Now as always in the face of serious danger, the action of Rome was prompt and resolute. Both consuls took the field; with each were five legates, among them the veteran Marius and his destined rival L. Cornelius Sulla, and even freedmen were pressed into service with the legions. But the first year's campaign opened disastrously. In central Italy the northern Sabellians, and in the south the Samnites, defeated the forces opposed to them. And though before the end of the year Marius and Sulla in the north, and the consul Caesar himself in Campania, suc ceeded in inflicting severe blows on the enemy, and on the Marsi especially, it is not surprising that, with an empty treasury, with the insurgents' strength still unbroken, and with rumours of dis affection in the loyal districts, opinion in Rome should have turned in the direction of the more liberal policy which had been so of ten scornfully rejected and in favour of some compromise which should check the spread of the revolt, and possibly sow discord among their enemies. Towards the close of the year 90 the con sul L. Julius Caesar (killed by Fimbria in 87) carried the lex Julia, by which the Roman franchise was offered to all com munities which had not as yet revolted; early in the next year (89) the Julian law was supplemented by the lex Plautia Papiria, introduced by two of the tribunes, M. Plautius Silvanus and C. Papirius Carbo Arvina, which enacted that any citizen of an allied community then domiciled in Italy might obtain the franchise by giving in his name to a praetor in Rome with 6o days. A third law (lex Calpurnia), apparently passed at the same time, empowered Roman magistrates in the field to bestow the franchise there and then upon all who were willing to receive it. This sudden opening of the closed gates of Roman citizenship was completely success ful, and its effects were at once visible in the diminished vigour of the insurgents. By the end of 89 the Samnites and Lucanians were left alone in their obstinate hostility to Rome, and neither, thanks to Sulla's brilliant campaign in Samnium, had for the moment any strength left for active aggression.
The termination of the Social War brought with it no peace in Rome. The old quarrels were renewed with increased bitter ness, and the newly enfranchised Italians themselves complained as bitterly of the restriction which robbed them of their due share of political influence by allowing them to vote only in a specified number of tribes. The senate itself was distracted by violent per sonal rivalries—and all these feuds, animosities and grievances were aggravated by the widespread economic distress and ruin which affected all classes. Lastly, war with Mithridates VI. had been declared; it was notorious that the privilege of commanding the force to be sent against him would be keenly contested, and that the contest would lie between the veteran Marius and L. Cornelius Sulla.
Sulla.—It was in an atmosphere thus charged with the ele ments of disturbance that P. Sulpicius Rufus (q.v.) as tribune brought forward his laws. He proposed : (r) that the command of the Mithridatic War should be given to Marius, though it had legally been assigned to the consul Sulla; (2) that the new citi zens should be distributed through all the tribes; (3) that the freedmen should no longer be confined to the four city tribes; (4) that any senator owing more than 2,000 denarii should lose his seat ; (5) that those exiled on suspicion of complicity with the Italian revolt should be recalled. These proposals inevitably pro voked a storm, and both sides were ominously ready for violent measures. The consuls, in order to prevent legislation, proclaimed a public holiday. Sulpitius replied by arming his followers and driving the consuls from the forum. The proclamation was with drawn and the laws carried, but Sulpicius's triumph was short lived. From Nola in Campania, where lay the legions commanded by him in the Social War, Sulla advanced on Rome, and for the first time a Roman consul entered the city at the head of the legions of the republic. Resistance was hopeless. Marius and Sulpicius fled, and Sulla, summoning the assembly of the cen turies, proposed the measures he considered necessary for the public security, the most important being a provision that the sanction of the senate should be necessary before any proposal was introduced to the assembly. Then, after waiting in Rome
long enough to hold the consular elections, he left for Asia early in 87.
Sulla had conquered, but his victory cost the republic dear. He had first taught political partisans to look for final success, not to a majority of votes in the forum or campus, but to the swords of the soldiery. The lesson was well learnt. Shortly after his departure L. Cornelius Cinna as consul revived the proposals of Sulpicius ; his colleague, Gnaeus Octavius, at the head of an armed force, fell upon the new citizens who had collected in crowds to vote, and the forum was heaped high with the bodies of the slain. Cinna fled, but fled, like Sulla, to the legions. When the senate declared him deposed from his consulship, he replied by in voking the aid of the soldiers in Campania in behalf of the violated rights of the people and the injured dignity of the con sulship, and, like Sulla, found them ready to follow where he led. The neighbouring Italian communities, who had lost many citi zens in the recent massacre, sent their new champion men and money; while from Africa, whither he had escaped after Sulla's entry into Rome, came Marius with i,000 Numidian horsemen. The senate had prepared for a desperate defence, but fortune was adverse, and after a brief resistance they gave way. Cinna was acknowledged as consul, the sentence of outlawry passed on Marius was revoked and Cinna and Marius entered Rome with their troops. Marius's thirst for revenge was gratified by a frightful massacre, and he lived long enough to be nominated consul for the seventh time. But he held his consulship only a few weeks. Early in 86 he died, and for the next three years Cinna ruled Rome. Constitutional government was virtually suspended. For 85 and 84 Cinna nominated himself and a trusted colleague as consuls. The state was, as Cicero says, without lawful authority. A partial registration of the newly enfranchised Italians was made, but be yond this little was done. The attention of Cinna and his friends was in truth engrossed by the ever-present dread of Sulla's return from Asia. The consul of 86, L. Valerius Flaccus (who had been consul with Marius in i oo B.c.), sent out to supersede him, was murdered by his own soldiers at Nicomedia. In 85 Sulla, though disowned by his Government, concluded a peace with Mithri dates. In 84, after settling affairs in Asia and crushing Flaccus's successor, C. Flavius Fimbria, he crossed into Greece, and in the spring of 83 landed at Brundusium with 40,000 soldiers and a large following of émigré nobles. Cinna was dead, murdered like Flaccus by his mutinous soldiers; his most trusted colleague, Cn. Papirius Carbo, was commanding as proconsul in Cisalpine Gaul; and the resistance offered to Sulla's advance was slight. At Capua, Sulla routed the forces of one consul, Gaius Norbanus ; at Tea num the troops of the other went over in a body to the side of the outlawed proconsul. After a winter spent in Campania he pressed forward to Rome, defeated the younger Marius (consul, 82) near Praeneste, and entered the city without further opposition. In north Italy the success of his lieutenants, Q. Caecilius Metellus Pius (son of Metellus Numidicus), Cn. Pompeius and Marcus Crassus, had been fully as decisive. Cisalpine Gaul, Umbria and Etruria had all been won for Sulla, and the two principal leaders on the other side, Carbo and Norbanus, had each fled, one to Rhodes, the other to Africa. Only one foe remained to be con quered. The Samnites and Lucanians whom Cinna had conciliated, and who saw in Sulla their bitterest foe, were for the last time in arms, and had already joined forces with the remains of the Ma rian army close to Rome. The decisive battle was fought under the walls of the city, and ended in the complete defeat of the Marians and Italians (battle of the Colline gate).