ffice; they were then to have a second year in military control of a
province. The planting of military colonies provided numerous garrisons
whose interests were associated with the new constitution. When Sulla
had done his work, he resigned his extraordinary powers with entire
indifference. In a little more than a year he died.

The Sullan constitution saved the Roman empire from imminent collapse;
but it was impossible that it should be more than a makeshift, like
Cromwell's protectorate. There were huge classes with perpetual
grievances; the removal of the military forces to the provinces left the
city of Rome without adequate governors of the provinces themselves. And
there was no man of the hour of supreme ability to carry on work
demanding a master.

_III.--Pompey and Caesar_

The young Graccus Pompeius was the most distinguished of the Sullan
party; Crassus was the wealthiest and most powerful of the Equestrian
group; Lepidus was the popular leader. A popular insurrection which he
headed was suppressed, and he disappeared, but Sertorius, once an
associate of Marius, had obtained a remarkable personal ascendancy in
Spain, and, in league with the Mediterranean pirates, threatened to be a
formidable foe of the new constitution. For some years he maintained a
gradually waning resistance against the arms of Pompeius, but finally
was assassinated.

Meanwhile Tigranes, King of Armenia, had been developing a powerful
monarchy; and mutual distrust had brought on another war with
Mithridates, successfully conducted by Lucullus. Out of this war arose a
struggle with Tigranes, on whom an overwhelming defeat was inflicted at
Tigranocerta. But the brilliant achievements of Lucullus were nullified
by the mutinous conduct of the troops, and the factious conduct of the
home government. The gross inefficiency of that government was shown by
the immense extension of organised piracy, and by the famous slave
revolt under Spartacus, which seriously endangered the state.

Pompeius on his return from Spain was barred on technical grounds from
the triumph and the consulship which he demanded. He was thus driven
into an alliance with the democratic party, and with Crassus. The result
was the fall of the Sullan constitution, and the restoration of checks
on the power of the senate. Pompeius might have grasped a military
despotism; he did not, but he did receive extraordinary powers for
dealing with the whole Eastern question, and