us, Italian sympathisers were brought
to trial, and either convicted and banished, or overawed into silence.
Among the accused was Scaurus. But now, as ever, that shifty man
emerged triumphant from his intrigues. He aped the defence of Scipio,
and retired not only safe, but with a dignity so well studied that but
for his antecedents it might have seemed sincere. A Spaniard accused
him, he said, and Scaurus, chief of the Senate, denied the accusation.
Whether of the twain should the Romans believe?

[Sidenote: Perils of the crisis.] For such prosecutions there was
indeed some excuse, for the prospect was threatening. Mithridates
might at any moment stop the supplies from Asia. The soldiers of the
enemy were men who had fought in Roman armies and been trained to
Roman discipline; they were led by able captains, and were more
numerous than the forces opposed to them. And yet the war must be a
war of detachments, where numbers were all-important. It was no time
for hesitation about purging out all traitors or waverers. But
the courts that tried other cases were closed for the time. The
distributions of grain were curtailed. The walls were put in order.
Arms were prepared as fast as possible. A fleet was collected from
the free cities of Greece and Asia Minor. Levies were raised from
the citizens, from Africa, and from Gaul. Lastly, in view of the
inevitably scattered form which the fighting would take, each consul
was to have five lieutenants. [Sidenote: Generals of Rome.] Lupus was
to command in the northern district, from Picenum to Campania. Among
the generals who acted under him were the father of Pompeius Magnus,
and Marius. Samnium, Campania, and the southern district fell to
Lucius Julius Caesar, and among the five officers who went with him
were also two men of mark, Publius Licinius Crassus and Sulla. We
shall see how by an exhaustive process the Romans, after a series of
defeats, were at last driven to employ as generals-in-chief the two
rivals who were now subordinates and were thus carefully kept aloof.

[Sidenote: Corfinium the capital of the confederates.] The
confederates on their part were equally energetic. They had chosen as
their capital Corfinium, on the river Aternus (Pescara), because of
its central position with reference to the insurrection, and soon made
it evident that the Roman franchise was no longer the limit to their
aspirations, but that they aimed at the conquest of Rome herself.
[Sidenote: