ts leaders then determined to desist from the relief of Praeneste
and to throw themselves with all their united strength on Rome,
which was only a good day's march distant. By so doing they were,
in a military point of view, ruined; their line of retreat, the
Latin road, would by such a movement fall into Sulla's hands;
and even if they got possession of Rome, they would be infallibly
crushed there, enclosed within a city by no means fitted for
defence, and wedged in between the far superior armies of Metellus
and Sulla. Safety, however, was no longer thought of; revenge
alone dictated this march to Rome, the last outbreak of fury in
the passionate revolutionists and especially in the despairing
Sabellian nation. Pontius of Telesia was in earnest, when he
called out to his followers that, in order to get rid of the wolves
which had robbed Italy of freedom, the forest in which they
harboured must be destroyed. Never was Rome in a more fearful
peril than on the 1st November 672, when Pontius, Lamponius,
Carrinas, Damasippus advanced along the Latin road towards Rome,
and encamped about a mile from the Colline gate. It was threatened
with a day like the 20th July 365 u. c. or the 15th June 455 a. d.--
the days of the Celts and the Vandals. The time was gone by when
a coup de main against Rome was a foolish enterprise, and the
assailants could have no want of connections in the capital.
The band of volunteers which sallied from the city, mostly youths
of quality, was scattered like chaff before the immense superiority
of force. The only hope of safety rested on Sulla. The latter,
on receiving accounts of the departure of the Samnite army in
the direction of Rome, had likewise set out in all haste to the
assistance of the capital. The appearance of his foremost horsemen
under Balbus in the course of the morning revived the sinking
courage of the citizens; about midday he appeared in person with
his main force, and immediately drew up his ranks for battle at
the temple of the Erycine Aphrodite before the Colline gate (not
far from Porta Pia). His lieutenants adjured him not to send the
troops exhausted by the forced march at once into action; but Sulla
took into consideration what the night might bring on Rome, and,
late as it was in the afternoon, ordered the attack. The battle
was obstinately contested and bloody. The left wing of Sulla,
which he led in person, gave way as far as the city wall, so that
it becam