On these views he acted.  He assembled his soldiers—­there were six legions, or about 35,000 men—­and explained to them the summons that had arrived from Rome, not forgetting to hint that the new commander-in-chief would undoubtedly lead to Asia Minor not the army as it stood, but another formed of fresh troops.  The superior officers, who still had more of the citizen than the soldier, kept aloof, and only one of them followed the general towards the capital; but the soldiers, who in accordance with earlier experiences(23) hoped to find in Asia an easy war and endless booty, were furious; in a moment the two tribunes that had come from Rome were torn in pieces, and from all sides the cry arose that the general should lead them to Rome.  Without delay the consul started, and forming a junction with his like-minded colleague by the way, he arrived by quick marches—­little troubling himself about the deputies who hastened from Rome to meet and attempted to detain him—­beneath the walls of the capital.  Suddenly the Romans beheld columns of Sulla’s army take their station at the bridge over the Tiber and at the Colline and Esquiline gates; and then two legions in battle array, with their standards at their head, passed the sacred ring-wall within which the law had forbidden war to enter.  Many a worse quarrel, many an important feud had been brought to a settlement within those walls, without any need for a Roman army breaking the sacred peace of the city; that step was now taken, primarily for thesake of the miserable question whether this or that officer was called to command in the east.

Rome Occupied

The entering legions advanced as far as the height of the Esquiline; when the missiles and stones descending in showers from the roofs made the soldiers waver and they began to give way, Sulla himself brandished a blazing torch, and with firebrands and threats of setting the houses on fire the legions cleared their way to the Esquiline market-place (not far from S. Maria Maggiore).  There the force hastily collected by Marius and Sulpicius awaited them, and by its superior numbers repelled the first invading columns.  But reinforcements came up from the gates; another division of the Sullans made preparations for turning the defenders by the street of the Subura; the latter were obliged to retire.  At the temple of Tellus, where the Esquiline begins to slope towards the great Forum, Marius attempted once more to make a stand; he adjured the senate and equites and all the citizens to throw themselves across the path of the legions.  But he himself had transformed them from citizens to mercenaries; his own work turned against him:  they obeyed not the government, but their general.  Even when the slaves were summoned to arm under the promise of freedom, not more than three of them appeared.  Nothing remained for the leaders but to escape in all haste through the still unoccupied gates; after a few hours Sulla was absolute master of Rome.  That night the watchfires of the legions blazed in the great market-place of the capital.