d become a candidate for the latter. In fact the tribunician
elections were decided entirely to their mind, and the attempt of
Marius to prevent the spurious Tiberius Gracchus from soliciting the
tribuneship served only to show the celebrated man what was now the
worth of his popularity; the multitude broke the doors of the prison in
which Gracchus was confined, bore him in triumph through the streets,
and elected him by a great majority as their tribune. Saturninus and
Glaucia sought to control the more important consular election by the
expedient for the removal of inconvenient competitors which had been
tried in the previous year; the counter-candidate of the government
party, Gaius Memmius--the same who eleven years before had led the
opposition against them(9)--was suddenly assailed by a band of ruffians
and beaten to death. But the government party had only waited for a
striking event of this sort in order to employ force. The senate
required the consul Gaius Marius to interfere, and the latter in reality
professed his readiness now to draw for the conservative party the
sword, which he had obtained from the democracy and had promised to
wield on its behalf. The young men were hastily called out, equipped
with arms from the public buildings, and drawn up in military array; the
senate itself appeared under arms in the Forum, with its venerable chief
Marcus Scaurus at its head. The opposite party were doubtless superior
in a street-riot, but were not prepared for such an attack; they had now
to defend themselves as they could. They broke open the doors of the
prisons, and called the slaves to liberty and to arms; they proclaimed--
so it was said at any rate--Saturninus as king or general; on the day
when the new tribunes of the people had to enter on their office, the
10th of December 654, a battle occurred in the great market-place--the
first which, since Rome existed, had ever been fought within the walls
of the capital. The issue was not for a moment doubtful. The Populares
were beaten and driven up to the Capitol, where the supply of water was
cut off from them and they were thus compelled to surrender. Marius,
who held the chief command, would gladly have saved the lives of his
former allies who were now his prisoners; Saturninus proclaimed to the
multitude that all which he had proposed had been done in concert with
the consul: even a worse man than Marius was could not but shudder at
the inglorious pa