e necessary to close the city gates; stragglers even
brought accounts to Ofella that the battle was lost. But on the
right wing Marcus Crassus overthrew the enemy and pursued him as
far as Antemnae; this somewhat relieved the left wing also, and an
hour after sunset it in turn began to advance. The fight continued
the whole night and even on the following morning; it was only the
defection of a division of 3000 men, who immediately turned their
arms against their former comrades, that put an end to the
struggle. Rome was saved. The army of the insurgents, for which
there was no retreat, was completely extirpated. The prisoners
taken in the battle--between 3000 and 4000 in number, including the
generals Damasippus, Carrinas, and the severely-wounded Pontius--
were by Sulla's orders on the third day after the battle brought to
the Villa Publica in the Campus Martius and there massacred to the
last man, so that the clatter of arms and the groans of the dying
were distinctly heard in the neighbouring temple of Bellona, where
Sulla was just holding a meeting of the senate. It was a ghastly
execution, and it ought not to be excused; but it is not right to
forget that those very men who perished there had fallen like a
band of robbers on the capital and the burgesses, and, had they
found time, would have destroyed them as far as fire and sword
can destroy a city and its citizens.

Sieges
Praeneste
Norba
Nola

With this battle the war was, in the main, at an end. The garrison
of Praeneste surrendered, when it learned the issue of the battle
of Rome from the heads of Carrinas and other officers thrown over
the walls. The leaders, the consul Gaius Marius and the son of
Pontius, after having failed in an attempt to escape, fell on each
other's swords. The multitude cherished the hope, in which it
was confirmed by Cethegus, that the victor would even now have
mercy upon them. But the times of mercy were past. The more
unconditionally Sulla had up to the last moment granted full pardon
to those who came over to him, the more inexorable he showed
himself toward the leaders and communities that had held out to
the end. Of the Praenestine prisoners, 12,000 in number, most
of the Romans and individual Praenestines as well as the women
and children were released, but the Roman senators, almost all
the Praenestines and the whole of the Samnites, were disarmed and
cut to pieces; and the rich city was given up to pillage.