Senate were only
knights made noble.

After this Sulla resigned the dictatorship, for he was growing old, and
had worn out his health by his riot and luxury. He spent his time in a
villa near Rome, talking philosophy with his friends, and dictating the
history of his own life in Greek. When he died, he bade them burn his
body, contrary to the practice of the Cornelii, no doubt fearing it
would be treated like that of Marius.

The most promising of the men of his party who were growing up and
coming forward was Cnaeus Pompeius, a brave and worthy man, who had while
quite young, gained such a victory over a Numidian prince that Sulla
himself gave him the title of Magnus, or the Great. He was afterwards
sent to Spain, where Sertorius held out for eight years against the
Roman power with the help of the native chiefs, but at last was put to
death by his own followers. Things were altogether in a bad state. There
were great struggles in Rome at every election, for the officers of the
state were now chiefly esteemed for the sake of the three or five years'
government in the provinces to which they led. No expense was thought
too great in shows of beasts and gladiators by which to win the votes of
the people; for, after the year of office, the candidate meant amply to
repay himself by what he could squeeze out of the unhappy province under
his charge, and nobody cared for cruelty or injustice to any one but a
Roman citizen.

Numbers of gladiators were kept and trained to fight in these shows; and
while the Spanish war was going on, a whole school of them--seventy-eight
in number--who were kept at Capua, broke out, armed themselves with the
spits, hooks, and axes in a butcher's shop, and took refuge in the crater
of Mount Vesuvius, which at that time showed no signs of being an active
volcano. There, under their leader Spartacus, they gathered together every
gladiator slave or who could run away to them, and Spartacus wanted them
to march northward, force their way through Italy, climb the Alps, and
reach their homes in Thrace and Gaul; but the plunder of Italy tempted
them, and they would not go, till an army was sent against them under
Marcus Licinius Crassus--called Dives, or the Rich, from the spoil he had
gained during the proscription. Then Spartacus hoped to escape in a fleet
of pirate ships from Cilicia, and to hold out in the passes of Mount
Taurus; but the Cilician pirates deceived him, sailed away with his money,