Sulpicians

“ We dislike to have our sympathies checked by reminders, that in Canada as elsewhere, they were the consistent, formidable foes of liberty; that their love of power not only embroiled them continually with the civil authorities, but made them jealous of the Recollects and Sulpicians, unwilling that any save their own order—or, as we say, sect—should share in the dangers and glory of converting the infidels of New France. How can we, sitting at home in ease, we who have entered into their labours, criticize men before whose spiritual white heat every mountain melted away ”

“ The Sulpicians as well as the Jesuits have always professed a peculiar devotion to the Virgin Mary. It was the pious founder of St. Sulpice, M. Olier, who suggested to the Company of Notre-Dame the idea of consecrating to Mary the establishment of the Island of Montreal in order that she might defend it as her property, and increase it as her domain. They gladly yielded to this desire, and even adopted as the seal of the company the figure of Our Lady; in addition they confirmed the name of Ville-Marie, so happily given to this chosen soil. ”

“ Born barely three centuries ago, the Christianity of New France has enriched history with pages no less glorious than those in which are enshrined the lofty deeds of her elders. To the list, already long, of workers for the gospel she has added the names of the Récollets and of the Jesuits, of the Sulpicians and of the Oblate Fathers, who crossed the seas to plant the faith among the hordes of barbarians who inhabited the immense regions to-day known as the Dominion of Canada. ”

“ Accordingly, Sulpicius brought forward a law by which the Italians were to be distributed among the thirty-five tribes. As they far outnumbered the old Roman citizens, they would have an overwhelming majority in each tribe, and would certainly confer upon Marius the command of the Mithridatic War. ”

“ The proposals of Sulpicius became law, and, with the assistance of the new voters, the command was bestowed upon Marius, then a mere privatus. Sulla, who was then at Nola, immediately marched upon Rome. Marius and Sulpicius, unable to resist him, fled from the city. Marius managed to escape to Africa, but Sulpicius was discovered in a villa at Laurentum and put to death; his head was sent to Sulla and exposed in the forum. Sulpicius appears to have been originally a moderate reformer, who by force of circumstances became one of the leaders of a democratic revolt. ”

“ They were not citizens, not on an equal footing with the citizens before the law. The revolt was suppressed, but the legions were completely out of hand. The attempt of Sulpicius to head the reform movement was answered by Sulla, who for the first time led a Roman army against Rome, crushed Sulpicius, prescribed some of his adherents, and placed the power of the senate on a stronger footing by legal enactment. Then he went to the East, to conduct the war against Mithridates. ”

“ In the presence of the entire force, the Dictator commended Sulpicius and the men who had so gallantly defended the camp, and whilst he raised the courage of those who listened to the praise which they so well deserved, he at the same time made the rest all the keener to emulate them. The enemy showed no less energy in preparing for a renewal of the struggle. Aware of the increase in the strength of their enemy, and animated by the thought of their recent victory, they called every man in the Hernican nation who could bear arms. ”

“ Sulpicius now brought forward a series of laws, bribed, so said some, by Marius. It is certain that one of the laws proposed that Marius should be commander of the war.
As these laws, if they were passed, would make the Populares, or party of the people, powerful, the Optimates determined to overthrow them. But Sulpicius was not a man to yield without a struggle. He sent armed men to attack the Consuls, for they were on the side of the Optimates.
Rufus, the colleague of Sulla, escaped from the city, but in the riot raised by the people his son was killed. ”

“ It is difficult to say whether the reason of this was that men had lost the energy of their character; or perhaps we should think that since the masterpieces of Greece had been made known, and each science had become more complicated, one man could not any longer bear the burden of all united? However this may be, if Sulpicius was above the Scaevolas as a lawyer, he was far from having their firmness as a citizen. Praetor or consul, he was never anything more than a man of learning and chamber practice. ”

“ Sulpicius, the "Curio Maximus." Amongst the common people the violence of the epidemic made great ravage. The senate, deprived of all human aid, bade the people betake themselves to prayers; they with their wives and children were ordered to go as suppliants and entreat the gods to be gracious. Summoned by public authority to do what each man's misery was constraining him to do, they crowded all the temples. Prostrate matrons, sweeping with their dishevelled hair the temple floors, were everywhere imploring pardon from offended heaven, and entreating that an end might be put to the pestilence. ”

“ Though history has accustomed us to observe every principle and every passion yielding to the imperious dictates of ambition, it is scarcely credible that, in these moments of horror, Sulpicianus should have aspired to ascend a throne polluted with the recent blood of so near a relation, and so excellent a prince. ”

“ At length she became calm, and after bitterly reproaching Aebutius for the return he had made after all she had done for him, and declared that while she stood in great fear of the gods, whose occult mysteries she was revealing, she stood in much greater fear of men who would tear her to pieces if she turned informer. So she begged Sulpicia and the consul to remove her to some place outside the borders of Italy where she could pass the rest of her days in safety. The consul bade her be under no apprehension; he would see to it that she found a safe home in Rome. ”

“ And Sulpice felt, at each step that he took, a more profound emotion. Along this russet-tinted wood, stood out here and there the bright trunks of birch-trees, and far above it, the pale blue sky; the abyss of heaven, strewn with milky clouds and throughout the course of this pathway arose like a Cybelean incense, a healthful and fresh odor that filled the lungs and infused a desire to live.
To live! and, thought Sulpice, but a moment ago this lovely, slender girl spoke of dying. ”

“ Marius had taken into alliance Sulpicius, the tribune, a man second to none in any villanies, so that it was less the question what others he surpassed, but rather in what respects he most surpassed himself in wickedness. He was cruel, bold, rapacious, and in all these points utterly shameless and unscrupulous; not hesitating to offer Roman citizenship by public sale to freed slaves and aliens, and to count out the price on public money-tables in the forum. ”

