Chapter xvii., Book III., “De Civitate Dei.”

WHEN Marius, being imbrued with his countrymen’s blood and having slain many of his adversaries, was at length foiled and forced to fly the city, that now got time to take a little breath; presently (to use Tully’s words) upon the sudden Cinna and Marius began to be conquerors again. And then out went the heart bloods of the most worthy men, and the lights of all the city. But soon after came Sylla, and revenged this barbarous massacre; but with what damage to the state and city it is not my purpose to utter; for that this revenge was worse than if all the offenses that were punished had been left unpunished. Let Lucan testify, in these words:—

	“Excessit medicina modum, nimiumque secuta est
	Qua morbi duxere manus; periere nocentes
	Sed cum jam soli possent superesse nocentes
	Tunc data libertas odiis resolutaque legum
	Frenis ira ruit.”
	“The medicine wrought too sore, making the cure
	Too cruel for the patient to endure;
	The guilty fell; but none yet such remaining,
	Hate riseth at full height, and wrath, disdaining
	Laws’ reins, brake out.”

For in that war of Sylla and Marius (besides those that fell in the field), the whole city, streets, market places, theatres, and temples were filled with dead bodies; that it was a question whether the conquerors slaughtered so many to attain the conquest, or because they had already attained it. In Marius’s first victory, as his return from exile besides infinite other slaughters, Octavius’s head (the consul’s) was polled up in the pleading place; Cæsar and Fimbra were slain in their houses, the two Crassi, father and son, killed in one another’s sight; Bebius and Numitorius trailed about upon hooks till death; Catullus poisoned himself to escape his enemies: and Menula, the jovial Flamine, cut his own veins and so bled himself out of their danger, Marius having given order for the killing of all them whom he did not re-salute, or proffer his hand unto.