Sulla, on the other side of it, cut them off.  Not that Marius was always over-cautious.  Once in this war he said to his men, ’I don’t know which are the greatest cowards, you or the enemy, for they dare not face your backs, nor you theirs.’  But everything he now did was distrusted at home; and while some men disparaged his successes, and said that he was grown old and clumsy, others were more afraid of him than of the enemy, with whom indeed there was some reason to think that he had too good an understanding. [Sidenote:  A secret understanding, possibly, between Marius and the confederates.] For once, when his army and Silo’s were near each other, both generals and men conversed, cursing the war, and with mutual embraces adjuring each other to desist from it.  If the story be true, it is a sufficient reason for the Senate’s conduct, inexplicable except by political reasons, in not employing Marius at all in the following year.

[Sidenote:  Revolt of the Umbrians and Etruscans.] It was probably at the close of this year that the revolt of the Umbrians and Etruscans took place, and that Plotius defeated the Umbrians, and Porcius Cato the Etruscans.  On a general review of this piecemeal campaign it is plain that the Romans had been worsted.  On the main scene of war, Campania, they had been decisively defeated, and the country was in the enemy’s power.  In Picenum and the Marsian territory the balance was more even; but Lupus and Caepio had been slain, Perperna and Pompeius had been defeated, and on the whole the confederates had carried off the honours of the war. [Sidenote:  Results of the first year of the war.] Now Umbria was in insurrection, Mithridates was astir in Asia, and there were symptoms of revolt in Transalpine Gaul.  A selfish intriguer like Marius might very likely have thought of throwing in his lot with the Italians, for theirs seemed to be the winning side.  But on honester men such considerations produced quite another effect. [Sidenote:  The party of Drusus revives.] The party of Drusus took heart again, and appealed to the results of the war as a proof of his patriotic foresight and of the moderation of his counsels.  They got the administration of the Varian Law into their own hands, and turned it against its authors, Varius himself being exiled.  The consul Caesar had personal reasons for being disquieted with the war, if the story of Orosius be true, that, when he asked for a triumph for his victory at Acerrae, the Senate sent him a mourning robe as a sign of what they thought of his request. [Sidenote:  The Lex Julia.] In any case he was the author of that Lex Julia which really terminated the Social War. [Sidenote:  Various accounts of the law.] There are different accounts given of this law.  According to Gellius it enfranchised all Latium, by which he must mean to include all the Latin colonies.  According to Cicero it enfranchised all Italy except Cisalpine Gaul.  According to Appian it enfranchised all the Italians still faithful.  In any case those