9. After long expectation, instead of
the messenger, his son himself arrived, having escaped from the
inhospitable court of that monarch, where he had been kept, not as a
friend, but as a prisoner, and had returned just time enough to
prevent his father from sharing the same fate. 10. In this situation
they were informed that Cinna, one of their party who had remained at
Rome, had put himself at the head of a large army, collected out of
the Italian states, who had espoused his cause. Nor was it long before
they joined their forces at the gates of Rome. Sylla was at that time
absent in his command against Mithri'dates. 11. Cinna marched into the
city; but Ma'rius stopped, and refused to enter, alleging, that having
been banished by a public decree, it was necessary to have another to
authorise his return. It was thus that he desired to give his
meditated cruelties the appearance of justice; and while he was about
to destroy thousands, to pretend an implicit veneration for the laws.
12. An assembly of the people being called, they began to reverse his
banishment; but they had scarcely gone through three of the tribes,
when, incapable of restraining his desire of revenge, he entered the
city at the head of his guards, and massacred all who had been
obnoxious to him, without remorse or pity.
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