This commander was Sulla, and he acted as he did because Rome at the time had fallen into such a state of lawlessness, owing to the fights between the rich people and the poor, and to all the evil causes that I have mentioned, that no man's property or life was safe. Sulla came in with his soldiers and enforced what we might call Martial Law. He restored order, but he restored it only by terribly severe punishments. He was on the side of the Senate, of the rich and patrician class. This was in the year 88 B.C. But he did not stay in Rome. That war on the eastern boundary of the Empire with King Mithridates of Pontus required attention. Mithridates had been terribly successful at its commencement. He had overrun Asia Minor, and it is said that in a single day 80,000 persons who claimed to be Romans, or to be {197} under the protection of the great Roman power, were massacred. [Sidenote: Sulla and Pompey] Sulla was a great general. Mithridates had advanced into Greece, but he made no stand against the legions. His armies were defeated in Asia Minor too, and by 84 B.C. this, which was called the First Mithridatic War, was over. A treaty was made whereby the territories of the king of Pontus were strictly defined, and Sulla came back to Rome. The popular party had been busy while he was away. Marius, their champion, was dead, but his place had been taken by another popular general, Cinna. When Sulla returned he found Rome in possession of Cinna and the populace. With his own legions Sulla overthrew Cinna and his power, and his punishment of his opponents was even more fearfully cruel than before. The story of the years that followed is a terrible one. The life of no man of any importance was safe in Rome if he was suspected of showing any favour to the popular cause. And now another very great name comes into the story, that of Pompey--Pompey the Great as he was sometimes called. In Rome, Sulla had drowned in blood the opposition of the popular party; but there were legions outside Italy itself, and some of them, in Spain, were under popular leadership. Against these Pompey went out as commander on the patrician side. After some three years of fighting he was completely successful. Sulla, wearied of power and tyranny, had thrown up his dictatorship at Rome and had retired into the country and to private life. Pompey led back his victorious legions, and with his soldiers at the gates of the city demanded the honours which he thought due to him as victor. {198} There was no denying them to him, and he was elected Consul. The condition of affairs in Italy was bad. There had been a great uprising of the slaves who had become very numerous and had banded themselves together, to a number said to be 70,000. They traversed the country, pillaging and acting in defiance of all law.