BOOK LXXXVIII.
Sylla, having routed and cut off the army of Carbo at Clusium, Faventia, and Fidentia, drove him out of Italy; he completely subdued the Samnites near the city of Rome, before the Colline gate: they were the only one of all the Italian states that had not before laid down their arms. Having restored the affairs of the commonwealth, he stained his glorious victory with the most atrocious cruelties ever committed; he murdered eight thousand men in the Villa Publica, who had submitted and laid down their arms, and published a list of persons proscribed: he filled with blood the city of Rome, and all Italy. He ordered all the Prænestines, without exception, although they had laid down their arms, to be murdered; he killed Marius, a senator, by breaking his legs and arms, cutting off his ears, and scooping out his eyes. Caius Marius, being besieged at Præneste by Lucretius Asella, one of the partisans of Sylla, having endeavoured to escape through a mine, was intercepted by an army, and committed suicide; this took place in the centre of the mine, when he found it impossible to escape with Pontius Telesinus, the companion of his flight, for each having drawn his sword, rushed madly on: when he had slain Telesinus, he himself, being wounded, begged of a slave that he would despatch him.
BOOK LXXXIX.
Marcus Brutus being sent in a fishing-boat to Lilybæum, by Cneius Papirius Carbo, who had sailed to Cossura, to discover if Pompeius were there, and being surrounded by the ships, which Pompey had sent, turned the point of his sword against himself, and threw himself on it with all the weight of his body, at one of the ship’s benches. Cneius Pompeius, being sent by the senate to Sicily, with full powers, having taken Carbo prisoner, put him to death; he dies weeping with womanly weakness. Sylla, having been created dictator, marched through the city with twenty-four lictors, which no one had ever done before. He established new regulations in the state; abridged the authority of the plebeian tribunes; took from them the power of proposing laws; increased the college of priests and augurs to fifteen; filled up the senate from the equestrian order; took from the descendants of the proscribed persons all power of reclaiming the property of their ancestors, and sold such of their effects as had not been already confiscated, to the amount of one hundred and fifty millions of sesterces. He ordered Lucretius Ofella to be put to death in the forum, for having declared himself a candidate for the consulship, without having previously obtained his permission; and when the people of Rome were offended, he called a meeting, and told them that Ofella was slain by his orders, [y. r. 671. b. c. 81.] Cneius Pompeius vanquished and killed, in Africa, Cneius Domitius, one of the proscribed persons, and Hiarbas, king of Numidia, who were making preparations for war. He triumphed over Africa, although not more than twenty-four years of age, and only of equestrian rank, which never happened to any man before. Caius Norbanus, of consular rank, being proscribed, when he was taken at Rhodes, committed suicide. Mutilus, one of the proscribed, coming privately and in disguise to the back door of his wife Bastia’s house, was refused admission, and she told him that he was a proscribed man, whereupon he stabbed himself, and sprinkled the door of his wife’s house with his blood. Sylla took Nolla, a city of the Samnites, [y. r. 672. b. c. 80,] and led forth forty-seven legions into the conquered lands, and divided them among them. [y. r. 673. b. c. 79.] He besieged and took the town of Volaterra, which was as yet at war with him. Mitylene, the only town in Asia which continued to adhere to Mithridates, was likewise stormed and demolished.
BOOK XC.
Sylla died, and the honour was paid him by the senate of being buried in the Campus Martius. [y. r. 674. b. c. 78.] Marcus Æmilius Lepidus, attempting to rescind the acts of Sylla, raised a war, and was driven out of Italy by his colleague, Quintus Catulus, and having vainly planned a war in Sardinia, lost his life. [y. r. 675. b. c. 77.] Marcus Brutus, who held possession of Cisalpine Gaul, was slain by Cneius Pompeius. Quintus Sertorius, one of the proscribed, raised a formidable war in Farther Spain. Lucius Manilius, the proconsul, and Marcus Domitius were overthrown in a battle by the quæstor Herculeius. This book contains, moreover, an account of the expedition of the proconsul, Publius Servilius, against the Cilicians.