pio, Drusus, had been struck down by the same cowardly
hands. Surely it was time to act for themselves and avenge their
benefactors. They were more numerous, they were hardier than their
tyrants; and if not so well organized, still by their union with
Drusus they were in some sort welded together, and now or never was
the time to strike. For the friends of Drusus were marked men. Let
them remain passive, and either individual Italians would perish by
the dagger which had slain Drusus, or individual communities by the
sentence of the Senate which had exterminated Fregellae.

[Sidenote: Outbreak of the Social War.] The revolt broke out at
Asculum. Various towns were exchanging hostages to secure mutual
fidelity. Caius Servilius, the Roman praetor, hearing that this was
going on at Asculum, went there and sharply censured the people in the
theatre. He and his escort were torn to pieces, the gates were shut,
every Roman in the town was slain, and the Marsi, Peligni, Marrucini,
Frentani, Vestini, Picentini, Hirpini, the people of Pompeii and
Venusia, the Iapyges, the Lucani, and the Samnites, and all the people
from the Liris to the Adriatic, flew to arms; [Sidenote: The allies
who remained faithful to Rome.] and though here and there a town like
Pinna of the Vestini, or a partisan like Minutius Magius of Aeclanum,
remained loyal to Rome, all the centre and south of Italy was soon in
insurrection. Perhaps at Pinna the large land-owners or capitalists
were supreme, as in Umbria and Etruria, which sided with Rome, as also
did most of the Latin towns, the Greek towns Neapolis and Rhegium, and
most of Campania, where Capua became an important Roman post during
the war. [Sidenote: The rebels demand the franchise.] The insurgents,
emboldened by the swift spread of the rebellion, sent to demand the
franchise as the price of submission. But the old dogged spirit which
extremity of danger had ever aroused at Rome was not dead. [Sidenote:
Rage of the equites. The law of Varius.] The offer was sternly
rejected, and the equites turned furiously on the optimates, or the
Italianising section of the optimates, to whose folly they felt that
the war was due. With war the hope of their gains was gone; and,
enraged at this, they took advantage of the outbreak to repay the
Senate for its complicity in the attempt of Drusus to deprive them of
the judicia. Under a law of Varius, who is said by Cicero to have been
the assassin of Drusus and Metell