He then
returned to Italy, gathered a motley crew of malcontents,
marched on Rome and entered the city with his professional
highwaymen, spent five days and five nights, slaughtering the
enemies of the Senatorial party, got himself elected Consul and
promptly died from the excitement of the last fortnight.
There followed four years of disorder. Then Sulla, having
defeated Mithridates, announced that he was ready to return
to Rome and settle a few old scores of his own. He was as
good as his word. For weeks his soldiers were busy executing
those of their fellow citizens who were suspected of democratic
sympathies. One day they got hold of a young fellow who
had been often seen in the company of Marius. They were
going to hang him when some one interfered. ``The boy is too
young,'' he said, and they let him go. His name was Julius
Caesar. You shall meet him again on the next page.
As for Sulla, he became ``Dictator,'' which meant sole and
supreme ruler of all the Roman possessions. He ruled Rome
for four years, and he died quietly in his bed, having spent the
last year of his life tenderly raising his cabbages, as was the
custom of so many Romans who had spent a lifetime killing
their fellow-men.
But conditions did not grow better. On the contrary, they
grew worse. Another general, Gnaeus Pompeius, or Pompey,
a close friend of Sulla, went east to renew the war against the
ever troublesome Mithridates.
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