the capital.  The band of volunteers which sallied from the city, mostly youths of quality, was scattered like chaff before the immense superiority of force.  The only hope of safety rested on Sulla.  The latter, on receiving accounts of the departure of the Samnite army in the direction of Rome, had likewise set out in all haste to the assistance of the capital.  The appearance of his foremost horsemen under Balbus in the course of the morning revived the sinking courage of the citizens; about midday he appeared in person with his main force, and immediately drew up his ranks for battle at the temple of the Erycine Aphrodite before the Colline gate (not far from Porta Pia).  His lieutenants adjured him not to send the troops exhausted by the forced march at once into action; but Sulla took into consideration what the night might bring on Rome, and, late as it was in the afternoon, ordered the attack.  The battle was obstinately contested and bloody.  The left wing of Sulla, which he led in person, gave way as far as the city wall, so that it became necessary to close the city gates; stragglers even brought accounts to Ofella that the battle was lost.  But on the right wing Marcus Crassus overthrew the enemy and pursued him as far as Antemnae; this somewhat relieved the left wing also, and an hour after sunset it in turn began to advance.  The fight continued the whole night and even on the following morning; it was only the defection of a division of 3000 men, who immediately turned their arms against their former comrades, that put an end to the struggle.  Rome was saved.  The army of the insurgents, for which there was no retreat, was completely extirpated.  The prisoners taken in the battle—­between 3000 and 4000 in number, including the generals Damasippus, Carrinas, and the severely-wounded Pontius—­ were by Sulla’s orders on the third day after the battle brought to the Villa Publica in the Campus Martius and there massacred to the last man, so that the clatter of arms and the groans of the dying were distinctly heard in the neighbouring temple of Bellona, where Sulla was just holding a meeting of the senate.  It was a ghastly execution, and it ought not to be excused; but it is not right to forget that those very men who perished there had fallen like a band of robbers on the capital and the burgesses, and, had they found time, would have destroyed them as far as fire and sword can destroy a city and its citizens.

Sieges
Praeneste
Norba
Nola

With this battle the war was, in the main, at an end.  The garrison of Praeneste surrendered, when it learned the issue of the battle of Rome from the heads of Carrinas and other officers thrown over the walls.  The leaders, the consul Gaius Marius and the son of Pontius, after having failed in an attempt to escape, fell on each other’s swords.  The multitude cherished the hope, in which it was confirmed by Cethegus, that the victor would even now have mercy upon them.