ulation and his
exercises; but the wiser part lamented to witness his greediness after
gain and distinction, and they pitied a man who, having risen from
poverty to enormous wealth, and to the highest station from a low
degree, knew not when to put bounds to his good fortune, and was not
satisfied with being an object of admiration and quietly enjoying what
he had, but as if he was in want of everything, after his triumphs and
his honours was setting out to Cappadocia and the Euxine to oppose
himself in his old age to Archelaus and Neoptolemus, the satraps of
Mithridates. The reasons which Marius alleged against all this in
justification of himself appeared ridiculous; he said that he wished
to serve in the campaign in order to teach his son military
discipline.

XXXV. The disease that had long been rankling in the State at last
broke out, when Marius had found in the audacity of Sulpicius[119] a
most suitable instrument to effect the public ruin; for Sulpicius
admired and emulated Saturninus in everything, except that he charged
him with timidity and want of promptitude in his measures. But there
was no lack of promptitude on the part of Sulpicius, who kept six
hundred of the Equestrian class about him as a kind of body-guard and
called them an Opposition Senate. He also attacked with a body of
armed men the consuls while they were holding a public meeting; one of
the consuls made his escape from the Forum, but Sulpicius seized his
son and butchered him. Sulla, the other consul, being pursued, made
his escape into the house of Marius, where nobody would have expected
him to go, and thus avoided his pursuers who ran past; and it is said
that he was let out in safety by Marius by another door and so got to
the camp. But Sulla in his Memoirs says that he did not fly for refuge
to Marius, but withdrew there to consult with him about the matters
which Sulpicius was attempting to make him assent to against his will
by surrounding him with bare swords and driving him on towards the
house of Marius, and that finally he went from the house of Marius to
the Rostra, and removed, as they required him to do, the Justitium.
This being accomplished, Sulpicius, who had now gained a victory, got
the command conferred on Marius by the votes of the, assembly, and
Marius, who was prepared to set out, sent two tribunes to receive the
army of Sulla. But Sulla encouraging his soldiers, who were
thirty-five thousand men well armed, led them