the Po
were likewise discontented with the partial concessions made to
them, and the new burgesses and freedmen were exasperated by
the cancelling of the Sulpician laws. The populace of the city
suffered amid the general distress, and found it intolerable that
the government of the sabre was no longer disposed to acquiesce in
the constitutional rule of the bludgeon. The adherents, resident
in the capital, of those outlawed after the Sulpician revolution--
adherents who remained very numerous in consequence of the
remarkable moderation of Sulla--laboured zealously to procure
permission for the outlaws to return home; and in particular some
ladies of wealth and distinction spared for this purpose neither
trouble nor money. None of these grounds of ill-humour were such
as to furnish any immediate prospect of a fresh violent collision
between the parties; they were in great part of an aimless and
temporary nature; but they all fed the general discontent, and had
already been more or less concerned in producing the murder of
Rufus, the repeated attempts to assassinate Sulla, the issue
of the consular and tribunician elections for 667 partly in
favour of the opposition.

Cinna
Carbo
Sertorius

The name of the man whom the discontented had summoned to the head
of the state, Lucius Cornelius Cinna, had been hitherto scarcely
heard of, except so far as he had borne himself well as an officer
in the Social war. We have less information regarding the
personality and the original designs of Cinna than regarding those
of any other party leader in the Roman revolution. The reason is,
to all appearance, simply that this man, altogether vulgar and
guided by the lowest selfishness, had from the first no ulterior
political plans whatever. It was asserted at his very first
appearance that he had sold himself for a round sum of money to
the new burgesses and the coterie of Marius, and the charge looks
very credible; but even were it false, it remains nevertheless
significant that a suspicion of the sort, such as was never
expressed against Saturninus and Sulpicius, attached to Cinna.
In fact the movement, at the head of which he put himself, has
altogether the appearance of worthlessness both as to motives and
as to aims. It proceeded not so much from a party as from a number
of malcontents without proper political aims or notable support,
who had mainly undertaken to effect the recall of the exiles by
legal or illegal means