He had now a fleet
to cover his passage; and he was watching the movements of his enemies
before deciding upon his own, when accident came suddenly to his help.
Cinna had gone down to Brindisi, intending himself to carry his army into
Greece, and to spare Italy the miseries of another civil war, by fighting
it out elsewhere. The expedition was unpopular with the soldiers, and
Cinna was killed in a mutiny. The democracy was thus left without a head,
and the moderate party in the city who desired peace and compromise used
the opportunity to elect two neutral consuls, Scipio and Norbanus. Sylla,
perhaps supposing the change of feeling to be more complete than it really
was, at once opened communications with them. But his terms were such as
he might have dictated if the popular party were already under his feet.
He intended to re-enter Rome with the glory of his conquests about him,
for revenge and a counter-revolution. The consuls replied with refusing to
treat with a rebel in arms, and with a command to disband his troops.
Sylla had lingered at Athens, collecting paintings and statues and
manuscripts, the rarest treasures on which he could lay his hands, to
decorate his Roman palace. On receiving the consuls' answer, he sailed for
Brindisi in the spring of 83, with forty thousand legionaries and a large
fleet.
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