heir general to the enemy; and Sulla the
commander-in-chief contented himself with exhorting the troops to efface
the memory of that occurrence by their brave conduct in presence of
the enemy. The authors of that deed were the marines, from of old
the least respectable of the troops. A division of legionaries raised
chiefly from the city populace soon followed the example thus given.
Instigated by Gaius Titius, one of the heroes of the market-place, it
laid hands on the consul Cato. By an accident he escaped death on
this occasion; Titius was arrested, but was not punished. When Cato
soon afterwards actually perished in a combat, his own officers, and
particularly the younger Gaius Marius, were--whether justly or unjustly,
cannot be ascertained--designated as the authors of his death.

Economic Crisis
Murder of Asellio

To the political and military crisis thus beginning fell to be added
the economic crisis--perhaps still more terrible--which set in upon the
Roman capitalists in consequence of the Social war and the Asiatic
troubles. The debtors, unable even to raise the interest due and yet
inexorably pressed by their creditors, had on the one hand entreated
from the proper judicial authority, the urban praetor Asellio, a
respite to enable them to dispose of their possessions, and on the
other hand had searched out once more the old obsolete laws as to
usury(21) and, according to the rule established in olden times,
had sued their creditors for fourfold the amount of the interest
paid to them contrary to the law. Asellio lent himself to bend the
actually existing law into conformity with the letter, and put into
shape in the usual way the desired actions for interest; whereupon
the offended creditors assembled in the Forum under the leadership of
the tribune of the people Lucius Cassius, and attacked and killed the
praetor in front of the temple of Concord, just as in his priestly
robes he was presenting a sacrifice--an outrage which was not even
made a subject of investigation (665). On the other hand it was
said in the circles of the debtors, that the suffering multitude could
not be relieved otherwise than by "new account-books," that is, by
legally cancelling the claims of all creditors against all debtors.
Matters stood again exactly as they had stood during the strife
of the orders; once more the capitalists in league with the
prejudiced aristocracy made war against, and prosecuted, the oppressed
multit