the actual citizens of Rome or even of the semi-Roman districts close
around her were too few to continue fighting over all the vast empire
they controlled. The sturdy peasant population of Italy slowly
disappeared. The actual inhabitants of the capital came to consist of a
few thousand vastly wealthy families, who held all the power, a few
thousand more of poorer citizens dependent on the rich, and then a vast
swarm of slaves and foreigners, feeders on the crumbs of the Roman
table.

In the battles against Carthage, the mass of Rome's armies had consisted
of her own citizens or of allies closely united to them in blood and
fortune. Her later victories were won by hired troops, men gathered from
every clime and every race. Roman generals still might lead them, Roman
laws environ them, Roman gold employ them. Yet the fact remained, that
in these armies lay the strength of the Republic, no longer within her
own walls, no longer in the stout hearts of her citizens.

Perhaps the world itself was slow in seeing this degeneration. The
Gracchi brothers tried to stem the tide, and they were slain, sacrificed
by the nation they sought to save.[16] Cornelius Sulla was the man who
completed, and at the same time made plain to all, the change that had
been growing up. Having bitter grievances against his enemies in the
capital, he appealed for redress, not to the Roman senate, not to the
votes of the populace, but to the swords of the legions he commanded.
Twice he marched his soldiers against Rome. He brushed aside the feeble
resistance that was offered, and entered the city like a conqueror. The
blood of those who had opposed his wishes flowed in streams. Three
thousand senators and knights, the flower of the Roman aristocracy, were
slain at his nod. Of the common folk and of the Italians throughout the
peninsula, the slaughter was immeasurable. And when his bloody vengeance