at Fidentia (between Piacenza and Parma).  The Lucanian troops of Albinovanus deserted in a body:  their leader made up for his hesitation at first by inviting the chief officers of the revolutionary army to banquet with him and causing them to be put to death; in general every one, who at all could, now concluded his peace.  Ariminum with all its stores and treasures fell into the power of Metellus; Norbanus embarked for Rhodes; the whole land between the Alps and Apennines acknowledged the government of the Optimates.  The troops hitherto employed there were enabled to turn to the attack of Etruria, the last province where their antagonists still kept the field.  When Carbo received this news in the camp at Clusium, he lost his self-command; although he had still a considerable body of troops under his orders, he secretly escaped from his headquarters and embarked for Africa.  Part of his abandoned troops followed the example which their general had set, and went home; part of them were destroyed by Pompeius:  Carrinas gathered together the remainder and led them to Latium to join the army of Praeneste.  There no change had in the meanwhile taken place; and the final decision drew nigh.  The troops of Carrinas were not numerous enough to shake Sulla’s position; the vanguard of the army of the oligarchic party, hitherto employed in Etruria, was approaching under Pompeius; in a few days the net would be drawn tight around the army of the democrats and the Samnites.

The Samnites and Democrats Attack Rome
Battle at the Colline Gate
Slaughter of the Prisoners

Its leaders then determined to desist from the relief of Praeneste and to throw themselves with all their united strength on Rome, which was only a good day’s march distant.  By so doing they were, in a military point of view, ruined; their line of retreat, the Latin road, would by such a movement fall into Sulla’s hands; and even if they got possession of Rome, they would be infallibly crushed there, enclosed within a city by no means fitted for defence, and wedged in between the far superior armies of Metellus and Sulla.  Safety, however, was no longer thought of; revenge alone dictated this march to Rome, the last outbreak of fury in the passionate revolutionists and especially in the despairing Sabellian nation.  Pontius of Telesia was in earnest, when he called out to his followers that, in order to get rid of the wolves which had robbed Italy of freedom, the forest in which they harboured must be destroyed.  Never was Rome in a more fearful peril than on the 1st November 672, when Pontius, Lamponius, Carrinas, Damasippus advanced along the Latin road towards Rome, and encamped about a mile from the Colline gate.  It was threatened with a day like the 20th July 365 u. c. or the 15th June 455 a. d.—­ the days of the Celts and the Vandals.  The time was gone by when a coup de main against Rome was a foolish enterprise, and the assailants could have no want of connections in