attempt to relieve Praeneste was now made from the south.  Lamponius from Lucania, whom we last heard of in the Social War (p. 120), and Pontius Telesinus from Samnium, marched at the head of 70,000 men into Latium.  This movement drew Sulla from Etruria.  He threw himself between Rome and the enemy, and occupied a gorge through which they had to pass before they could get to Praeneste.  The Latin Road branches off near Anagnia, one route leading straight to Rome, the other making a detour through Praeneste. [Sidenote:  The dead lock at Praeneste.] It was somewhere here that Sulla took his stand; and neither could the southern army break through his lines, nor Marius break through those of Ofella, though he made determined attempts to do so.

Meanwhile Carbo and Norbanus, released from the pressure of Sulla’s army, struck across the Apennines to overwhelm Metellus; but their imprudence ruined them. [Sidenote:  Overthrow of Carbo by Metellus.] Coming on Metellus at Faventia (Faenza) when their troops were weary after a day’s march, they attacked him in the evening, hoping to surprise him.  But the tired men were defeated.  Ten thousand were killed; 6000 surrendered or deserted.  The rest fled, and only 1000 effected an orderly retreat to Arretium.  Nor did the disaster end here.  A Lucanian legion, coming to join Carbo, deserted to Metellus on hearing the result of the battle, and the commander sent to offer his submission to Sulla.  Sulla characteristically replied that he must earn his pardon, and the other, nothing loth, asked Norbanus and his officers to a banquet and murdered all who came.  Norbanus refused the invitation and escaped to Rhodes; but when Sulla sent to demand that he should be given up he committed suicide. [Sidenote:  Third attempt to relive Praeneste.] Carbo had still more than 30,000 men at Clusium, and he made a third attempt to relieve Praeneste by sending Damasippus with two legions to co-operate from the north with the Samnites on the south. [Sidenote:  Carbo flies to Africa.] But Sulla found means to hold them in check, and Carbo, on the news of other disasters—­at Fidentia, where Marcus Lucullus defeated one of his lieutenants, and at Tuder, which Marcus Crassus took and pillaged—­lost heart and fled to Africa.  Plutarch says that Lucullus, having less than a third of the numbers of the enemy, was in doubt whether to fight.  But just then a gentle breeze blew the flowers from a neighbouring field, which fell on the shields and helmets of the soldiers in such a manner that they seemed to be crowned with garlands, and this so cheered them that they won an easy victory.  After Carbo’s flight his army was defeated by Pompeius near Clusium. [Sidenote:  Carbo’s lieutenants threaten Rome.] The rest of it, under Carrinas and Censorinus, joined Damasippus, and, taking up a position twelve miles from Rome in the Alban territory, threatened the capital and forced Sulla to break up his quarters, where he had been barring the roads to Praeneste and