h. Marius answers by a stupendous
victory over the Cimbrians and Teutons, slays a hundred thousand in one
battle, comes home, triumphs again, sets up his trophies in the city and
builds a temple to Honour and Courage. Next, in greed of popular power,
he perjures himself to support a pair of murderous demagogues, betrays
them in turn to the patricians, and Saturninus is pounded to death with
roof tiles in the Capitol. Then, being made leader in the war with the
allies, already old for fighting, he fails at the outset, and his rival
Sylla is General in his stead.

Then riot on riot in the Forum, violence after violence in the struggle
for the consulship, murder after murder, blood upon blood not yet dry.
Sylla gets the expedition against Mithridates; Marius, at home,
undermines his enemy's influence and forces the tribes to give him the
command, and sends out his lieutenants to the East. Sylla's soldiers
murder them, and Sylla marches back against Rome with six legions.
Marius is unprepared; Sylla breaks into the city, torch in hand, at the
head of his troops, burning and slaying; the rivals meet face to face in
the Esquiline market-place, Roman fights Roman, and the plebeian loses
the day and escapes to the sea.

The reign of terror begins, and a great slaying. Sylla declares his
rival an enemy of Rome, and Marius is found hiding in the marshes of
Minturnae, is dragged out naked, covered with mud, a rope about his neck,
and led into a little house of the town to be slain by a slave. 'Darest
thou kill Caius Marius?' asks the old man with flashing eyes, and the
slave executioner trembles before the unarmed prisoner. They let him go.
He wanders to Africa and sits alone among the ruins of Carthage, while
Sylla fights victoriously in the East. Rome, momentarily free of both,
is torn by dissensions about the voting of the newly enfranchised.
Instead of the greater rivals, Cinna and Octavius are matched for plebs
and nobles. Knife-armed the parties fight it out in the Forum, the
bodies of citizens lie in heaps, and the gutters are gorged with free
blood, and again the patricians win the day. Cinna, fleeing from wrath,
is deposed from office. Marius sees his chance again. Unshaven and
unshorn since he left Rome last, he joins Cinna, leading six thousand
fugitives, seizes and plunders the towns about Rome, while Cinna encamps
beneath the walls. Together they enter Rome and nail Octavius' head to
the Rostra. Then the vengeance of