News of all this soon reached old Marius in Africa. At the head of a thousand desperate men he took ship and landed in Etruria. Here he proclaimed liberty to all slaves who would join him, and soon had a large force. He also gained a small fleet. He and Cinna now joined forces and marched on Rome.
The senate, which stood for Sulla, had meanwhile been gathering an army for the defence of the city. But few of those ordered from afar reached the gates, and of the principal force the greater part deserted to Marius. The city was soon invested on all sides. The ships of Marius captured the corn-vessels from Sicily and Africa. A plague broke out in the city, which decimated the army of the senate. In the end beleaguered Rome was forced to open its gates to a new conqueror.
All the senate asked for was that Cinna would not permit a general massacre. This he promised. But behind his chair, in which he sat in state as consul, stood old Marius, whose face threatened disaster. He was dressed in mean attire; his hair and beard hung down rough and long, for neither had been cut since the day he fled from Rome; on his brow was a sullen frown that boded only evil to his foes.
Evil it was, evil without stint. Rome was treated as a conquered city. The slaves and desperadoes who followed Marius were let loose to plunder at their will. Octavius, the consul who had supported the senate, was slain in his consular chair. A series of horrible butcheries followed. Marius was bent on dire vengeance, and his enemies fell in multitudes. Followed by a band of ruffians known as the Bardiæi, the remorseless old man roamed in search of victims through the city streets, and any man of rank whom he passed without a salute was at once struck dead.
The senators who had opposed his recall from exile fell first. Others followed in multitudes. Those who had private wrongs to revenge followed the example of their chief. The slaves of the army killed at will all whom they wished to plunder. So great became the licentious outrages of these slaves that in the end Cinna, who had taken no part in the massacres, fell upon them with a body of troops and slew several thousands. This reprisal in some measure restored order in Rome.
Sulla, meanwhile, was winning victories in the East, and the news of them somewhat disturbed the ruthless conquerors. But for the present they were absolute, and the saturnalia of blood went on. It ended at length in the death of Marius.
Since his return he had given himself to wine and riotous living. This, after the privations and hardships he had recently suffered, sapped his iron constitution. He was elected to the seventh consulship, which he had predicted while wandering as a fugitive on the south Italian shores. But he fell now into an inflammatory fever, and in two weeks after his election he ceased to breathe. Great and successful soldier as he had been, his late conduct had won him wide-spread detestation, and he died hated by his enemies and feared even by his friends.