to Rome. The soldiers
fell on the tribunes whom Marius had sent, and murdered them. Marius
also put to death many of the friends of Sulla in Rome, and proclaimed
freedom to the slaves[120] if they would join him; but it is said that
only three slaves accepted the offer. He made but a feeble resistance
to Sulla on his entering the city, and was soon compelled to fly. On
quitting Rome he was separated from his partisans, owing to its being
dark, and he fled to Solonium,[121] one of his farms. He sent his son
Marius[122] to get provisions from the estates of his father-in-law
Mucius, which were not far off, and himself went to Ostia,[123] where
Numerius, one of his friends, had provided a vessel for him, and
without waiting for his son he set sail with his stepson Granius. The
young man arrived at the estates of Mucius, but he was surprised by
the approach of day while he was getting something together and
packing it up, and thus did not altogether escape the vigilance of his
enemies, for some cavalry came to the spot, suspecting that Marius
might be there. The overseer of the farm, seeing them approach, hid
Marius in a waggon loaded with beans, and yoking the oxen to it, he
met the horsemen on his road to the city with the waggon. Marius was
thus conveyed to the house of his wife, where he got what he wanted,
and by night made his way to the sea, and embarking in a vessel bound
for Libya, arrived there in safety.

XXXVI. The elder Marius was carried along the coast of Italy by a
favourable wind, but as he was afraid of one Geminius, a powerful man
in Terracina, and an enemy of his, he ordered the sailors to keep
clear of that place. The sailors were willing to do as he wished, but
the wind veering round and blowing from the sea with a great swell,
they were afraid that the vessel could not stand the beating of the
waves, and as Marius also was much troubled with sickness, they made
for land, and with great difficulty got to the coast near
Circeii.[124] As the storm increased and they wanted provisions, they
landed from the vessel and wandered about without any definite object,
but as happens in cases of great difficulty, seeking merely to escape
from the present evil as worst of all, and putting their hopes on the
chances of fortune; for the land was their enemy, and the sea also,
and they feared to fall in with men, and feared also not to fall in
with men, because they were in want of provisions. After some time
they me