed in Etruria. Here he proclaimed liberty to all slaves who would join him, and soon had a large force. He also gained a small fleet. He and Cinna now joined forces and marched on Rome.

The senate, which stood for Sulla, had meanwhile been gathering an army for the defence of the city. But few of those ordered from afar reached the gates, and of the princ.i.p.al force the greater part deserted to Marius. The city was soon invested on all sides. The s.h.i.+ps of Marius captured the corn-vessels from Sicily and Africa. A plague broke out in the city, which decimated the army of the senate. In the end beleaguered Rome was forced to open its gates to a new conqueror.

All the senate asked for was that Cinna would not permit a general ma.s.sacre. This he promised. But behind his chair, in which he sat in state as consul, stood old Marius, whose face threatened disaster. He was dressed in mean attire; his hair and beard hung down rough and long, for neither had been cut since the day he fled from Rome; on his brow was a sullen frown that boded only evil to his foes.

Evil it was, evil without stint. Rome was treated as a conquered city.

The slaves and desperadoes who followed Marius were let loose to plunder at their will. Octavius, the consul who had supported the senate, was slain in his consular chair. A series of horrible butcheries followed.

Marius was bent on dire vengeance, and his enemies fell in mult.i.tudes.

Followed by a band of ruffians known as the Bardiaei, the remorseless old man roamed in search of victims through the city streets, and any man of rank whom he pa.s.sed without a salute was at once struck dead.

The senators who had opposed his recall from exile fell first. Others followed in mult.i.tudes. Those who had private wrongs to revenge followed the example of their chief. The slaves of the army killed at will all whom they wished to plunder. So great became the licentious outrages of these slaves that in the end Cinna, who had taken no part in the ma.s.sacres, fell upon them with a body of troops and slew several thousands. This reprisal in some measure restored order in Rome.

Sulla, meanwhile, was winning victories in the East, and the news of them somewhat disturbed the ruthless conquerors. But for the present they were absolute, and the saturnalia of blood went on. It ended at length in the death of Marius.

Since his return he had given himself to wine and riotous living. This, after the privations and hards.h.i.+ps he had recently suffered, sapped his iron const.i.tution. He was elected to the seventh consuls.h.i.+p, which he had predicted while wandering as a fugitive on the south Italian sh.o.r.es.

But he fell now into an inflammatory fever, and in two weeks after his election he ceased to breathe. Great and successful soldier as he had been, his late conduct had won him wide-spread detestation, and he died hated by his enemies and feared even by his friends.

_THE PROSCRIPTION OF SULLA._

While Marius and his friends were ruling and murdering in Rome, Sulla, their bitter enemy, was commanding and conquering in the East, biding his time for revenge. He drove the Asiatic foe out of Greece, taking and pillaging Athens as an episode. He carried the war into Asia, forced Mithridates to sue for peace, and exacted enormous sums (more than one hundred million dollars in our money) from the rich cities of the East.

Then, after giving his soldiers a winter's rest in Asia, he turned his face towards Rome, writing to the senate that he was coming, and that he intended to take revenge on his enemies.

It was now the year 83 B.C. Three years had pa.s.sed since the death of Marius. During the interval the party of the plebeians had been at the head of affairs. Now Sulla, the aristocrat, was coming to call them to a stern account, and they trembled in antic.i.p.ation. They remembered vividly the Marian carnival of blood. What retribution would his merciless rival exact?

Cinna, who had most to fear, proposed to meet the conqueror in the field. But his soldiers were not in the mood to fight, and settled the question by murdering their commander. When spring was well advanced, Sulla left Asia, and in sixteen hundred s.h.i.+ps transported his men to Italy, landing at the port of Brundusium.

On the 6th of July, shortly after his landing, an event occurred that threw all Rome into consternation. The venerable buildings of the Capitol took fire and were burned to the ground, the cherished Sibylline books peris.h.i.+ng in the flames. Such a disaster seemed to many Romans a fatal prognostic. The G.o.ds were surely against them, and all things were at risk.

