Sulla Embarks for Italy

The goal was thus attained. After four years of war the Pontic
king was again a client of the Romans, and a single and settled
government was re-established in Greece, Macedonia, and Asia Minor;
the requirements of interest and honour were satisfied, if not
adequately, yet so far as circumstances would allow; Sulla had not
only brilliantly distinguished himself as a soldier and general, but
had the skill, in his path crossed by a thousand obstacles, to preserve
the difficult mean between bold perseverance and prudent concession.
Almost like Hannibal he had fought and conquered, in order that
with the forces, which the first victory gave him, he might prepare
forthwith for a second and severer struggle. After he had in some
degree compensated his soldiers for the fatigues which they had
undergone by luxurious winter-quarters in the rich west of Asia Minor,
he in the spring of 671 transferred them in 1600 vessels from
Ephesus to the Piraeeus and thence by the land route to Patrae,
where the vessels again lay ready to convey the troops to Brundisium.
His arrival was preceded by a report addressed to the senate
respecting his campaigns in Greece and Asia, the writer of which
appeared to know nothing of his deposition; it was the mute herald
of the impending restoration.

CHAPTER IX

Cinna and Sulla

Ferment in Italy

This state of suspense and uncertainty existing in Italy when
Sulla took his departure for Greece in the beginning of 667 has been
already described: the half-suppressed insurrection, the principal
army under the more than half-usurped command of a general whose
politics were very doubtful, the confusion and the manifold
activity of intrigue in the capital. The victory of the oligarchy
by force of arms had, in spite or because of its moderation,
engendered manifold discontent. The capitalists, painfully
affected by the blows of the most severe financial crisis which
Rome had yet witnessed, were indignant at the government on account
of the law which it had issued as to interest, and on account
of the Italian and Asiatic wars which it had not prevented.
The insurgents, so far as they had laid down their arms, bewailed
not only the disappointment of their proud hopes of obtaining equal
rights with the ruling burgesses, but also the forfeiture of their
venerable treaties, and their new position as subjects utterly
destitute of rights. The communities between the Alps and