[Sidenote:  Corfinium the capital of the confederates.] The confederates on their part were equally energetic.  They had chosen as their capital Corfinium, on the river Aternus (Pescara), because of its central position with reference to the insurrection, and soon made it evident that the Roman franchise was no longer the limit to their aspirations, but that they aimed at the conquest of Rome herself. [Sidenote:  Measures of the confederates.] They called their capital Italica.  In it they built a forum, and fortified its walls.  They issued a new coinage.  They chose two consuls, twelve praetors, and a senate of five hundred, and gave the franchise to every community in arms on their side.  They mustered an army of 100,000 men, and entrusted the command against Lupus in the north and west to Pompaedius Silo, with six lieutenants under him; the command against Caesar in the south and east was given to a noted Samnite, named Caius Papius Mutilus.

It is easier to get a general idea of the war than of its details, though the latter are not without interest.  The results of the first year were, in spite of some victories, most unfavourable to Rome.  The insurgents were encouraged.  The insurrection had spread to Umbria and Etruria, and the Romans had at one time almost despaired. [Sidenote:  General survey of the war.] But in council they retrieved what they had lost in the camp.  A most politic concession of the franchise checked all further disaffection in the very nick of time.  The revolt in Umbria and Etruria was speedily suppressed, and at the close of the second year of the war, B.C. 89, the insurrection itself was virtually at an end.  For, though the Sulpician revolution at Rome prevented its absolute extinction, and some embers of it still lingered for five years more, and though Roman forces were still required after 89 B.C. among the Sabines in Samnium, in Lucania, and at Nola, the war as a war ended in that year. [Sidenote:  Twofold division of the war.] Consequently we may divide it into two periods, each well defined and each consisting of a year, the first in which the confederate cause triumphed and Marius lost credit; the second in which the cause of Rome triumphed, and Sulla enhanced his reputation and became the foremost man at Rome.

[Sidenote:  B.C. 90.  First year of the war.  Attempt on Asculum by Pompeius.] The war began, as was natural, with an attempt to take Asculum.  But the townsmen, manning the walls with the old men past service, surprised Cnaeus Pompeius by a sally, and defeated him. [Sidenote:  Pompeius defeated and driven into Firmum.] Subsequently he was again defeated at Faleria and driven into Firmum, a Latin colony which held out for Rome.  There he stayed till Servius Sulpicius came to his help. [Sidenote:  Pompeius, relieved by Sulpicius, besieges Asculum.] On the approach of Sulpicius he sallied out.  The enemy, taken in front and rear, was routed, and Pompeius began the siege of Asculum.  It was not taken