who belonged to the liberal party. He selected agents whom he could trust,
or supposed he could trust, to enter the names for each district. He
selected, for instance, Oppianicus of Larino, who inscribed individuals
whom he had already murdered, and their relations whose prosecution he
feared. It mattered little to Sylla who were included, if none escaped who
were really dangerous to him; and an order was issued for the slaughter of
the entire number, the confiscation of their property, and the division of
it between the informers and Sylla's friends and soldiers. Private
interest was thus called in to assist political animosity, and to
stimulate the zeal for assassination a reward of L500 was offered for the
head of any person whose name was in the schedule.

It was one of those deliberate acts, carried out with method and order,
which are possible only in countries in an advanced stage of civilization,
and which show how thin is the film spread over human ferocity by what is
called progress and culture. We read in every page of history of invasions
of hostile armies, of towns and villages destroyed and countries wasted
and populations perishing of misery; the simplest war brings a train of
horrors behind it; but we bear them with comparative equanimity. Personal
hatreds are not called out on such occasions. The actors in them are
neither necessarily nor generally fiends. The grass grows again on the
trampled fields. Peace returns, and we forget and forgive. The coldly
ordered massacres of selected victims in political and spiritual struggles
rise in a different order of feelings, and are remembered through all ages
with indignation and shame. The victims perish as the champions of
principles which survive through the changes of time. They are marked for
the sacrifice on account of their advocacy of a cause which to half
mankind is the cause of humanity. They are the martyrs of history, and the
record of atrocity rises again in immortal witness against the opinions
out of which it rose.