[Sidenote:  Return of Marius.] [Sidenote:  He marches against Rome.]

Of course, Sylla thought that his great rival and enemy was now finally disposed of, and he accordingly began to make preparations for his Asiatic campaign.  He raised his army, built and equipped a fleet, and went away.  As soon as he was gone, Marius’s friends in the city began to come forth, and to take measures for reinstating themselves in power.  Marius returned, too, from Africa, and soon gathered about him a large army.  Being the friend, as he pretended, of the lower classes of society, he collected vast multitudes of revolted slaves, outlaws, and other desperadoes, and advanced toward Rome.  He assumed, himself, the dress, and air, and savage demeanor of his followers.  His countenance had been rendered haggard and cadaverous partly by the influence of exposures, hardships, and suffering upon his advanced age, and partly by the stern and moody plans and determinations of revenge which his mind was perpetually revolving.  He listened to the deputations which the Roman Senate sent out to him from time to time, as he advanced toward the city, but refused to make any terms.  He moved forward with all the outward deliberation and calmness suitable to his years, while all the ferocity of a tiger was burning within.

[Sidenote:  Executions by order of Marius.]

As soon as he had gained possession of the city, he began his work of destruction.  He first beheaded one of the consuls, and ordered his head to be set up, as a public spectacle, in the most conspicuous place in the city.  This was the beginning.  All the prominent friends of Sylla, men of the highest rank and station, were then killed, wherever they could be found, without sentence, without trial, without any other accusation, even, than the military decision of Marius that they were his enemies, and must die.  For those against whom he felt any special animosity, he contrived some special mode of execution.  One, whose fate he wished particularly to signalize, was thrown down from the Tarpeian Rock.

[Sidenote:  The Tarpeian Rock.]

The Tarpeian Rock was a precipice about fifty feet high, which is still to be seen in Rome, from which the worst of state criminals were sometimes thrown.  They were taken up to the top by a stair, and were then hurled from the summit, to die miserably, writhing in agony after their fall, upon the rocks below.

[Sidenote:  The story of Tarpeia.] [Sidenote:  Subterranean passages.]

The Tarpeian Rock received its name from the ancient story of Tarpeia.  The tale is, that Tarpeia was a Roman girl, who lived at a time in the earliest periods of the Roman history, when the city was besieged by an army from are of the neighboring nations.  Besides their shields, the story is that the soldiers had golden bracelets upon their arms.  They wished Tarpeia to open the gates and let them in.  She promised to do so if they would give her their bracelets;