BOOK LXXVIII.
Mithridates possessed himself of Asia; threw into chains Quintus Oppius, the proconsul, and Aquilius, the general; and ordered all the Romans in Asia to be massacred on the same day; he attacked the city of Rhodes, the only one which had retained its fidelity to the Roman state; and being overcome in several actions at sea, he retreated, [y. r. 665. b. c. 87.] Archelaus, one of the king’s governors, invaded Greece and took Athens. Commotions resulted in several states and islands, some endeavouring to draw over their people to the side of the Romans, others to that of Mithridates.
BOOK LXXIX.
Lucius Cornelius Cinna having, by force of arms, procured the enactment of several injurious laws, was driven out of the city by his colleague, Cneius Octavius, together with six plebeian tribunes. Thus deposed from the authority, he procured the command of his army under Appius Claudius, by bribery, and made war upon the city, having called to his assistance Caius Marius, and other exiles, from Africa. In this war, two brothers, (one of Pompeius’s army, the other of Cinna’s,) encountered each other without knowing it; and when the conqueror despoiling the enemy recognised his brother, he vented his grief in uncontrolled lamentation, and having prepared a funeral pile for him, he stabbed himself on it, and was consumed with him. Although this war might have been suppressed at first, yet owing to the treachery of Pompeius, who, by encouraging either party, gave power to Cinna, whilst he only succoured the patriotic party when their energies were exhausted; and also to the neglect of the consul; Cinna and Marius, with four armies, two of which were commanded by Sertorius and Carbo, gained strength and laid siege to the city. Marius took Ostia, which he plundered in the most cruel manner.
BOOK LXXX.
The freedom of the city of Rome was granted to the Italian states. The Samnites, the only people who continued in arms, joined Cinna and Marius, and overthrew Plautius’s army, killing the general. Cinna and Marius, with Carbo and Sertorius, seized the Janiculum; and were repelled by the consul Octavius. Marius plunders Antium, Aricia, and Lanuvium. The principal men in the state having now no hope of resisting, on account of the cowardice and treachery both of the generals and soldiers, who, being bribed, either refused to fight, or deserted to one party or another, received Cinna and Marius into the city, who, as if it had been captured, devastated it by murder and robbery, putting to death the consul, Cneius Octavius, and all the chiefs of the opposite party; among others, Marcus Antonius, a man highly distinguished for his eloquence, with Lucius and Caius Cæsar, whose heads they stuck up on the rostrum. The younger Crassus having been slain by a party of horsemen at Fimbria; his father, to escape suffering insult, killed himself. Cinna and Marius, without even the formality of an election, declared themselves consuls; and on the first day of their entering upon office, Marius ordered Sextus Licinius, a senator, to be cast from the Tarpeian rock, and after having committed very many atrocious acts, died on the ides of January. If we compare his vices with his virtues, it will be difficult to pronounce whether he was greater in war, or more wicked in peace. Having preserved his country by his valour, he ruined it afterwards by every species of artifice and fraud; and finally destroyed it by open force.