“ Martial bears testimony not only to her surpassing ability as a votary of the poetic muse, but also to the fact that in her life and character she exemplified a purity such as would beautify any age or society.
There is in existence but one poem known to have been written by Sulpicia; it was called forth by an act of tyranny which she rebuked with as much beauty as spirit. During the reign of Domitian, the philosophers were banished from Rome by edict of the emperor. ”

“ Sylla caused Sulpicius to be put to death, and abrogated his decrees; and he set a price on the head of Marius, forgetting that he had himself, a short time before, found a refuge in the house of his rival. He proscribed the chiefs of the democratic faction, but most of them had fled before he entered Rome. Marius and his son had reached Africa through a thousand dangers. This revolution appears not to have been sanguinary, and, with the exception of Sulpicius, the historians of the time mention no considerable person as having been put to death. ”

“ Sulpice, even in his youthful days, had never felt so intoxicating a sensation as that which he enjoyed to-day. It was a complete abandonment of himself, a forgetfulness of everything in the presence of his absolute intoxication. All the realities of life that were ready to take possession of him on leaving this place melted before this dream: the possession of that woman. He forgot the assembly, the foyer, that human crowd that he ruled from the height of the tribune, and Adrienne, who was seated yonder at the window, awaiting him. ”

“ Creditor and debtor, tribune and consul, Senate and anti-Senate, fiercely confronted each other. Personal interests had become so much more prominent, and old party-divisions were so confused by the schemes of Italianising politicians, aristocratic in their connexions, but cleaving to part at least of the traditional democratic programme, that it is very hard to see where the views of one faction blended with those of another and where they clashed. [Sidenote: The Sulpician revolution difficult to understand.] Still harder is it to dissect the character of individuals ”

“ The first of the Scipios, who had won Spain from the Carthaginians, had not asked for this honor because he wanted this qualification. Was it to be given to a beardless youth, too young even to sit in the Senate?" But the beardless youth insisted. He even had the audacity to hint that the future belonged not to Sulla but to himself. "More men," he said, "worship the rising than the setting sun." Sulla did not happen to catch the words, but he saw the emotion they aroused in the assembly, and asked that they should be repeated to him. ”

“ But Sulpicius, endued with irresistible energy, with a full strong voice, with the greatest vehemence, and dignity of action, accompanied with so much weight and variety of expression, seemed, of all mankind, the best fitted by nature for eloquence.”
It was supposed that Cotta wished to resemble Antony, as Sulpicius obviously imitated Crassus; but the latter wanted the agreeable pleasantry of Crassus, and the former the force of Antony. None of the orations of Sulpicius remained in the time of Cicero—those circulated under his name having been written by Canutius after his death. ”

“ These enactments which were called forth by the Sulpician attempt at revolution from the man who then came forward as the shield and sword of the constitutional party—the consul Sulla—bear an altogether peculiar character. Sulla ventured, without consulting the burgesses or jurymen, to pronounce sentence of death on twelve of the most distinguished men, including magistrates actually in office and the most famous general of his time, and publicly to defend these proscriptions ”

“ For we must remember that she belonged to the gens which produced Servius Sulpicius Galba; and, as we have noticed on many occasions with regard to Juvenal, an attachment to that emperor seems to go hand in hand with hatred of Otho and Domitian. From the conclusion of the Satire, it is probable that her husband was not implicated.
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The Sulpician gens produced many distinguished men; of whom we may mention the commissioner sent to Greece, and the conquerors of the Samnites, of Sardinia, and of Pyrrhus, besides the notorious friend of Marius. ”

“ From the people Sulla received but a sorry welcome, for so angry were they with him for bringing his army within the walls of the city, that they climbed to the roofs of the houses and flung stones and every missile that they could find upon the troops. But the Senate welcomed the Consuls with open arms.
Marius, Sulpicius, and twelve of their followers were at once declared public enemies. This meant that it was not only the right, but the duty, of every one to kill them. ”

“ The monk Sulpice escaped the investigations of the Holy Office and succeeded in reaching Mambournia, and found an asylum in a monastery of that kingdom, where he established new sects even more pernicious than the previous one.
Nevertheless, heresy, fortified by persecution, and exulting in danger, now spread its ravages over the whole of Vervignole. All over the kingdom there were seen in the fields thousands of naked men and women, nibbling the grass, bleating, lowing, roaring, neighing, and contending at night with sheep, cattle, and horses for the use of stable and manger. ”

“ Their third consul is now conducting operations with the utmost energy. Sulpicius met the king in Macedonia itself, routed him, put him to flight, and ravaged the richest part of his realm, and now, when he was holding the passes which form the key of Epirus, secured as he thought by his positions, his fortified lines and his army, Quinctius has deprived him of his camp, pursued him as he fled into Thessaly, stormed the cities of his allies and driven out his garrisons almost within sight of Philip himself. ”

“ Sulpicius probably did not overlook the danger involved in placing that old man—not less incapable than vengeful and ambitious—at the head of the Campanian army, and as little the scandalous irregularity of entrusting an extraordinary supreme command by decree of the people to a private man ”

“ In such cases he is not guiltiest who strikes the first blow, but he who has made blows inevitable.
[Sidenote: The Sulpician laws carried by force.] The laws of Sulpicius were carried. [Sidenote: Sulla flies to the army, which marches on Rome.] Sulla fled to the army; and, perhaps, it was only now that Sulpicius, knowing or thinking that he knew that Sulla would march on Rome, carried a resolution in the popular assembly for making Marius commander in the east. Two tribunes were accordingly sent to the camp at Nola to take the army from Sulla. His soldiers immediately slew them ”