r publicus_. The
whole territory of Praeneste and Norba in Latium, and Spoletium in Umbria
was confiscated. The town of Sulmo in Pelignium was razed. But more direful
than all this was the punishment which fell upon Etruria[5] and Samnium.
These people had marched upon Rome and, with the avowed determination of
exterminating the Roman people, had engaged in battle at the Colline gate.
They were utterly destroyed and their country left desolate. The territory
of Samnium was not even opened up for settlement, but left as a lair for
wild beasts. Henceforth from the Rubicon to the Straits of Sicily there
were to be none but Romans; the laws and the language of the whole
peninsula were to be the laws[6] and the language of Rome.

To accomplish such an object as this, it was not enough to destroy and make
desolate, it became necessary to repopulate the waste places and rebuild
that which had been torn down. Roman citizens had to be sent as colonists
into the desolate regions. Sulla, accordingly, undertook to carry out his
plans of colonization, the grandest and most comprehensive which Rome
had ever seen, and which indeed have had no parallel in history till
the settlement of the north of Ireland by Cromwell and William III. The
arrangements as to the property of the Italian soil placed at the disposal
of Sulla[7] all the Roman domain lands which had been placed in usufruct to
the allied communities, and which now reverted to the Roman government.
It also placed at his disposal all the confiscated territories of the
communities incurring punishment. Upon these territories he established
military colonies, and thus obtained a three-fold result.[8] He remunerated
his soldiers for the faithful service rendered him in long years of toil
and danger. He repeopled the regions desolated by war (except Samnium). He
provided a military protection for himself and the new constitution which
he established.

Most of his new settlements were directed to Etruria, Faesulae and Arretium
being among the number; others, to Latium[9] and Campania, where Praeneste
and Pompeii became Sullan colonies. A great part of these colonies were,
after the Gracchan manner, merely grafted upon town-communities already
existing. The comprehensiveness of these settlements may be seen in this
fact that 20,000 allotments were[10] made in different parts of Italy.
Notwithstanding this vast disposal of territory, Sulla gave lands to the
temple of Diana at Mt. Tifa