Glaucia stood for the consulship of 99, and his rival Memmius, a
favourite with the people, was murdered, an attack was made on
Saturninus, who hastily sent for aid to his rural supporters and
seized the Capitol. He found then that in reckoning on Marius he had
made a fatal blunder. That selfish intriguer had been alarmed by the
popular favour shown to an impostor named Equitius, who gave out that
he was the son of Tiberius Gracchus, and who, being imprisoned by
Marius, was released by the people and elected tribune. He may
have been jealous too of the popularity of Saturninus with his own
veterans, and at the same time anxious to curry favour with the foes
of Saturninus--the urban populace. [Sidenote: Marius turns on his
friends.] So, instead of boldly joining his late ally, he became the
general of the opposite party, drove Saturninus and his friends from
the Forum, and, when they had surrendered, suffered them to be pelted
to death in the Curia Hostilia where he had placed them. [Sidenote:
Death of Saturninus and Glaucia.] Saturninus, it is said, had been
proclaimed king before his death. If so he had at least struck for a
crown consistently and boldly; and even if his attempt for the moment
united the senatorial party and the equites, while the city mob stood
wavering or hostile, he might nevertheless have forestalled the empire
by a century had Marius only had half his enterprise or nerve. In an
epoch of revolution it is idle to judge men by an ordinary standard.
How far personal ambition and how far a nobler ideal animated
Saturninus no man can say. Those who condemn him must condemn Cromwell
too.

For the moment the power of the optimates seemed restored. The spectre
of monarchy had made the men of riches coalesce with their old rivals
the men of rank; and the mob, ungrateful for an unexecuted corn-law,
chafed at Italian pretensions. Metellus, the aristocrat, was recalled
to Rome amid the enthusiasm of the anti-Italian mob, and P. Furius was
torn to pieces for having opposed his return. [Sidenote: Marius falls
into disrepute.] Marius slunk away to the East, finding that his
treachery had only isolated him and brought him into contempt; and
there, it is said, he tried to incite Mithridates to war. Sextus
Titius indeed brought forward an agrarian law in 99 B.C. But he was
opposed by his colleagues and driven into exile. Two events soon
happened which showed not only the embittered feelings existing
between the u