impersonation of the change which was passing over the Roman character. He
took with him at most 30,000 men. He had no fleet. Had the corsair
squadrons of Mithridates been on the alert, they might have destroyed him
on his passage. Events at Rome left him almost immediately without support
from Italy. He was impeached; he was summoned back. His troops were
forbidden to obey him, and a democratic commander was sent out to
supersede him. The army stood by their favorite commander. Sylla
disregarded his orders from home. He found men and money as he could. He
supported himself out of the countries which he occupied, without
resources save in his own skill and in the fidelity and excellence of his
legions. He defeated Mithridates, he drove him back out of Greece and
pursued him into Asia. The interests of his party demanded his presence at
Rome; the interests of the State required that he should not leave his
work in the East unfinished, and he stood to it through four hard years
till he brought Mithridates to sue for peace upon his knees. He had not
the means to complete the conquest or completely to avenge the massacre
with which the Prince of Pontus had commenced the war. He left Mithridates
still in possession of his hereditary kingdom, but he left him bound, so
far as treaties could bind so ambitious a spirit, to remain thenceforward
within his own frontiers. He recovered Greece and the islands, and the
Roman provinces in Asia Minor. He extorted an indemnity of five millions,
and executed many of the wretches who had been active in the murders. He
raised a fleet in Egypt, with which he drove the pirates out of the
archipelago back into their own waters. He restored the shattered prestige
of Roman authority, and he won for himself a reputation which his later
cruelties might stain but could not efface.

The merit of Sylla shows in more striking colors when we look to what was
passing, during these four years of his absence, in the heart of the
Empire. He was no sooner out of Italy than the democratic party rose, with