138-78 B.C. page 8
Other things were sent away without much notice on the part of the
Greeks in general, but in the case of the silver tun, that only
relic of the regal donations, which its weight and bulk made it
impossible for any carriage to receive, the Amphictyons were forced to
cut it into pieces, and called to mind in so doing, how Titus
Flamininus, and Manius Acilius, and again Paulus Aemilius, one of whom
drove Antiochus out of Greece, and the others subdued the Macedonian
kings, had not only abstained from violating the Greek temples, but
had even given them new gifts and honours, and increased the general
veneration for them.
They, indeed, the lawful commanders of
temperate and obedient soldiers, and themselves great in soul, and
simple in expenses, lived within the bounds of the ordinary
established charges, accounting it a greater disgrace to seek
popularity with their men, than to feel fear of their enemy. Whereas
the commanders of these times, attaining to superiority by force,
not worth, and having need of arms one against another, rather than
against the public enemy, were constrained to temporize in
authority, and in order to pay for the gratifications with which
they purchased the labour of their soldiers, were driven, before
they knew it, to sell the commonwealth itself, and, to gain the
mastery over men better than themselves, were content to become slaves
to the vilest of wretches.
These practices drove Marius into exile and again brought him
in against Sylla. These made Cinna the
assassin of Octavius, and Fimbria of Flaccus. To which courses Sylla
contributed not the least; for to corrupt and win over those who
were under the command of others, he would be munificent and profuse
towards those who were under his own; and so, while tempting the
soldiers of other generals to treachery, and his own to dissolute
living, he was naturally in want of a large treasury, and especially
during that siege.
Sylla had a vehement and an implacable desire to conquer Athens.
whether out of emulation, fighting as it were against the shadow of
the once famous city, or out of anger, at the foul words and
scurrilous jests with which the tyrant Aristion, showing himself
daily, with unseemly gesticulations, upon the walls, had provoked
him and Metella.
The tyrant Aristion had his very being compounded of wantonness
and cruelty, having gathered into himself all the worst of
Mithridates's diseased and vicious qualities, like some fatal malady
which the city, after its deliverance from innumerable wars, many
tyrannies and seditions, was in its last days destined to endure.
At
the time when a medimnus of wheat was sold in the city for one
thousand drachmas and men were forced to live on the feverfew
growing round the citadel, and to boil down shoes and oil-bags for
their food, he, carousing and feasting in the open face of day, then
dancing in armour, and making jokes at the enemy, suffered the holy
lamp of the goddess to expire for want of oil, and to the chief
priestess, who demanded of him the twelfth part of a medimnus of
wheat, he sent the like quantity of pepper.
Caphis came to
Delphi, but was loth to touch the holy things, and with many tears, in
the presence of the Amphictyons, bewailed the necessity. And on some
of them declaring they heard the sound of a harp from the inner
shrine, he, whether he himself believed it, or was willing to try
the effect of religious fear upon Sylla, sent back an express. To
which Sylla replied in a scoffing way, that it was surprising to him
that Caphis did not know that music was a sign of joy, not anger; he
should, therefore, go on boldly, and accept what a gracious and
bountiful god offered.