a long and desperate resistance Athens was taken by storm (1st March, 86), given up to plunder, and many of its most magnificent buildings and works of art destroyed. Sulla then marched against Archelaus, who had meanwhile received large reinforcements from Asia, and defeated him first at Chæronea (86 b.c.), and then at Orchomenus in Bœotia (85 b.c.). He next crossed the Hellespont; but instead of driving Mithridates to extremities he concluded a peace with that monarch (84 b.c.), and in order to secure the attachment of his soldiers, levied for their benefit heavy contributions on the unfortunate inhabitants of the country, whom he treated with great injustice and severity. The events which had taken place in Rome during his absence, made him anxious to put an end to the war as speedily as possible. The popular party had regained the ascendancy, and having crushed his supporters, had abolished his institutions, confiscated his property, and declared him an enemy of the republic. Having settled affairs in Asia, he now prepared to return to the assistance of his friends in Italy. Taking with him about thirty thousand men, he set sail from Ephesus, and after a voyage of three days reached Athens. Here he secured the valuable library of Apellicon of Teos, and carried it with him to Rome. He landed at Brundusium in the spring of 83 b.c.; and though the troops of the popular party far outnumbered his, partly by bribes and promises, partly by his own energetic efforts, and the assistance of Pompey and other influential nobles, he was able to make head successfully against his antagonists. He defeated the consul Narbanus, near Capua; young Marias at Sacriportus; and the Samnites and Lucanians in a great battle at the Colline gate of Rome (82 b.c.), in which fifty thousand are said to have fallen. Sulla tarnished his victory by his coldblooded cruelty in putting to death several thousands of his prisoners. The surrender of Præneste, the slaughter of its defenders, amounting to twelve thousand, and the suicide of the younger Marius, speedily followed. Sulla was now absolute master of Rome and Italy, and he resolved at once to gratify his vengeance and secure his ascendancy, by extirpating the popular party. He drew up a list of those who were to be put to death, and their property confiscated (the first example of a proscription in Roman history); declared them outlaws who might be slain by any one, even by slaves, with impunity; excluded their children and grand-children from the right of voting in the comitia, and from all public offices; offered a large reward to those who killed, and denounced the punishment of death against those who sheltered, a proscribed person. Nor was the vengeance of Sulla confined to the city. All the Italians who had in any way favoured the defeated party, were in like manner punished by death and confiscation. Many thousands perished, and the terror-stricken citizens submitted in silence to the changes which Sulla, who had been appointed dictator, now effected in the constitution. His object was to abrogate all the liberal measures of the preceding fifty years; to prevent the enfranchisement of the Italians, the agrarian distributions, and the plantation of colonies; to destroy the authority of the tribunes of the people; to abolish the legislative and judicial functions of the comitia tributa; in short, to restore to the senate and the aristocracy the power of which they had been deprived. The complete prostration of the popular party enabled the despot to carry out his plans for the moment, and thus to inflict upon Rome one of the greatest disasters she ever suffered. His uniform success obtained for him the surname of Felix (the Prosperous), and having held the dictatorship till the beginning of 79, he suddenly resigned this office and retired into private life. He took up his residence at his villa, near Puteoli, where he passed his time partly in literary pursuits, partly in licentious indulgences, to which he had always been strongly addicted. His last days were harassed by the loathsome disease called phthiriasis, and he died in 78 b.c., in his sixtieth year. He was honoured with a public funeral, and a monument was erected to his memory in the Campus Martius. Sulla left "Memoirs," considerable portions of which are supposed to be included in his life by Plutarch. He was four times married.—J. T.
SULLY, Maximilian de Bethune, Duke of, was the second son of François de Bethune, baron of Rosny, and was born on the 13th December, 1560, at the paternal château of Rosny, on the banks of the Seine, in Normandy. The family of Bethune was ancient and noble, descended from the Coucis, and through them, as Sully himself informs us with the pride which was one of the few weaknesses of his noble character, from the first emperors of Austria. Maximilian's elder brother, Louis, having infirmities which rendered hopeless his success in the world, their father paid double attention to his second son, and placed him under the care of a celebrated preceptor named La Brosse, who instructed him in all the learning of the time. The seed fell in good ground, for the boy's intellect was strong and his temperament energetic; while the tenets of the Huguenots, which were early instilled into him, contributed largely to mould his mind and to influence his future career. In 1572 he was taken by his father to the court of Henry, the king of Navarre, at Vendôme. Young Rosny being received into that prince's service, afterwards accompanied him to Paris. The future Sully was then only eleven years of age; the future Henry IV. about nineteen. It was the commencement of one of the most memorable friendships recorded in history. The same year Rosny escaped destruction at the massacre of St. Bartholomew only through the friendly aid of the principal of the college where he was prosecuting his studies. He continued to reside at Paris in a condition of precarious freedom, and for some years assiduously devoted himself to the cultivation of his mind. But at the age of fifteen his studies were suddenly interrupted, and he was plunged into all the cares and turmoil of active life. It was then, in the beginning of 1575, that Henry effected his escape from the confinement in which he was kept by the French court, and the faithful Rosny fled along with his royal master. In the desultory hostilities which ensued, the young student learned to be a soldier; and during the protracted period of the civil war, broken but now and then by brief and hollow truces, his peculiar genius found full scope for its development. It was those nineteen years of tempest, from 1575 to 1594, that roughly yet completely trained the future prime minister of France. The zeal which Rosny showed for Henry's cause, and his devotion to his person, were appreciated by the latter. At the age of twenty he made his young follower a councillor of Navarre, with a salary of two thousand livres. In 1583, Rosny, whose father had died some years previously, married Anne de Courtenay, and spent a brief period in comparative retirement. But in 1585 he again rejoined his master, and became his most valued and confidential adviser. In the field also he was a brave and successful soldier. He assisted at the battle of Coutras in 1587, where Joyeuse was slain, and Henry gained a glorious victory. The artillery, of which Rosny had the command, was mainly instrumental in this success. The battles of Arque and Ivry followed, the latter of which, in 1590, was so signal a triumph for Henry's cause. At Ivry Rosny was dangerously wounded. Notwithstanding these successes, it having become apparent that no protestant could hope to obtain secure possession of the French throne, Rosny, on being consulted by Henry as to the propriety of his change of religion, advised him to embrace the Roman catholic faith. Yet, in justice to the inflexible honesty of the adviser, let us remember that patriotism was with that adviser a master-principle, and that he saw no other way of restoring peace to his distracted country than the course he thus recommended to his sovereign. Neither let it be forgotten that, although often and sorely tempted, he would never himself consent to surrender the Huguenot creed professed by him from his earliest years. Henry abjured the reformed faith at St. Denis in July, 1593, and the following year he entered in triumph the capital of France. After his accession to supreme power, he wisely in 1596 made Rosny a member of the great council of finance, where the efforts of the latter to introduce order and economy into all matters connected with the revenue of the kingdom were in the end crowned with the most satisfactory results. Promoted ere long to be superintendent of the finances, he discharged the duties of his important office with characteristic zeal, integrity, and energy; the treasury, so wretchedly poor before, was amply replenished; while at the same time the people found their burdens lightened by the economical courses which Rosny recommended and adopted. It is sufficient to say that when in 1597 he was appointed financial minister, the treasury was empty and in debt; at the death of Henry in 1610 it contained forty-two million livres. To the industry of the people Rosny ever looked as the great source of national wealth, and to their welfare as one, at least, of the great ends of government. Keeping these objects systematically in view, he was, as a statesman, one of the truest benefactors of his country. Honours and emoluments formed his well-merited reward. He became
