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Updated: June 5, 2025
To Caius Terentius, the proconsul, it was given in charge to press soldiers in the Picenian territory, and to protect that part of the country; and Titus Otacilius Crassus, after he had dedicated the temple of Mens in the Capitol, was invested with command, and sent into Sicily to take the conduct of the fleet.
The place of Marius in the Marsian army was taken by the consul of this year, Lucius Porcius Cato, who had fought with distinction in Etruria, and that of Caesar in the Campanian army by his lieutenant, Lucius Sulla, to whom were due some of the most material successes of the previous campaign; Gnaeus Strabo retained now as consul the command which he had held so successfully in the Picenian territory.
Pompeius received the news of Caesar's advance at Rome; he seemed at first disposed to defend the capital, but, when the tidings arrived of Caesar's entrance into the Picenian territory and of his first successes there, he abandoned Rome and ordered its evacuation. A panic, augmented by the false report that Caesar's cavalry had appeared before the gates, came over the world of quality.
Next, all those who had the command of armies were continued in their offices, and ordered to remain in their provinces; Tiberius Gracchus at Luceria, where he was with an army of volunteer slaves; Caius Terentius Varro in the Picenian, and Manius Pomponius in the Gallic territory.
Here too the preparations were in full course; in the very northernmost Picenian town Auximum a considerable band of recruits was collected under Publius Attius Varus; but at the entreaty of the municipality Varus evacuated the town even before Caesar appeared, and a handful of Caesar's soldiers which overtook the troop not far from Auximum totally dispersed it after a brief conflict the first in this war.
The army of the Optimates was divided. The proconsul Metellus undertook, resting on the support of the Picenian insurrection, to advance to Upper Italy, while Sulla marched from Campania straight against the capital. Carbo threw himself in the way of the former; Marius would encounter the main army of the enemy in Latium.
The corps of Picenian volunteers soon grew to three legions; divisions under Cloelius, Gaius Carrinas, Lucius Junius Brutus Damasippus, were despatched from the capital to put down the Picenian insurrection, but the extemporized general, dexterously taking advantage of the dissensions that arose among them, had the skill to evade them or to beat them in detail and to effect his junction with the main army of Sulla, apparently in Apulia.
When Vibullius arrived here, Caesar was still several days' march behind; there was nothing to prevent him from immediately starting agreeably to Pompeius' instructions and conducting the saved Picenian recruits along with those assembled at Corfinium to join the main army in Apulia.
In a second engagement the army of Marius and the corps of Sulla which belonged to the army of the south co-operated to inflict on the Marsians a still more considerable defeat, which cost them 6000 men; but the glory of this day remained with the younger officer, for, while Marius had given and gained the battle, Sulla had intercepted the retreat of the fugitives and destroyed them. Picenian War
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