t gentleman walking, as was his custom, in the Forum, one who took
no part in politics, saw his own name one day on the list. He had an
Alban villa, and at once knew that his villa had been his ruin. He had
hardly read the list, and had made his exclamation, before he was
slaughtered. Such was the massacre of Sulla, coming with an interval of
two or three years after those of Marius, between which was the blessed
time in which Rome was without arms. In the time of Marius, Cicero was
too young, and of no sufficient importance, on account of his birth or
parentage, to fear anything. Nor is it probable that Marius would have
turned against his townsmen. When Sulla's turn came, Cicero, though not
absolutely connected with the Dictator, was, so to say, on his side in
politics. In going back even to this period we may use the terms
Liberals and Conservatives for describing the two parties. Marius was
for the people; that is to say, he was opposed to the rule of the
oligarchy, dispersed the Senate, and loved to feel that his own feet
were on the necks of the nobility. Of liberty, or rights, or popular
institutions he recked nothing; but not the less was he supposed to be
on the people's side. Sulla, on the other hand, had been born a
patrician, and affected to preserve the old traditions of oligarchic
rule; and, indeed, though he took all the power of the State into his
own hands, he did restore, and for a time preserve, these old
traditions. It must be presumed that there was at his heart something of
love for old Rome. The proscriptions began toward the end of the year 82
B.C., and were continued through eight or nine fearful months--up to the
beginning of June, 81 B.C. A day was fixed at which there should be no
more slaughtering--no more slaughtering, that is, without special order
in each case, and no more confiscation--except such as might be judged
necessary by those who had not as yet collected their prey from past
victims. Then Sulla, as Dictator, set himself to work to reorganize the
old laws. There should still be Consuls and Praetors, but with restricted
powers, lessened almost down to nothing. It seems hard to gather what
was exactly the Dictator's scheme as the future depositary of power when
he should himself have left the scene. He did increase the privileges of
the Senate; but thinking of the Senate of Rome as he must have thought
of it, esteeming those old men as lowly as he must have esteemed them,
he could ha