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.