138-78 B.C. page 9
In the meantime news came to Sylla that some old men, talking in the
Ceramicus, had been overheard to blame the tyrant for not securing the
passages and approaches near the Heptachalcum, the one point where the
enemy might easily get over. Sylla neglected not the report, but going
in the night, and discovering the place to be assailable, set
instantly to work.
Sylla himself makes mention in his Memoirs that
Marcus Teius, the first man who scaled the wall, meeting with an
adversary, and striking him on the headpiece a home-stroke, broke
his own sword, but, notwithstanding, did not give ground, but stood
and held him fast. The city was certainly taken from that quarter,
according to the tradition of the oldest of the Athenians.
When they had thrown down the wall, and made all level betwixt the
Piraic and Sacred Gate, about midnight Sylla entered the breach,
with all the terrors of trumpets and cornets sounding, with the
triumphant shout and cry of an army let loose to spoil and
slaughter, and scouring through the streets with swords drawn.
There
was no numbering the slain; the amount is to this day conjectured only
from the space of ground overflowed with blood. For without mentioning
the execution done in other quarters of the city, the blood that was
shed about the market-place spread over the whole Ceramicus within the
Double-gate, and, according to most writers, passed through the gate
and overflowed the suburb. Nor did the multitudes which fell thus
exceed the number of those who, out of pity and love for their country
which they believed was now finally to perish, slew themselves; the
best of them, through despair of their country's surviving, dreading
themselves to survive, expecting neither humanity nor moderation in
Sylla.
At length, partly at the instance of Midias and Calliphon,
two exiled men, beseeching and casting themselves at his feet,
partly by the intercession of those senators who followed the camp,
having had his fill of revenge, and making some honourable mention
of the ancient Athenians, "I forgive," said he, "the many for the sake
of the few, the living for the dead."
He took Athens, according to his
own Memoirs, on the calends of March, coinciding pretty nearly with
the new moon of Anthesterion, on which day it is the Athenian usage to
perform various acts in commemoration of the ruins and devastations
occasioned by the deluge, that being supposed to be the time of its
occurrence.
At the taking of the town, the tyrant fled into the citadel, and was
there besieged by Curio, who had that charge given him. He held out
a considerable time, but at last yielded himself up for want of water,
and divine power immediately intimated its agency in the matter. For
on the same day and hour that Curio conducted him down, the clouds
gathered in a clear sky, and there came down a great quantity of
rain and filled the citadel with water.
The senators and priests
who came as suppliants to beg of him to take compassion on the city,
and treat for peace with Sylla, he drove away and dispersed with a
flight of arrows. At last, with much ado, he sent forth two or three
of his revelling companions to parley, to whom Sylla, perceiving
that they made no serious overtures towards an accommodation, but went
on haranguing in praise of Theseus, Eumolpus, and the Median trophies,
replied, "My good friends, you may put up your speeches and be gone. I
was sent by the Romans to Athens, not to take lessons, but to reduce
rebels to obedience."