n part in the Sullan executions were,
as may readily be conceived, judicially prosecuted with the utmost
zeal. When the quaestor Marcus Cato, in his pedantic integrity,
himself made a beginning by demanding back from them the rewards
which they had received for murder as property illegally alienated
from the state (689), it can excite no surprise that in the following
year (690) Gaius Caesar, as president of the commission
regarding murder, summarily treated the clause in the Sullan
ordinance, which declared that a proscribed person might be
killed with impunity, as null and void, and caused the most
noted of Sulla's executioners, Lucius Catilina, Lucius Bellienus,
Lucius Luscius to be brought before his jurymen and, partially,
to be condemned.

Rehabilitation of Saturninus and Marius

Lastly, they did not hesitate now to name once more in public
the long-proscribed names of the heroes and martyrs of the democracy,
and to celebrate their memory. We have already mentioned how
Saturninus was rehabilitated by the process directed against
his murderer. But a different sound withal had the name of Gaius
Marius, at the mention of which all hearts once had throbbed;
and it happened that the man, to whom Italy owed her deliverance
from the northern barbarians, was at the same time the uncle
of the present leader of the democracy. Loudly had the multitude
rejoiced, when in 686 Gaius Caesar ventured in spite of
the prohibitions publicly to show the honoured features of the hero
in the Forum at the interment of the widow of Marius. But when,
three years afterwards (689), the emblems of victory, which Marius
had caused to be erected in the Capitol and Sulla had ordered to be
thrown down, one morning unexpectedly glittered afresh in gold
and marble at the old spot, the veterans from the African and Cimbrian
wars crowded, with tears in their eyes, around the statue of their
beloved general; and in presence of the rejoicing masses the senate
did not venture to seize the trophies which the same bold hand had
renewed in defiance of the laws.

Worthlessness of the Democratic Successes

But all these doings and disputes, however much noise they made,
were, politically considered, of but very subordinate importance.
The oligarchy was vanquished; the democracy had attained the helm.
That underlings of various grades should hasten to inflict
an additional kick on the prostrate foe; that the democrats also
should have their basis