remain at Rome instead of being sent abroad as a Governor, had at last
to go where fighting was in some degree necessary, and, in the saddest
phase of his life, appeared in Italy with his lictors, demanding the
honors of a triumph. In anticipation of such a career, no doubt under
the advice of his friends, he now went out to see, if not a battle,
something, at any rate, of war. It has already been said how the
citizenship of Rome was conferred on some of the small Italian States
around, and not on others. Hence, of course, arose jealousy, which was
increased by the feeling on the part of those excluded that they were
called to furnish soldiers to Rome, as well as those who were included.
Then there was formed a combination of Italian cities, sworn to remedy
the injury thus inflicted on them. Their purpose was to fight Rome in
order that they might achieve Roman citizenship; and hence arose the
first civil war which distracted the Empire. Pompeius Strabo, father of
Pompey the Great, was then Consul (B.C. 89), and Cicero was sent out to
see the campaign under him. Marius and Sulla, the two Romans who were
destined soon to bathe Rome in blood, had not yet quarrelled, though
they had been brought to hate each other--Marius by jealousy, and Sulla
by rivalry. In this war they both served under the Consuls, and Cicero
served with Sulla. We know nothing of his doings in that campaign. There
are no tidings even of a misfortune such as that which happened to
Horace when he went out to fight, and came home from the battle-field
"relicta non bene parmula."

Rome trampled on the rebellious cities, and in the end admitted them to
citizenship. But probably the most important, certainly the most
notorious, result of the Italian war, was the deep antagonism of Marius
and Sulla. Sulla had made himself conspicuous by his fortune on the
occasion, whereas Marius, who had become the great soldier of the
Republic, and had been six times Consul, failed to gather fresh laurels.
Rome was falling into that state of anarchy which was the cause of all
the glory and all the disgrace of Cicero's life, and was open to the
dominion of any soldier whose grasp might be the least scrupulous and
the strongest. Marius, after a series of romantic adventures with which
we must not connect ourselves here, was triumphant only just before his
death, while Sulla went off with his army, pillaged Athens, plundered
Asia Minor generally, and made terms with Mithridat