[Sidenote: A massacre at Rome.] When Cinna entered the city, Marius,
with savage irony, said that an outlaw had no business within the
walls, and he would not come in till the sentence had been formally
rescinded by a meeting of the people in the Forum. But the gates,
when once he had passed them, were closed, and for five days and five
nights Rome became a shambles. Appian says that Marius and Cinna had
both sworn to spare the life of Octavius. But Marius was never a liar,
and the story is false on the face of it; for just before this Appian
relates how, when Cinna had promised to be merciful, Marius would
make no sign. [Sidenote: Death of Octavius.] Octavius is said to have
seated himself in his official chair, dressed in his official robes,
on the Janiculum, and to have awaited the assassins there. His head
was fastened up in front of the Rostra in emulation of the ghastly
precedent set by Sulla. He was an obstinate, dull man; and if this
burlesque of the conduct of the senators when the Gauls took Rome was
really enacted, the theatrical display must have been cold comfort for
those of his party on whom his incapacity brought ruin. [Sidenote:
Chief victims of the massacre.] [Sidenote: The Caesars.] Among the
latter were the brothers Caesar, Caius, who had sought to be consul
before he was praetor, and had been denounced for it by Sulpicius,
and Lucius, the conqueror at Acerrae and author of the Julian law.
[Sidenote: Publius Crassus.] Publius Crassus, consul in 97, and one of
Caesar's lieutenants in the Social War, fled with his son, and when
overtaken first stabbed his son and then himself. [Sidenote: Marcus
Antonius.] Marcus Antonius, the great forensic orator, was so odious
to Marius that the latter, on hearing that he was taken, wished, so
the story runs, to go and kill him with his own hand. Antonius was in
hiding, and was betrayed by the indiscretion of a slave, who, being
questioned by a wine-seller why he was buying more or better wine
than usual, whispered to him that it was for Marcus Antonius. On the
soldiers coming to kill him, he pleaded so eloquently for his life
that they wept and would not touch him. But their officer, who was
waiting below, impatiently came up and cut off his head with his own
hand. Lucius Merula opened his veins, and so bled to death. His crime
was that he had been made consul when Cinna was deposed. His last act
seems odd to us, but pathetically bespoke the man's piety and recalls
t