ar had landed at Telamon on the Etruscan coast.
There were not more than some 500 armed men, for the most part
slaves of the refugees and enlisted Numidian horsemen; but, as
Gaius Marius had in the previous year been willing to fraternize
with the rabble of the capital, so he now ordered the -ergastula-
in which the landholders of this region shut up their field-
labourers during the night to be broken open, and the arms which
he offered to these for the purpose of achieving their freedom were
not despised. Reinforced by these men and the contingents of the
new burgesses, as well as by the exiles who flocked to him with
their partisans from all sides, he soon numbered 6000 men under his
eagles and was able to man forty ships, which took their station
before the mouth of the Tiber and gave chase to the corn-ships
sailing towards Rome. With these he placed himself at the disposal
of the "consul" Cinna. The leaders of the Campanian army
hesitated; the more sagacious, Sertorius in particular, seriously
pointed out the danger of too closely connecting themselves with
a man whose name would necessarily place him at the head of
the movement, and who yet was notoriously incapable of any
statesmanlike action and haunted by an insane thirst for revenge;
but Cinna disregarded these scruples, and confirmed Marius in the
supreme command in Etruria and at sea with proconsular powers.

Dubious Attitude of Strabo
The Cinnans around Rome

Thus the storm gathered around the capital, and the government
could no longer delay bringing forward their troops to protect
it.(1) But the forces of Metellus were detained by the Italians
in Samnium and before Nola; Strabo alone was in a position to hasten
to the help of the capital. He appeared and pitched his camp at
the Colline gate: with his numerous and experienced army he might
doubtless have rapidly and totally annihilated the still weak bands
of insurgents; but this seemed to be no part of his design. On the
contrary he allowed Rome to be actually invested by the insurgents.
Cinna with his corps and that of Carbo took post on the right bank
of the Tiber opposite to the Janiculum, Sertorius on the left bank
confronting Pompeius over against the Servian wall. Marius with
his band which had gradually increased to three legions, and in
possession of a number of war-vessels, occupied one place on the
coast after another till at length even Ostia fell into his hands
through treachery, an