in Roman
history. All persons in this list were outlaws who might be killed by
any one with impunity; their property was confiscated to the state;
their children and grandchildren lost their votes in the comitia, and
were excluded from all public offices. Farther, all who killed a
proscribed person, or indicated the place of his concealment, received
two talents as a reward, and whoever sheltered such a person was
punished with death. Terror now reigned not only at Rome, but throughout
Italy. Fresh lists of the proscribed constantly appeared. No one was
safe; for Sulla gratified his friends by placing in the fatal lists
their personal enemies, or persons whose property was coveted by his
adherents. An estate, a house, or even a piece of plate, was to many a
man, who belonged to no political party, his death-warrant; for,
although the confiscated property belonged to the state, and had to be
sold by public auction, the friends and dependents of Sulla purchased it
at a nominal price, as no one dared to bid against them. Oftentimes
Sulla did not require the purchase-money to be paid at all, and in many
cases he gave such property to his favorites without even the formality
of a sale. The number of persons who perished by the proscriptions
amounted to many thousands. At the commencement of these horrors Sulla
had been appointed Dictator. As both the Consuls had perished, he caused
the Senate to elect Valerius Flaccus interrex, and the latter brought
before the people a rogatio, conferring the Dictatorship upon Sulla, for
the purpose of restoring order to the Republic, and for as long a time
as he judged to be necessary. Thus the Dictatorship was revived after
being in abeyance for more than 120 years, and Sulla obtained absolute
power over the lives and fortunes of all the citizens. This was toward
the close of B.C. 81. Sulla's great object in being invested with the
Dictatorship was to carry into execution in a legal manner the great
reforms which he meditated in the constitution and the administration of
justice, by which he hoped to place the government of the Republic on a
firm and secure basis. He had no intention of abolishing the Republic,
and consequently he caused Consuls to be elected for the following year,
B.C. 81, and was elected to the office himself in B.C. 80, while he
continued to hold the Dictatorship.

At the beginning of B.C. 81 Sulla celebrated a splendid triumph on
account of his victory over Mithrida