They had been guilty of the most wantonly wicked cruelty which the Roman
annals had yet recorded. They were not defending their country against a
national danger. They were engaged in what has been called in later years
"saving society;" that is to say, in saving their own privileges, their
opportunities for plunder, their palaces, their estates, and their
game-preserves. They had treated the people as if they were so many cattle
grown troublesome to their masters, and the cattle were human beings with
rights as real as their own.
The democratic party were now masters of the situation, and so continued
for almost four years. Cinna succeeded to the consulship term after term,
nominating himself and his colleagues. The franchise was given to the
Italians without reserve or qualification. Northern Italy was still
excluded, being not called Italy, but Cisalpine Gaul. South of the Po
distinctions of citizenship ceased to exist. The constitution became a
rehearsal of the Empire, a democracy controlled and guided by a popular
dictator. The aristocrats who had escaped massacre fled to Sylla in Asia,
and for a brief interval Rome drew its breath in peace.
CHAPTER VIII.
Revolutionary periods are painted in history in colors so dark that the
reader wonders how, amidst such scenes, peaceful human beings could
continue to exist.
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