mighty city
oceans-deep in patrician gore; after the awful retribution of the avenger
Sylla had rioted in the destruction of that guilty faction.

He who was destined one day to support the laurelled diadem of universal
empire on his bald brows, stood even now among the noblest, the most
ambitious, and the most famous of the state; though not as yet had he
unfurled the eagle wings of conquest over the fierce barbarian hordes of
Gaul and Germany, or launched his galleys on the untried waters of the
great Western sea. A dissipated, spendthrift, and luxurious youth, devoted
solely as it would seem to the pleasures of the table, or to intrigues
with the most fair and noble of Rome's ladies, he had yet, amid those
unworthy occupations, displayed such gleams of overmastering talent, such
wondrous energy, such deep sagacity, and above all such uncurbed though
ill-directed ambition, that the perpetual Dictator had already, years
before, exclaimed with prescient wisdom,--"In yon unzoned youth I perceive
the germ of many a Marius."

At the same time, the magnificent and princely leader, who was to be
thereafter his great rival, was reaping that rich crop of glory, the seeds
of which had been sown already by the wronged Lucullus, in the broad
kingdoms of the effeminate East.

Meanwhile, as Rome had gradually rendered herself, by the exertion of
indomitable valor, the supreme mistress of every foreign power that
bordered on the Mediterranean, wealth, avarice, and luxury, like some
contagious pestilence, had crept into the inmost vitals of the
commonwealth, until the very features, which had once made her famous, no
less for her virtues than her valor, were utterly obliterated and for
ever.

Instead of a paternal, poor, brave, patriotic aristocracy, she had now a
nobility, valiant indeed and capable, but dissolute beyond the reach of
man's imagination, boundless in their expenditures, reckless as to the
mode of gaining wherewithal to support them, oppressive and despotical to
their inferiors, smooth-tongued and hypocritical toward each other,
destitute equally of justice and compassion toward men, and of respect and
piety toward the Gods! Wealth had become the idol, the god of the whole
people! Wealth--and no longer service, eloquence, daring, or integrity,--was
held the requisite for office. Wealth now conferred upon its owner, all
magistracies all guerdons--rank, power, command,--consulships, provinces,
and armies.

The sen