his new dictatorship involved a complete
reassumption, of the regal power. Thus, singularly enough,
the course of Sulla here also coincided with that on which Gaius
Gracchus had entered with so wholly different a design. In this
respect too the conservative party had to borrow from its opponents;
the protector of the oligarchic constitution had himself to
come forward as a tyrant, in order to avert the ever-impending
-tyrannis-. There was not a little of defeat in this last victory
of the oligarchy.

Executions

Sulla had not sought and had not desired the difficult and dreadful
labour of the work of restoration; out, as no other choice was left
to him but either to leave it to utterly incapable hands or to
undertake it in person, he set himself to it with remorseless energy.
First of all a settlement had to be effected in respect to the guilty.
Sulla was personally inclined to pardon. Sanguine as he was in
temperament, he could doubtless break forth into violent rage, and
well might those beware who saw his eye gleam and his cheeks colour;
but the chronic vindictiveness, which characterized Marius in the
embitterment of his old age, was altogether foreign to Sulla's easy
disposition. Not only had he borne himself with comparatively great
moderation after the revolution of 666;(4) even the second revolution,
which had perpetrated so fearful outrages and had affected him in
person so severely, had not disturbed his equilibrium. At the same
time that the executioner was dragging the bodies of his friends
through the streets of the capital, he had sought to save the life of
the blood-stained Fimbria, and, when the latter died by his own hand,
had given orders for his decent burial. On landing in Italy he had
earnestly offered to forgive and to forget, and no one who came to
make his peace had been rejected. Even after the first successes
he had negotiated in this spirit with Lucius Scipio; it was the
revolutionary party, which had not only broken off these negotiations,
but had subsequently, at the last moment before their downfall,
resumed the massacres afresh and more fearfully than ever, and had
in fact conspired with the inveterate foes of their country for the
destruction of the city of Rome. The cup was now full. By virtue
of his new official authority Sulla, immediately after assuming the
regency, outlawed as enemies of their country all the civil and
military officials who had taken an active part in f