ABSTRACT
If the wealthy classes so often come off second best in a struggle with the democracy, the cause is generally to be found in their disinclination to submit to leadership. The prospect which faced the Roman Conservatives at this moment, when the Revolution, in the person of Marius, had made itself complete master of the State, was indeed dark enough to close up the party ranks. Yet it was only by accident that they discovered in Sulla a fit champion for their cause. Sulla had up to this time been one of those superior but solitary figures who are sometimes to be found in an aristocracy when its old governing régime is on the eve of dissolution. Too intelligent and cultured to cherish the old prejudices of his class or to ignore the symptoms of its inevitable decadence; too conscious and contemptuous of the true value of success to court power by the meannesses on which fame in a democracy nearly always depends; energetic, fond of money, and impatient of inaction, yet with a marked inclination to scepticism and self-indulgence, he seemed to most of his contemporaries so indifferent to all distinctions between right and wrong, and so desirous for mere sensual and intellectual enjoyment, as never to be willing to sacrifice his own interest or pleasure to any ideal cause of principle. Hitherto his career had been rather military than political. He had preferred campaigning against Cimbri and revolted Italians to joining hands with one or other of the two parties at Rome. Although his origin and connections attached him rather to the Conservative than to the popular party, he had taken as small a share in party struggles as was compatible with the attainment of political and military promotion. His advance had thus been very slow, and he was over fifty when, in this year, he finally reached the Consulship. It is likely enough that, in his impartial contempt for both parties, he would have allowed Conservatives and Democrats to go on massacring one another indefinitely, if the revolutionaries had not suddenly marked him out for attack by attempting to deprive him of his Eastern command.
