when Balbus appeared first, coming at full speed
from Sulla with seven hundred horsemen. Balbus just halted long enough
to allow his men to dry the sweat from their horses: then bridling
them again, they advanced quickly and engaged with the enemy. In the
mean time Sulla also appeared, and ordering the advanced ranks to take
some refreshment, he began to put them in order of battle. Dolabella
and Torquatus earnestly entreated him to pause, and not to put all to
the hazard with his exhausted soldiers; they said, the contest was not
with Carbo and Marius, but with Samnites and Lucanians, the most
deadly and warlike enemies of Rome: but Sulla, without paying any
regard to them, ordered the trumpets to sound the charge, though it
was now about the tenth hour. The battle began, and was fiercer than
any that was fought in this campaign. The right wing, where Crassus
commanded, was completely successful; but the left was hard pressed,
and in a dangerous plight, when Sulla came to its support mounted on a
very spirited and fleet white horse, by which he was easily
distinguished from the rest, and two of the enemy's soldiers, fixing
their javelins, prepared to aim at him, Sulla did not see them, but
his groom whipped the horse, which just carried his rider so far out
of the reach of the spears that they passed close to the horse's tail,
and stuck in the ground. It is said that Sulla always carried about
with him in his bosom, in battle, a small golden figure of Apollo,
which he got from Delphi, and that he then kissed it, and said, "O
Pythian Apollo, after raising the fortunate Sulla Cornelius in so many
contests to glory and renown, wilt thou throw him prostrate here, at
the gates of his native city, and so bring him to perish most ignobly
with his fellow-citizens?" After this address to the god it is said
that Sulla entreated some, and threatened and laid hold of others; but
at last, the left wing being completely broken, he was mingled with
the fugitives and made his escape to the camp with the loss of many of
his friends and men of note. Not a few of the citizens also, who had
come to see the fight, were killed and trampled down, so that it was
thought all was over with the city, and the blockade of Marius was all
but raised, for many of the fugitives made their way to Praeneste, and
urged Ofella Lucretius,[280] who had been appointed to conduct the
siege, to break up his quarters with speed, as Sulla was killed, and
Rome in