elf to
the work of thoroughly humbling for once the haughty oligarchs,
and that at the same time, in consequence of the extensive
confiscations and auctions, the best part of the spoil came to
themselves--in these times of terror they acquired from the people
the surname of the "hoarders."

Death of Marius

Fate had thus granted to the author of this reign of terror,
the old Gaius Marius, his two chief wishes. He had taken vengeance
on the whole genteel pack that had embittered his victories and
envenomed his defeats; he had been enabled to retaliate for every
sarcasm by a stroke of the dagger. Moreover he entered on the new
year once more as consul; the vision of a seventh consulate, which
the oracle had promised him, and which he had sought for thirteen
years to grasp, had now been realized. The gods had granted to him
what he wished; but now too, as in the old legendary period, they
practised the fatal irony of destroying man by the fulfilment of
his wishes. In his early consulates the pride, in his sixth the
laughing-stock, of his fellow-citizens, he was now in his seventh
loaded with the execration of all parties, with the hatred of the
whole nation; he, the originally upright, capable, gallant man, was
branded as the crackbrained chief of a reckless band of robbers.
He himself seemed to feel it. His days were passed as in delirium,
and by night his couch denied him rest, so that he grasped the
wine-cup in order merely to drown thought. A burning fever seized
him; after being stretched for seven days on a sick bed, in the
wild fancies of which he was fighting on the fields of Asia Minor
the battles of which the laurels were destined for Sulla, he
expired on the 13th Jan. 668. He died, more than seventy years
old, in full possession of what he called power and honour, and in
his bed; but Nemesis assumes various shapes, and does not always
expiate blood with blood. Was there no sort of retaliation in the
fact, that Rome and Italy now breathed more freely on the news of
the death of the famous saviour of the people than at the tidings
of the battle on the Raudine plain?

Even after his death individual incidents no doubt occurred, which
recalled that time of terror; Gaius Fimbria, for instance, who more
than any other during the Marian butcheries had dipped his hand in
blood, made an attempt at the very funeral of Marius to kill the
universally revered -pontifex maximus- Quintus Scaevola (consul in
659)