While Marius and his friends were ruling and murdering in Rome, Sulla, their bitter enemy, was commanding and conquering in the East, biding his time for revenge. He drove the Asiatic foe out of Greece, taking and pillaging Athens as an episode. He carried the war into Asia, forced Mithridates to sue for peace, and exacted enormous sums (more than one hundred million dollars in our money) from the rich cities of the East. Then, after giving his soldiers a winter's rest in Asia, he turned his face towards Rome, writing to the senate that he was coming, and that he intended to take revenge on his enemies.
It was now the year 83 B.C. Three years had passed since the death of Marius. During the interval the party of the plebeians had been at the head of affairs. Now Sulla, the aristocrat, was coming to call them to a stern account, and they trembled in anticipation. They remembered vividly the Marian carnival of blood. What retribution would his merciless rival exact?
Cinna, who had most to fear, proposed to meet the conqueror in the field. But his soldiers were not in the mood to fight, and settled the question by murdering their commander. When spring was well advanced, Sulla left Asia, and in sixteen hundred ships transported his men to Italy, landing at the port of Brundusium.
On the 6th of July, shortly after his landing, an event occurred that threw all Rome into consternation. The venerable buildings of the Capitol took fire and were burned to the ground, the cherished Sibylline books perishing in the flames. Such a disaster seemed to many Romans a fatal prognostic. The gods were surely against them, and all things were at risk.
Onward marched Sulla, opposed by a much greater army collected by his opponents. But he led the veterans of the Mithridatic War, and in the ranks of his opponents no man of equal ability appeared. Battle after battle was fought, Sulla steadily advancing. At length an army of Samnites, raised to defend the Marian cause, marched on Rome. Caius Pontius, their commander, was bent on terribly avenging the sufferings of his people on that great city.
"Rome's last day," he said to his soldiers, "is come. The city must be annihilated. The wolves that have so long preyed upon Italy will never cease from troubling till their lair is utterly destroyed."
Rome was in despair, for all seemed at an end. The Samnites had not forgotten a former Pontius, who had sent a Roman army under the Caudine Forks, and had been cruelly murdered in the Capitol They thundered on the Colline Gate. But at that critical moment a large body of cavalry appeared and charged the foe. It was the vanguard of Sulla's army, marching in haste to the relief of Rome.
A fierce battle ensued. Sulla fought gallantly. He rode a white horse, and was the mark of every javelin. But despite his efforts his men were forced back against the wall, and when night came to their relief it looked as if nothing remained for them but to sell their lives as dearly as possible the next morning.
But during the night Sulla received favorable news. Crassus, who commanded his right wing, had completely defeated a detachment of the Marian army. With quick decision, Sulla marched during the night round the enemy's camp, joined Crassus, and at day-break attacked the foe.
The battle that ensued was a terrible one. Fifty thousand men fell on each side. Pontius and other Marian leaders were slain. In the end Sulla triumphed, taking eight thousand prisoners, of whom six thousand were Samnites. The latter were, by order of the victor, ruthlessly butchered in cold blood.