remacy was thus re-established all along the east coast, Sulla, in
Campania, was equally triumphant. He recovered Stabiae in April, and
his lieutenant, T. Didius, took Herculaneum in June. Didius, however,
lost his life in the assault. Sulla next besieged Pompeii, defeated
Cluentius who came to its aid, again defeated him between Pompeii
and Nola, and a third time at the gates of Nola, where Cluentius was
slain. About this time Aulus Postumius Albinus, while in charge of
the fleet, was murdered by his own men, recruits probably whom he was
bringing from Rome to Sulla's army. Sulla pardoned the mutineers,
saying that he knew they would wipe out their crime by their bravery,
and they did so in the fights with Cluentius. By such politic clemency
and never-varying good fortune Sulla bound the army to his own
interests.

Leaving Nola behind him, he crossed the Hirpinian frontier and marched
on Aeclanum. The townsmen, who were expecting a Lucanian reinforcement
that day, asked for time to deliberate. Sulla gave them an hour, and
occupied the hour in heaping vine osiers round the wooden walls. Not
choosing to be burnt the townsmen surrendered, and Sulla sacked the
place. He then marched northwards into Samnium. The mountain-passes
were held by Mutilus, who hemmed in Sulla near Aesernia. Sulla
pretended to treat for peace, and, when the enemy were off their
guard, marched away in the night, leaving a trumpeter to sound all
the watches as if the army was still in position. He seems to have
defeated Mutilus after this, and, leaving Aesernia behind as he had
left Nola, finally, before going home to sue for the consulship of 88
B.C., stormed Bovianum. He had managed the campaign in a bold and able
way, where less daring generalship might have failed.

[Sidenote: First Bovianum, and then Aesernia, becomes the confederate
capital.] As the insurrection was thus being stamped out on either
coast, Bovianum had become the capital of the insurgents instead of
Corfinium. Now Bovianum was taken, and Aesernia became its centre. The
occupation of the Hirpinian territory cut off the Samnites from the
South of Italy, where the Lucanians and Bruttians remained in arms.
Except for some trifling operations, which Pompeius had to carry out
in order to complete the pacification of his district, all that was
now left for the commanders of 88 was to crush the rebels in these two
isolated divisions, and the war would be at an end. [Sidenote: B.C.
88.