Even before starting for Italy Sulla had issued a manifesto which showed that no mercy could be expected for his opponents in the event of his success. The Roman Senate at this crisis made a feeble effort to act as a mediator between the rival parties. It sent an embassy to endeavor to dissuade Sulla to desist from his threatened vengeance, while on the other hand it forbade the consuls to make any military preparations to resist. Both parties disregarded the orders of the Senate. Cinna and Carbo, who were at that time the consuls of Rome, began to make large levies of soldiers for the purpose of resisting Sulla upon his return. An attempt by Cinna to lead an expedition to attack Sulla in the East was frustrated by the refusal of his soldiers to leave Italy, and Cinna himself was soon after murdered.
After the death of Cinna, Carbo for some time remained as the sole consul of Rome. The worst possible use of this undivided power was made by the consul at this period, and his terror at the approach of Sulla was shown by the cruelty with which his enemies in the city were murdered or exiled.
Sulla returned to Italy with only forty thousand soldiers, while the popular party, under Carbo and the younger Marius, a nephew of the veteran general, had secured an army said to have numbered two hundred thousand. The army of Sulla, however, was composed of trained veterans, and that of Carbo and Marius consisted, in the main, of inexperienced recruits.
Soon after his return Sulla was joined by many of the senatorial party, with large levies of soldiers. Among the most notable accessions to the army of Sulla was that led by Cneius Pompey, at that time a youth of only twenty-three years of age but destined later to be the great rival of Julius Cæsar for the first place in Roman politics.
The war from the start went against the popular party, and its final outcome can hardly be said to have been at any time doubtful, although it dragged along for some considerable time. The first important battle was near Capua, in the year 83 B.C., where the consul Norbanus was defeated by Sulla. The final fighting was around the city of Præneste, where all the generals of the popular party had made their headquarters.
After the strength of the Roman popular party had been crushed, the fighting was still kept up by the combined forces of the Samnites, Lucanians, and Campanians, who, originally drawn into the war as allies of Carbo and Marius, now continued in a last desperate effort to overthrow Rome altogether. At the battle of the Colline Gate these allied Italian forces, under Pontius Telesinus, came very near inflicting a worse defeat upon Rome than this city had ever received. The left wing of the Roman army, commanded by Sulla, was in fact routed, and the battle was saved only by the right wing under the command of Crassus. In the end the victory of the Romans under Sulla in this battle was complete, and the great Italian general Pontius Telesinus was left dead upon the field.
This battle practically ended the fighting, although a few unimportant cities still held out against Sulla for a short period. The long contest between the Romans and the Italians was now definitely over. The victory of the oligarchical party at Rome over the popular party was merely temporary, although the supremacy of the latter was never attacked during the lifetime of Sulla. The victory of Sulla was followed by the terrible proscriptions with which the name of this general must ever be associated. The number of names appearing in the list of those who were proscribed, and liable to be killed by any one willing to carry out the orders of Sulla, reached the enormous total of forty-seven thousand. In this list were included most of the leaders of the popular party, all the personal enemies of Sulla himself, and also the names of all those whom for any reason of personal enmity or greed the friends of Sulla desired to have proscribed. It was only with the greatest difficulty that the friends of the young Julius Cæsar were able to save his life on this occasion. There is an historic anecdote to the effect that Sulla, in sparing him, warned the aristocratic party to beware of him in the future, as in this young man there was more than one Marius. It is hardly probable that this story is true, as Cæsar at this time had done nothing to show his ability.
The vengeance which Sulla took upon the Italians who had resisted him was even more terrible. Whole cities were destroyed, and the Samnite race was practically annihilated. The vengeance of Sulla extended even to the remote provinces, where the members of the popular party were everywhere hunted down and murdered.
In the year 81 B.C. the dictatorship, which had been unknown in the Roman government for considerably more than a century, was once more resorted to, and by the means of this office Sulla obtained absolute power at Rome. The legal changes made by Sulla were few, but all in favor of the aristocratic party. The laws passed during the previous half century in favor of the people were disregarded. The presidency of the courts was limited to the nobility, and the jurymen were again taken from the senators. Sulla also secured the passage of a large number of sumptuary laws of the most minute and, it might be added, of the most ridiculous character.
Because of poor health, Sulla was compelled, in the year 79 B.C., to resign the dictatorship, and he died the following year at the age of sixty.