l his pledges to the soldiers, he
allotted to them all public lands in Italy hitherto undistributed,
and all confiscated land not otherwise disposed of. In this way he
punished and rewarded at a stroke. No fewer than 120,000 allotments
were made and twenty-three legions provided for. There was in it a
plausible mimicry of the democratic scheme of colonies which Sulla
must have thoroughly enjoyed. Thus in Italy he provided a standing
army to support his new constitution. [Sidenote: The Cornelii.] In
Rome itself, by enfranchising 10,000 slaves whose owners had been
slain, he formed a strong body of partisans ever ready to do his
bidding; these were all named Cornelii. A man is known by his
adherents, and the worst men were Sulla's _proteges_.

[Sidenote: Catiline.] Catiline's name rose into notoriety amid these
horrors. He was said not only to have murdered his own brother, but,
to requite Sulla for legalising the murder by including this brother's
name in the list of the proscribed, to have committed the most
horrible act of the Civil War--the torture of Marcus Marius
Gratidianus. This man, because he was cousin of Marius, was offered
up as a victim to the manes of Catulus, of whom the elder Marius had
said, 'He must die.' This poor wretch was scourged, had his limbs
broken, his nose and hands cut off, and his eyes gouged out of their
sockets. Finally his head was cut off, and Cicero's brother writes
that Catiline carried it in his hands streaming with blood. But no one
would attach much importance to what the Ciceros said of Catiline, and
two circumstances combine to point to his innocence of such extreme
enormities. One is that it was the son of Catulus who begged as a boon
from Sulla the death of this Marius, and his name was very likely
confused with Catiline's in the street rumours of the time; and the
other and more direct piece of evidence is, that Catiline was tried in
the year 64 for murders committed at this time, and was acquitted. It
is a curious thing that the obloquy which has clung to Catiline's name
on such dubious reports has never attached in the same measure to the
undoubted horrors and abominations of Sulla's career.

Sulla, though he meant above all to have his own way, had no objection
to use constitutional forms where they could be conveniently employed.
He made the Senate pass a resolution approving his acts, and, as there
were no consuls in 82, after the death of Marius and Carbo, he retired
fr