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One would expect to read of a new proscription, after this success, but the victors did not resort to that terrible vengeance. Thus Pompey found himself at the head of Roman affairs. His first duty was to march against the remnant of the party of the Marians. They had joined Sertorius in Spain. It was the year 76 when Pompey arrived on the scene of his new operations.
The consuls at the time of the death of Sulla were Lepidus and Catulus, who now fell out with one another, Lepidus taking the part of the Marians, and Catulus holding with the aristocrats. This was the same Lepidus who had opposed the burial of the dictator Sulla in the Campus Martius.
Advancing along the Via Latina, Sulla fell in with the enemy not far from Signia; they retired before him as far as the so-called "Port of Sacer," between Signia and the chief stronghold of the Marians, the strong Praeneste. There Marius drew up his force for battle.
With one legion he occupied the Caelian Gate, with another under Pompeius the Colline Gate, with a third the Pons Sublicius, while a fourth was posted outside as a reserve. But Sulla, waving a burning torch, bade his men shoot fiery arrows at the houses, and drove the Marians from the Esquiline Forum.
But Sulla's offers met no better reception on that account; the senate rejected his proposals without even allowing the envoys to enter Rome, and enjoined him summarily to lay down arms. It was not the coterie of the Marians which primarily brought about this resolute attitude.
Wherever he really felt hatred, as for instance against the Marians, he allowed it to take its course without restraint even against the innocent, and boasted of himself that no one had better requited friends and foes. He did not disdain on occasion of his plenitude of power to accumulate a colossal fortune.
In the war against the Marians, for instance, he had been the companion in arms of the kings of Numidia and Mauretania and had reestablished the kingdom of the former; in the Mithradatic war, in addition to a number of other minor principalities spiritual and temporal, he had re-established the kingdoms of Bosporus, Armenia, and Cappadocia, and created that of Deiotarus in Galatia; it was primarily at his instigation that the Egyptian war was undertaken, and it was by his adjutant that the rule of the Lagids had been confirmed afresh.
A more than equivocal character, Publius Cethegus, formerly one of the most zealous Marians, afterwards as a deserter received into favour by Sulla, acted a most influential part in the political doings of this period unrivalled as a cunning tale-bearer and mediator between the sections of the senate, and as having a statesman's acquaintance with the secrets of all cabals: at times the appointment to the most important posts of command was decided by a word from his mistress Praecia.
On this Cinna left Rome, and, joined by Sertorius, whom we shall hear of again, went round the towns mustering his friends. Pompeius came and halted at the Colline Gate. It was suspected that he was waiting to join the successful side. Cinna marched to the right bank of the Tiber, opposite the Janiculum. The treachery of a tribune in command of the Janiculum gave the Marians admission to the city.
But Sulla's offers met no better reception on that account; the senate rejected his proposals without even allowing the envoys to enter Rome, and enjoined him summarily to lay down arms. It was not the coterie of the Marians which primarily brought about this resolute attitude.
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