or a moment doubtful. The Populares
were beaten and driven up to the Capitol, where the supply of water was
cut off from them and they were thus compelled to surrender. Marius,
who held the chief command, would gladly have saved the lives of his
former allies who were now his prisoners; Saturninus proclaimed to the
multitude that all which he had proposed had been done in concert with
the consul: even a worse man than Marius was could not but shudder at
the inglorious part which he played on this day. But he had long ceased
to be master of affairs. Without orders the youth of rank climbed
the roof of the senate-house in the Forum where the prisoners were
temporarily confined, stripped off the tiles, and with these stoned
their victims. Thus Saturninus perished with most of the more notable
prisoners. Glaucia was found in a lurking-place and likewise put
to death. Without sentence or trial there died on this day four
magistrates of the Roman people--a praetor, a quaestor, and two
tribunes of the people--and a number of other well-known men, some of
whom belonged to good families. In spite of the grave faults by which
the chiefs had invited on themselves this bloody retribution, we may
nevertheless lament them: they fell like advanced posts, which are left
unsupported by the main army and are forced to perish without aim in
a conflict of despair.

Ascendency of the Government
Marius Politically Annihilated

Never had the government party achieved a more complete victory, never
had the opposition suffered a more severe defeat, than on this 10th of
December. It was the least part of the success that they had got rid
of some troublesome brawlers, whose places might be supplied any day by
associates of a like stamp; it was of greater moment that the only man,
who was then in a position to become dangerous to the government, had
publicly and completely effected his own annihilation; and most
important of all that the two elements of the opposition, the capitalist
order and the proletariate, emerged from the strife wholly at variance.
It is true that this was not the work of the government; the fabric
which had been put together by the adroit hands of Gaius Gracchus
had been broken up, partly by the force of circumstances, partly
and especially by the coarse and boorish management of his incapable
successor; but in the result it mattered not whether calculation or good
fortune helped the government to its victory. A