Onward marched Sulla, opposed by a much greater army collected by his opponents. But he led the veterans of the Mithridatic War, and in the ranks of his opponents no man of equal ability appeared. Battle after battle was fought, Sulla steadily advancing. At length an army of Samnites, raised to defend the Marian cause, marched on Rome. Caius Pontius, their commander, was bent on terribly avenging the sufferings of his people on that great city.

"Rome's last day," he said to his soldiers, "is come. The city must be annihilated. The wolves that have so long preyed upon Italy will never cease from troubling till their lair is utterly destroyed."

Rome was in despair, for all seemed at an end. The Samnites had not forgotten a former Pontius, who had sent a Roman army under the Caudine Forks, and had been cruelly murdered in the Capitol They thundered on the Colline Gate. But at that critical moment a large body of cavalry appeared and charged the foe. It was the vanguard of Sulla's army, marching in haste to the relief of Rome.

A fierce battle ensued. Sulla fought gallantly. He rode a white horse, and was the mark of every javelin. But despite his efforts his men were forced back against the wall, and when night came to their relief it looked as if nothing remained for them but to sell their lives as dearly as possible the next morning.

But during the night Sulla received favorable news. Cra.s.sus, who commanded his right wing, had completely defeated a detachment of the Marian army. With quick decision, Sulla marched during the night round the enemy's camp, joined Cra.s.sus, and at day-break attacked the foe.

The battle that ensued was a terrible one. Fifty thousand men fell on each side. Pontius and other Marian leaders were slain. In the end Sulla triumphed, taking eight thousand prisoners, of whom six thousand were Samnites. The latter were, by order of the victor, ruthlessly butchered in cold blood.

This was but the prelude to an equally ruthless but more protracted butchery. Sulla was at last lord of Rome, as absolute in power as any emperor of later days. In fact, he had himself appointed dictator, an office which had vanished more than a century before, and which raised him above the law. He announced that he would give a better government to Rome, but to do so he must first rid that city of its enemies.

Marius, whom Sulla hated with intense bitterness, had escaped him by death. By his orders the bones of the old general were torn from their tomb near the Anio and flung into that stream. The son of Marius had slain himself to prevent being taken. His head was brought to Sulla at Rome, who gazed on the youthful face with grim satisfaction, saying, "Those who take the helm must first serve at the oar." As for himself, his fortune was now accomplished, he said, and henceforth he should be known as Felix.

The cruel work which Sulla had promised immediately began. Adherents of the popular party were slaughtered daily and hourly at Rome. Some who had taken no part in the late war were slain. No man knew if he was safe. Some of the senators asked that the names of the guilty should be made known, that the innocent might be relieved from uncertainty. The proposition hit with Sulla's humor. He ordered that a list of those doomed to death should be made out and published. This was called a Proscription.

But the uncertainty continued as great as ever. The list contained but eighty names. It was quickly followed by another containing one hundred and twenty. Day after day new lists of the doomed were issued. To make death sure, a reward of two talents was promised any one who should kill a proscribed man,--even if the killer were his son or his slave. Those who in any way aided the proscribed became themselves doomed to death.

Men who envied others their property managed to have their names put on the list. A partisan of Sulla was exulting over the doomed, when his eye fell on his own name in the list. He hastily fled, and the bystanders, judging the cause, followed and cut him down. Catiline, who afterwards became notorious in Roman history, murdered his own brother, and to legalize the murder had the name of his victim placed on the list.

How many were murdered we do not know. Probably little less than three thousand in Rome. The stream of murder flowed to other cities. Several of these defied the conqueror, but were taken one by one and their defenders slain. To all cities which had taken part with the Marians the proscription made its way. Of the total number slain during this reign of terror no record exists, but the deliberate butchery of Sulla went far beyond the ferocious but temporary slaughter of Marius.