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.