[Sidenote:  Counter-revolutions at Rome.] Hardly had Sulla left Brundusium when the truce which he had patched up was broken.  Cinna being bribed, as was said probably without foundation, with 300 talents, had demanded that the Italians lately enfranchised should be enrolled in the old tribes. [Sidenote:  Cinna.] We do not know very much about Cinna, but we do seem to gather that he was bold, resolute, not ungenerous or bloodthirsty; and it cannot be too strongly insisted on that, like Saturninus, and Sulpicius, and Drusus, he was only demanding justice. [Sidenote:  Street-fighting.  Cinna driven from Rome.] Octavius opposed him, and, hearing that Cinna’s partisans were threatening the tribunes in the Forum, he charged down the Via Sacra with a band of followers, and dispersed them, and a great number of Cinna’s followers were slain.  On this Cinna left Rome, and, joined by Sertorius, whom we shall hear of again, went round the towns mustering his friends.  The Senate declared his consulship to be void, and elected L. Cornelius Merula in his place. [Sidenote:  His cause espoused by the Campanian army.] Cinna, with characteristic audacity, instantly hastened to the army in Campania; and, rending his clothes and throwing himself on the ground, so worked on the pity of the soldiers that they lifted him up, and told him he was consul still, and might lead them where he pleased. [Sidenote:  Marius lands in Etruria.] Then, visiting the Italian towns, he obtained many recruits; and, hearing that Marius had landed in Etruria (perhaps on his invitation), he agreed to act in concert with him, in spite of the opposition of Sertorius.

[Sidenote:  The Senate summons Pompeius from Picenum.] Meanwhile Octavius and Merula had fortified the city, had sent for troops from Cisalpine Gaul, and had summoned the proconsul Pompeius from Picenum.  Pompeius came and halted at the Colline Gate.  It was suspected that he was waiting to join the successful side.  With him was his son, afterwards called ‘the Great,’ who now showed of what stuff he was made by putting down a mutiny against his father and baffling a plot for his own assassination. [Sidenote:  Marius sacks Ostia, and he, Sertorius, and Cinna hem Rome in.] Marius, with a band of Moors, and the slaves whom he had collected from the Etrurian field-gangs, was admitted by treachery into Ostia and sacked the town.  Cinna marched to the right bank of the Tiber, opposite the Janiculum.  Sertorius held the river above the city, and a corps was sent to Ariminum to prevent any help coming from North Italy. [Sidenote:  The Senate summons Metellus, and courts the alliance of the Samnites.] At this crisis the Senate sent for Metellus and tried to obtain the aid of the Samnites, who, as we have seen, joined Marius and Cinna.  The treachery of a tribune in command of the Janiculum gave the Marians admission to the city.  But they were driven out again, and might even have been dislodged from the Janiculum had not Pompeius persuaded Octavius