The second siege of Rome was not so easy. Sulla and Crassus approached from the north, Pompey from the south. The left wing under Sulla was annihilated, and he himself barely missed being killed by a spear; he later attributed his salvation to the tiny golden image of Apollo he had stolen from Delphi, which he always carried into battle, often holding it to his lips and murmuring prayers and whispered adorations like a lover. Rumours of Sulla's death spread on both sides, even infecting Pompey's army with despair. Finally, after dark, word came to Sulla that the right wing under Crassus had destroyed the enemy.
Once in Rome, Sulla had the disarmed remnants of the defending army, six thousand Samnites and Lucanians, rounded up and herded like cattle into the Circus Maximus. Meanwhile, he called a meeting of the Senate, and even as he began his address the slaughter in the Circus commenced The din of the massacred was audible all over the city; the noise echoed in the Senate chamber like the wailing of ghosts. The senators were dumbfounded. Sulla continued to speak in a perfectly even tone of voice, as if nothing unusual were happening. The senators grew distracted and began to mill about and murmur among themselves, until Sulla stamped his foot and shouted at them to listen to what he was saying. 'Ignore the noise from outside,' he told them. 'By my orders, some criminals are receiving correction.'
By consent of the Senate, Sulla proclaimed himself dictator, a constitutional seizure of authority that no one else had dared to attempt for more than a hundred years. As dictator, Sulla destroyed all opposition and rewarded his faithful generals. He was granted immunity for all his past actions. He reordered the constitution to strip the encroaching power of the populist tribunes and the masses and to restore the privileges of the nobles. "When his original, legal term of one year as dictator expired, the Senate obliged him with an unprecedented and constitutionally questionable extension, 'to complete his vital work for the salvation of the state.'
For a time Sulla ruled with an even hand, and the city breathed a sigh of relief as if spring had arrived after a long, hard winter. But Sulla was not satisfied with his almost total triumph. Perhaps a soothsayer warned him of danger. Perhaps in a dream Bellona issued him more thunderbolts.
The proscriptions began with the original List of Eighty. The next day a second list of more than two hundred names appeared. On the third day another list appeared, again with more than two hundred names.
Sulla was as witty as ever. On the fourth day he made a public speech defending the killings. When he was asked if a fourth list was yet to come, he explained that at his age his memory had begun to fail. 'So far we've posted the names of all the enemies of the state that I can remember. As more enemies occur to me, we'll post more names.' Eventually the lists numbered into the thousands.
The son of an emancipated slave was accused of having hidden one of the original Eighty. The penalty for concealing the proscribed was death. On his way to the Tarpeian Rock the wretch passed Sulla's retinue in the street and reminded him they had once lived in the same tenement. 'Don't you remember?' the man said. 'I lived upstairs and paid two thousand sesterces. You lived in the rooms under me and paid three thousand.' From the grin on his face no one could tell whether the man was joking or not. For once Sulla did not seem amused; perhaps he was not in a mood to be reminded of his humble origins. "Then you'll appreciate the Tarpeian Rock,' he told the man. 'The rent costs nothing and the view is unforgettable.' And with that he passed on, deaf to the man's pleas for mercy.
Some wags insinuated that men were proscribed simply so that the state and friends of the state could obtain their property. 'Did you hear,' the joke ran, 'So-and-So was killed by his big mansion on the Palatine, So-and-So by his gardens, and So-and-So by his new steam-bath installation.' There was the tale of one Quintus Aurelius, who went down to the Forum and discovered his name on the lists. A passing friend asked him to dinner. 'Impossible,' said Quintus. 'I haven't the time. I'm being hunted down by my Alban estate.' He rounded a corner and went no more than twenty paces before an assassin slit his throat.
But the proscriptions finally ended. Pompey went off to Africa to annihilate the last of his master's enemies. Crassus threw himself into real estate speculation. Young populists like Caesar fled to the ends of the earth. Sulla divorced his beloved Metella (whose breasts had been slandered by the Athenians) on the religious grounds that her fatal illness threatened to pollute his home, and the dictator found himself pursued by the beautiful young divorcee Valeria (yes, Rufus's sister); at a gladiator show she snatched a loose thread from the great man's toga to claim a bit of his good fortune, caught his eye, and became his bride. The doddering prestige of the nobility was shored up with cracked plaster and straw, and rumours began to circulate that at any moment the newlywed Sulla would lay down his dictatorship and call for unfettered consular elections.
Down in Chrysogonus's banquet hall, surrounded by spoils of the Social War, the civil war, and the proscriptions, Metrobius stood with his head held high and his hands clasped, drawing a deep breath. His song was nearing its end, having reviewed in witheringly satirical detail the highlights of its subject's career.
Even the humiliated poet, having emptied his belly of whatever ailed him and slunk back to his couch, had finally joined in the raucous laughter.
Tiro turned towards me, shaking his head. 'I don't understand these people at all,' he whispered. 'What sort of party is this?'
I had been wondering the same thing myself. 'I think the rumours may be true. I think our esteemed Dictator and Saviour of the Republic may be contemplating his imminent retirement. That will mean solemn occasions and ceremonies, hymns of praise, retrospective orations, the official publication of his Memoirs. All very stiff and formal, respectable, Roman. But here among his own, Sulla would rather drink and make a joke of it. What a strange man he is! But wait, the song isn't over.'
Metrobius was batting his eyes, shaping his hands in a demure, maidenly gesture, satirizing a shy virgin. He opened his painted mouth to sing:
The laughter was deafening. Sulla himself leaned forward, pounded his open palm against the table, and almost fell from his couch. Chrysogonus smiled and looked smug, leaving no doubt about the line's authorship. Hortensius playfully threw an asparagus spear in Metrobius's direction; it flew over his head and struck the poet square on the forehead. Rufus drew away from Sorex, who was smiling and trying to whisper something in his ear. He did not look amused.
The song was interrupted by the clattering crash of an overturned table. Rufus was on his feet, his face quite red. Hortensius laid a restraining hand on his leg, but Rufus jerked away. 'Valeria may be only your half sister, Hortensius, but she's my flesh and blood,' he snapped, 'and I won't listen to this filth. And she's your wife!' he said, coming to a sudden halt before the couch of honour and openly glaring at Sulla. 'How can you stand for such insults?'
The room fell silent. For a long moment Sulla didn't move but remained as he was, leaning on one elbow with his legs outstretched. He stared into space and worked his jaw back and forth, as if a tooth bothered him. Finally he swung his legs to the floor and slowly sat upright, staring up at Rufus with a look on his face that was at once sardonic, rueful, and amused.