The allies obtained at first brilliant successes. Marius had the glory of arresting their progress, although he had only troops demoralised by reverses. Fortune, this time again, served Sylla better; conqueror wherever he appeared, he sullied his exploits by horrible cruelties to the Samnites, whom he seemed to have undertaken to destroy rather than to subdue. The Senate displayed more humanity, or more policy, in granting spontaneously the right of Roman city to all the allies who remained faithful to the Republic, and in promising it to all those who should lay down their arms. It treated in the same manner the Cisalpine Gauls; as to their neighbours on the left bank of the Po, it conferred upon them the right of Latium. This wise measure divided the confederates;[696] the greater part submitted. The Samnites, almost alone, continued to fight in their mountains with the fury of despair. The emancipation of Italy was accompanied, nevertheless, with a restrictive measure which was designed to preserve to the Romans the preponderance in the comitia. To the thirty-five old tribes, eight new ones were added, in which all the Italiotes were inscribed; and, as the votes were reckoned by tribes, and not by head, it is evident that the influence of the new citizens must have been nearly null.[697] Etruria had taken no part in the Social War. The nobility was devoted to Rome, and the people lived in a condition approximating to bondage. The law Julia, which gave to the Italiotes the right of Roman city, and which took its name from its author, the consul L. Julius Cæsar, produced among the Etruscans a complete revolution. It was welcomed with enthusiasm. While Italy was in flames, Mithridates VI., king of Pontus, determined to take advantage of the weakness of the Republic to aggrandise himself. In 664, he invaded Bithynia and Cappadocia, and expelled the kings, allies of Rome. At the same time he entered into communication with the Samnites, to whom he promised subsidies and soldiers. Such was the hatred then inspired by the Romans in foreign countries, that an order of Mithridates was sufficient to raise the province of Asia, where, in one day, eighty thousand Romans were massacred.[698] At this time the Social War was already approaching its end. With the exception of Samnium, all Italy was subdued, and the Senate could turn its attention to the distant provinces. [Sidenote: Sylla (666).]