Asculum.  The protection of the consul Carbo, who was personally attached to him, still more than the eloquence of the consular Lucius Philippus and of the young Quintus Hortensius, averted from him financial ruin; but the dissatisfaction remained.  On the news of Sulla’s landing he went to Picenum, where he had extensive possessions and the best municipal connections derived from his father and the Social war, and set up the standard of the Optimate party in Auximum (Osimo).  The district, which was mostly inhabited by old burgesses, joined him; the young men, many of whom had served with him under his father, readily ranged themselves under the courageous leader who, not yet twenty-three years of age, was as much soldier as general, sprang to the front of his cavalry in combat, and vigorously assailed the enemy along with them.  The corps of Picenian volunteers soon grew to three legions; divisions under Cloelius, Gaius Carrinas, Lucius Junius Brutus Damasippus,(13) 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.  Sulla saluted him as -imperator-, that is, as an officer commanding in his own name and not subordinate but co-ordinate, and distinguished the youth by marks of honour such as he showed to none of his noble clients—­presumably not without the collateral design of thereby administering an indirect rebuke to the lack of energetic character among his own partisans.

Sulla in Campania Opposed by Norbanus and Scipio
Sulla Gains a Victory over Norbanus at Mount Tifata
Defection of Scipio’s Army

Reinforced thus considerably both in a moral and material point of view, Sulla and Metellus marched from Apulia through the still insurgent Samnite districts towards Campania.  The main force of the enemy also proceeded thither, and it seemed as if the matter could not but there be brought to a decision.  The army of the consul Gaius Norbanus was already at Capua, where the new colony had just established itself with all democratic pomp; the second consular army was likewise advancing along the Appian road.  But, before it arrived, Sulla was in front of Norbanus.  A last attempt at mediation, which Sulla made, led only to the arrest of his envoys.  With fresh indignation his veteran troops threw themselves on the enemy; their vehement charge down from Mount Tifata at the first onset broke the enemy drawn up in the plain; with the remnant of his force Norbanus threw himself into the revolutionary colony of Capua and the new-burgess town of Neapolis, and allowed himself to be blockaded there.  Sulla’s troops, hitherto not without apprehension as they compared their weak numbers with the masses of the enemy, had by this victory gained a full conviction of their