Marius was resolved not to perish unavenged, and accordingly, before Sulla could reach Rome, he sent orders to L. Damasippus, the Praetor, to put to death all his leading opponents. His orders were faithfully obeyed. Q. Mucius Scaevola, the Pontifex Maximus and jurist, P. Antistius, L. Domitius, and many other distinguished men, were butchered, and their corpses thrown into the Tiber. Sulla entered the city without opposition, and marched against Carbo, who had been previously opposed by Pompey and Metellus. The history of this part of the war is involved in great obscurity. Carbo made two efforts to relieve Praeneste, but failed in each; and, after fighting with various fortune against Pompey, Metellus, and Sulla, he at length embarked for Africa, despairing of farther success in Italy. Meantime Rome had nearly fallen into the hands of the enemy. The Samnites and Lucanians, under Pontius Telesinus and L. Lamponius, after attempting to relieve Praeneste, resolved to march straight upon Rome, which had been left without an army for its protection. Sulla arrived barely in time to save the city. The battle was fought before the Colline Gate; it was long and obstinately contested; the combat was not simply for the supremacy of a party; the very existence of Rome was at stake, for Pontius had declared that he would raze the city to the ground. The left wing, where Sulla commanded in person, was driven off the field by the vehemence of the enemy's charge; but the success of the right wing, which was commanded by Crassus, enabled Sulla to restore the battle, and at length gain a complete victory. Fifty thousand men were said to have fallen on each side. All the most distinguished leaders of the Marian party either perished in the engagement, or were taken prisoners and put to death. Among these was the brave Samnite Pontius, whose head was cut off and carried under the walls of Praeneste, thereby announcing to the young Marius that his last hope of succour was gone. To the Samnite prisoners Sulla showed no mercy. He was resolved to root out of the peninsula those heroic enemies of Rome. On the third day after the battle he collected all the Samnite and Lucanian prisoners in the Campus Martius, and ordered his soldiers to cut them down. The dying shrieks of so many victims frightened the Senators, who had been assembled at the same time by Sulla in the temple of Bellona; but he bade them attend to what he was saying, and not mind what was taking place outside, as he was only chastising some rebels. Praeneste surrendered soon afterward. The Romans in the town were pardoned; but all the Samnites and Praenestines were massacred without mercy. The younger Marius put an end to his own life. The war in Italy was now virtually at an end, for the few towns which still held out had no prospect of offering any effectual opposition, and were reduced soon afterward. In other parts of the Roman world the war