, stood old Marius, whose face threatened disaster. He
was dressed in mean attire; his hair and beard hung down rough and long,
for neither had been cut since the day he fled from Rome; on his brow
was a sullen frown that boded only evil to his foes.

Evil it was, evil without stint. Rome was treated as a conquered city.
The slaves and desperadoes who followed Marius were let loose to plunder
at their will. Octavius, the consul who had supported the senate, was
slain in his consular chair. A series of horrible butcheries followed.
Marius was bent on dire vengeance, and his enemies fell in multitudes.
Followed by a band of ruffians known as the Bardiaei, the remorseless old
man roamed in search of victims through the city streets, and any man of
rank whom he passed without a salute was at once struck dead.

The senators who had opposed his recall from exile fell first. Others
followed in multitudes. Those who had private wrongs to revenge followed
the example of their chief. The slaves of the army killed at will all
whom they wished to plunder. So great became the licentious outrages of
these slaves that in the end Cinna, who had taken no part in the
massacres, fell upon them with a body of troops and slew several
thousands. This reprisal in some measure restored order in Rome.

Sulla, meanwhile, was winning victories in the East, and the news of
them somewhat disturbed the ruthless conquerors. But for the present
they were absolute, and the saturnalia of blood went on. It ended at
length in the death of Marius.

Since his return he had given himself to wine and riotous living. This,
after the privations and hardships he had recently suffered, sapped his
iron constitution. He was elected to the seventh consulship, which he
had predicted while wandering as a fugitive on the south Italian shores.
But he fell now into an inflammatory fever, and in two weeks after his
election he ceased to breathe. Great and successful soldier as he had
been, his late conduct had won him wide-spread detestation, and he died
hated by his enemies and feared even by his friends.

_THE PROSCRIPTION OF SULLA._

While Marius and his friends were ruling and murdering in Rome, Sulla,
their bitter enemy, was commanding and conquering in the East, biding
his time for revenge. He drove the Asiatic foe out of Greece, taking and
pillaging Athens as an episode. He carried the war into Asia, forced
Mithridates to sue for peace, and exacted eno