atching the hosts of the Allobroges against it, without
bringing an enemy from beyond the Alps to glut his old inborn hatred,
and to offer Roman generals as sacrifices which had been long owing to
the tombs of the Gaulish dead. Caius Marius was ungrateful, when, after
being raised from the ranks to the consulship, he felt that he would not
have wreaked his vengeance upon fortune, and would sink to his original
obscurity, unless he slaughtered Romans as freely as he had slaughtered
the Cimbri, and not merely gave the signal, but was himself the signal
for civil disasters and butcheries. Lucius Sulla was ungrateful, for he
saved his country by using remedies worse than the perils with which it
was threatened, when he marched through human blood all the way from the
citadel of Praeneste to the Colline Gate, fought more battles and caused
more slaughter afterwards within the city, and most cruelly after the
victory was won, most wickedly after quarter had been promised them,
drove two legions into a corner and put them to the sword, and, great
gods! invented a proscription by which he who slew a Roman citizen
received indemnity, a sum of money, everything but a civic crown! Cnaeus
Pompeius was ungrateful, for the return which he made to his country for
three consulships, three triumphs, and the innumerable public offices
into most of which he thrust himself when under age, was to lead others
also to lay hands upon her under the pretext of thus rendering his own
power less odious; as though what no one ought to do became right
if more than one person did it. Whilst he was coveting extraordinary
commands, arranging the provinces so as to have his own choice of them,
and dividing the whole state with a third person, [Footnote: Crassus.]
in such a manner as to leave two-thirds of it in the possession of his
own family, [Footnote: Pompey was married to Caesar's daughter. Cf.
Virg., "Aen.," vi., 831, sq., and Lucan's beautiful verses, "Phars.,"
i., 114.] he reduced the Roman people to such a condition that they
could only save themselves by submitting to slavery. The foe and
conqueror [Footnote: Seneca is careful to avoid the mention of Caesar's
name, which might have given offence to the emperors under whom
he lived, who used the name as a title.] of Pompeius was himself
ungrateful; he brought war from Gaul and Germany to Rome, and he, the
friend of the populace, the champion of the commons, pitched his camp in
the Circus Flaminus