ngth, it was resolved to grant the political franchise to
such Italians as had remained faithful, or who had submitted. This
concession, great as it was, did not include the actual insurgents, but it
operated in strengthening wavering communities on the side of Rome.
Etruria and Umbria were tranquilized.

(M968) The second campaign, B.C. 89, was opened in Bicenum. Marius was not
in the field. His conduct in the previous campaign was not satisfactory,
and the conqueror of the Cimbri, at sixty-six, was thought to be in his
dotage. Asculum was besieged and taken by the Romans, who had seventy-five
thousand troops under the walls. The Sabellians and Marsians were next
subjugated, and all Campania was lost to the insurgents, as far as Nola.
The Southern army was under the command of the consul, Lucius Sulla, whose
great career had commenced in Africa, under Marius. Sulla advanced into
the Samnite country and took its capital, Bovianum. Under his able
generalship, the position of affairs greatly changed. At the close of the
campaign, most of the insurgent regions were subdued. The Samnites were
almost the only people which held out.

(M969) It was fortunate for Rome that the rebellion was so far suppressed
when the flames of war were rekindled in the East. A great reaction
against the Roman domination had taken place, and the eastern nations
seemed determined to rally once more for independent dominion. This was
the last great Asiatic rising till the fall of the Roman empire. The
potentate under whom the Oriental forces rallied, was Mithridates, king of
Pontus.

(M970) The army of Sulla, in Campania, was destined to embark for Asia as
soon as the state of things in Southern Italy should allow his departure.
So the third campaign of the Social war, as it is called, began favorably
for Rome, when events transpired in the capital which gave fresh life to
the almost extinguished insurrection. The attack of Drusus on the
equestrian courts, and his sudden downfall, had sown the bitterest discord
between the aristocracy and the burgess class. The Italian communities,
received into Roman citizenship, were fettered by restrictions which had
an odious stigma, which led to great irritation, for the aristocracy had
conferred the franchise grudgingly. And this franchise was moreover
withheld from the insurgent communities which had again submitted. A deep
indignation also settled in the breast of Marius, on his return from the
first cam