for the army to halt there; but while they were beginning to throw up their rampart and dig their trenches, Marius advanced against them confidently at the head of his troops, expecting to disperse them in their state of disorder and confusion.  Now the daemon made good the words that Sulla heard in his dream; for his soldiers, transported with indignation and stopping their work, fixed their spears in the ground close to the trenches, and drawing their swords with a loud shout, were forthwith at close quarters with the enemy.  The soldiers of Marius did not stand their ground long, and there was a great slaughter of them in their flight.  Marius, who fled to Praeneste,[275] found the gates closed, but a rope being let down from the walls, he fastened himself to it, and was drawn up into the city.  Some historians say, and Fenestella[276] among them, that Marius saw nothing of the battle, but that being exhausted by want of sleep and fatigue he lay down on the ground in the shade, and as soon as the signal was given for battle, fell asleep, and that he was roused with difficulty when the flight began.  Sulla says that he lost only twenty-three men in this battle, and that he killed of the enemy twenty thousand, and took eight thousand alive.  He was equally successful everywhere else through his generals Pompeius,[277] Crassus, Metellus, Servilius; for without sustaining any but the most trifling loss, they destroyed the great armies of their opponents, and at last Carbo,[278] who was the main support of the opposite party, stole away from his troops by night and sailed to Libya.

XXIX.  In the last struggle, however, like a fresh combatant attacking an exhausted athlete, Telesinus the Samnite was very near tripping up Sulla and laying him prostrate at the gates of Rome.  Telesinus was hastening with Lamponius the Lucanian and a strong force to Praeneste, in order to rescue Marius, who was besieged; but finding that Sulla in his front and Pompeius in his rear were coming against him, and that he could neither advance nor retreat, like a brave and experienced man he broke up his encampment by night and marched with all his force against Rome.  And indeed he was very near surprising the city, which was unguarded; however, halting about ten stadia from the Colline gate, he passed the night there, full of confidence and elated with hope, as he had got the advantage over so many great generals.  At daybreak the most distinguished young men came out on horseback to oppose him, but many of them fell, and among them Claudius Appius,[279] a man of noble rank and good character.  This naturally caused confusion in the city, and there were women shrieking and people hurrying in all directions, in expectation that the city was going to be stormed, when Balbus appeared first, coming at full speed from Sulla with seven hundred horsemen.  Balbus just halted long enough to allow his men to dry the sweat from their horses:  then bridling them again, they advanced