Kitap 2
' Death strode upon his victims! plebs alike These lines are quoted by Holinshed in his 'Chronicles' as descriptive of the horrors of a Scottish inroad which took place in 1296.
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' And nobles perished; far and near the sword
' Struck at his pleasure, till the temple floors
'Ran wet with slaughter and the crimson stream
' Befouled with slippery gore the holy walls.
' No age found pity: men of failing years,
' Just tottering to the grave, were hurled to death;
' From infants, in their being's earliest dawn,See Ben Jonson's 'Catiline,' Act i., scene 1, speaking of the Sullan massacre. Cethegus. Not infants in the porch of life were free. Catiline. 'Twas crime enough that they had lives: to strike but only those that could do hurt was dull and poor: some fell to make the number as some the prey.
' The growing life was severed. For what crime?
'Twas cause enough for death that they could die.
' The fury grew : soon 'twas a sluggard's part
' To seek the guilty: hundreds died to swell
'The tale of victims. Shamed by empty hands,
' The bloodstained conqueror snatched a reeking head
' From neck unknown. One way of life remained,
' To kiss with shuddering lips the red right hand.Whenever he did not salute a man, or return his salute, this was a signal for massacre. (Plutarch, 'Marius,' 43.)
' Degenerate people! Had ye hearts of men,
' Though ye were threatened by a thousand swords,
' Far rather death than centuries of life
' Bought at such price; much more that breathing space
' Till Sulla comes again.The Marian massacre was in B.C. 87-86; the Sullan in 82-81. But time would fail
' In weeping for the deaths of all who fell.
'Encircled by innumerable bands
' Fell Baebius, his limbs asunder torn,
' His vitals dragged abroad. Antonius too,
' Prophet of ill, whose hoary headThe head of Antonius was struck off and brought to Marius at supper. He was the grandfather of the triumvir. was placed,
' Dripping with blood, upon the festal board.
' There headless fell the Crassi; mangled frames
'Neath Fimbria's falchion: and the prison cells
' Were wet with tribunes' blood. Hard by the fane
' Where dwells the goddess and the sacred fire,
' Fell aged Scaevola, though that gory hand Scaevola, it would appear, was put to death after Marius the elder died, by the younger Marius. He was Pontifex Maximus, and slain by the altar of Vesta.
' Had spared him, but the feeble tide of blood
' Still left the flame alive upon the hearth.
' That selfsame year the seventh time restored B.C. 86, Marius and Cinna were Consuls. Marius died seventeen days afterwards, in the seventieth year of his age.
' The Consul's rods; that year to Marius brought
' The end of life, when he at Fortune's hands
' All ills had suffered; all her goods enjoyed.
