[Sidenote:  The Sulpician laws carried by force.] The laws of Sulpicius were carried. [Sidenote:  Sulla flies to the army, which marches on Rome.] Sulla fled to the army; and, perhaps, it was only now that Sulpicius, knowing or thinking that he knew that Sulla would march on Rome, carried a resolution in the popular assembly for making Marius commander in the east.  Two tribunes were accordingly sent to the camp at Nola to take the army from Sulla.  His soldiers immediately slew them; and, burning for the booty of Asia and attached to their fortunate leader, they, when without venturing to hint at the means by which he could avenge it, he complained of the wrong done to him, clamorously called on him to lead them to Rome.  All his officers, except one quaestor, left him; but he set out with six legions and was joined by Pompeius on the way.  Two praetors met him and forbade his advance.  They escaped with their lives, but the soldiers broke their fasces and tore off their senatorial robes.  A second and a third time the Senate sent to ask his intentions.  ’To release Rome from her tyrants,’ was the grim reply.  Then he vouchsafed an offer that the Senate, Marius, and Sulpicius should meet him in the Campus Martius to come to terms.  If this meant that he would come with his army at his back, it was an absurd proposal.  If it meant that he would come alone, it was a falsehood.  In either case it was a device to fritter away time. [Sidenote:  Sulla’s astuteness and superstition.] For all the while that he was bandying meaningless messages he continued his onward march.  He had sacrificed, and the soothsayer Postumius, when he saw the entrails, had stretched out his hands to him, and offered to be kept in chains for punishment after the battle if it was not a victory.  He, too, had himself seen a vision of good omen.  Bellona, or another goddess, had, he dreamed, put a thunderbolt in his hands, and, naming his enemies one by one, bidden him strike them, and they were consumed to ashes.

Again envoys came from the Senate forbidding him to come within five miles of Rome.  Perhaps they still felt as secure in the immemorial freedom of the city from military rule as the English Parliament did before Cromwell’s coup d’etat.  Again he amused them, and no doubt himself also, with a falsehood, and, professing compliance, followed close upon their heels.  With one legion he occupied the Caelian Gate, with another under Pompeius the Colline Gate, with a third the Pons Sublicius, while a fourth was posted outside as a reserve.  Thus, for the first time, a consul commanded an army in the city, and soldiers were masters of Rome. [Sidenote:  Street-fighting.] Marius and Sulpicius met them on the Esquiline and, pouring down tiles from the housetops, at first beat them back.  But Sulla, waving a burning torch, bade his men shoot fiery arrows at the houses, and drove the Marians from the Esquiline Forum.  Then he sent for the legion in reserve, and ordered