But when Marius, stained with the blood of his fellow-citizens, whom
the rage of party had sacrificed, was in his turn vanquished and
driven from the city, it had scarcely time to breathe freely, when,
to use the words of Cicero, "Cinna and Marius together returned and
took possession of it. Then, indeed, the foremost men in the state
were put to death, its lights quenched. Sylla afterwards avenged
this cruel victory; but we need not say with what loss of life, and
with what ruin to the republic."[152] For of this vengeance, which
was more destructive than if the crimes which it punished had been
committed with impunity, Lucan says: "The cure was excessive, and too
closely resembled the disease. The guilty perished, but when none but
the guilty survived: and then private hatred and anger, unbridled
by law, were allowed free indulgence."[153] In that war between
Marius and Sylla, besides those who fell in the field of battle, the
city, too, was filled with corpses in its streets, squares, markets,
theatres, and temples; so that it is not easy to reckon whether the
victors slew more before or after victory, that they might be, or
because they were, victors. As soon as Marius triumphed, and returned
from exile, besides the butcheries everywhere perpetrated, the head
of the consul Octavius was exposed on the rostrum; Cæsar and Fimbria
were assassinated in their own houses; the two Crassi, father and
son, were murdered in one another's sight; Bebius and Numitorius were
disembowelled by being dragged with hooks; Catulus escaped the hands
of his enemies by drinking poison; Merula, the flamen of Jupiter, cut
his veins and made a libation of his own blood to his god. Moreover,
every one whose salutation Marius did not answer by giving his hand,
was at once cut down before his face.