The work of the soldier over, Sulla commenced that of the legislator. Appointed perpetual dictator B. C. 82, he continued for three years to exercise the sovereignty, making alterations in the constitution, the general effect of which was to lessen the power of the people in political affairs, and reforming the criminal law. In B. C. 79, he surprised every one by abdicating the dictatorship, and retiring into private life; and in the following year he died of a loathsome and incurable disorder, brought on by his debaucheries. Among other evidences of Sulla's literary accomplishments, he left memoirs of his own life composed in Greek.
POMPEY—CICERO—CATILINE—CÆSAR.
After the death of Sulla, the most distinguished man of the aristocratic party was Pompey, who had been engaged in reducing Sicily and Africa to allegiance after his chief had triumphed in Italy. Some attempts were made to revive the Marian cause after the dictator's death, but by the exertions of Pompey and others they were suppressed, and only in Spain had the Marian party still a stronghold. There the brave Sertorius, at the head of the Marian refugees and the native Spaniards, was fast establishing a power likely to rival that of Italy. None of the Sullanian generals, not even Pompey, who went to Spain in B. C. 76, could gain an advantage when opposed to his splendid generalship; and had he not perished by treachery (B. C. 74), Spain would have become an instrument in his hands for overturning all that had been done by Sulla in Italy. Possibly even Spain might have superseded her sister peninsula as the seat of Roman power. But after the death of Sertorius, his army crumbled away; and, conquering his successor Perpenna, Pompey found the pacification of Spain an easy task. Returning to Italy in the height of the reputation which the discharge of this office procured to him, he arrived (B. C. 71) in time to have some share in another war of a frightful character which had been desolating Italy in his absence. In the year B. C. 73, seventy gladiators, headed by a Thracian named Spartacus, had broken out of a school, or rather gladiator warehouse, at Capua, where they were kept in training; and, speedily joined by all the slaves and gladiators of the neighborhood, they had taken up their position on Mount Vesuvius. Finding himself at the head of a large army, Spartacus had given battle to several Roman generals, and defeated them; and the conquering host which he commanded was on the point of crossing into Sicily, after ravaging Italy, when it was attacked and cut to pieces by the prætor Licinius Crassus (B. C. 71). Spartacus died fighting; such of the gladiators and slaves as were taken prisoners were crucified, or impaled alive; and the remnant which had escaped Crassus were met and destroyed in the north of Italy by Pompey, as he was returning from Spain. Pompey and Crassus were chosen consuls for the year B. C. 70, the former being then in his thirty-sixth year. Although both were disciples of Sulla, yet obeying the necessities of the time, they repealed several of his enactments, and passed various measures of liberal tendency.
Pompey was at this time the idol of Rome; and although after his consulship he retired into private life, he was soon called upon to exercise his abilities in a post of greater dignity and responsibility than had ever been formally conferred on any Roman before him. The Mediterranean was at
