was
getting the worst of it on the left wing, when five cohorts and two
companies of cavalry deserted him. The rest fled with great slaughter,
and Sulla pressed so hard on them that the gates of Praeneste were
shut, to hinder him getting in with the fugitives. Marius was thus
left outside, and, like Archelaus at Piraeus, had to be hoisted over
the walls by ropes. [Sidenote: Sulla wins the battle and besieges
Praeneste.] Sulla captured 8000 Samnites in the battle, and now, for
the first time, when the road to Rome was opened and victory seemed
secure, showed himself in his true colours, and slew all of them to a
man. [Sidenote: Massacre at Rome by order of young Marius.] An equally
savage butchery had been going on in Rome, where Marius, before he was
blockaded in Praeneste, had given orders to massacre the leaders of
the opposite faction. The Senate was assembled as if to despatch
business in the Curia Hostilia, and there Carbo's cousin and the
father-in-law of Pompeius were assassinated. The wife of the latter
killed herself on hearing the news. Quintus Mucius Scaevola, the chief
pontiff, and the first jurist who attempted to systematise Roman law,
fled to the temple of Vesta, and was there slain. The corpses of those
who had been killed were thrown into the Tiber, and Marius had the
ferocious satisfaction of feeling that his enemies would not be able
to exult over his own imminent ruin. [Sidenote: Sulla comes to Rome.]
Sulla, leaving Ofella to blockade Praeneste, hastened to Rome, but
there was no one on whom to take vengeance, for his foes had fled.
He confiscated their property, and tried to quiet apprehensions by
telling the people that he would soon re-establish the State. But he
could not stay long in the city, for matters looked threatening in the
north.

[Sidenote: Metellus and Carbo in the north.] In this quarter the
contest was more stubborn, because the newly enfranchised towns were
stronger partisans of Marius. Metellus had fought a battle on the
Aesis, the frontier river of Picenum, against Carrinas, one of Carbo's
lieutenants, and after a hard fight had beaten him and occupied the
adjacent country. This brought Carbo against him with a superior army,
and Metellus could do nothing till the news of Sacriportus frightened
Carbo into retreating to Ariminum, that he might secure his
communications and get supplies from the rich valley of the Po.
Metellus immediately resumed the offensive. He defeated in pers