ed the corn-ships, and thus cut off Rome from its usual
supply of food. He next took Ostia and the other towns on the sea-coast,
and, moving down the Tiber, encamped on the Janiculum. Famine began to
rage in the city, and the Senate was obliged to yield. They sent a
deputation to Cinna and Marius, inviting them into the city, but
entreating them to spare the citizens. Cinna received the deputies
sitting in his chair of office, and gave them a kind answer. Marius
stood in silence by the side of the Consul, but his actions spoke louder
than words. After the audience was over they entered the city. The most
frightful scenes followed. The Consul Octavius was slain while seated in
his curule chair. The streets ran with the noblest blood of Rome. Every
one whom Marius hated or feared was hunted out and put to death; and no
consideration, either of rank, talent, or former friendship, induced him
to spare the victims of his vengeance. The great orator M. Antonius fell
by the hands of his assassins; and his former colleague, Q. Catulus, who
had triumphed with him over the Cimbri, was obliged to put an end to his
own life. Cinna was soon tired of the butchery; but the appetite of
Marius seemed only whetted by the slaughter, and daily required fresh
victims for its gratification. Without going through the form of an
election, Marius and Cinna named themselves Consuls for the following
year (B.C. 86), and thus was fulfilled the prediction that Marius should
be seven times Consul. But he did not long enjoy the honor: he was now
in his seventy-first year; his body was worn out by the fatigues and
sufferings he had recently undergone; and on the eighteenth day of his
Consulship he died of an attack of pleurisy, after a few days' illness.

[Illustration: Mount Argaeus in Cappadocia.]

CHAPTER XXVII.

FIRST MITHRIDATIC WAR. B.C. 88-84.

The kingdom of Pontus, which derived its name from being on the coast of
the Pontus Euxinus, or Black Sea, was originally a satrapy of the
Persian empire, extending from the River Halys on the west to the
frontiers of Colchis on the east. Even under the later Persian kings the
rulers of Pontus were really independent, and in the wars of the
successors of Alexander the Great it became a separate kingdom. Most of
its kings bore the name of Mithridates; and the fifth monarch of this
name formed an alliance with the Romans, and was rewarded with the
province of Phrygia for the services he had rend