the Roman franchise, and the field was taken against the confederacy. During two years, the war was carried on vigorously on both sides, the most distinguished of the Roman generals being Marius, Sulla, and Cneius Pompeius Strabo. At length (B. C. 89), the Italians having been greatly reduced, and the whole peninsula having suffered much, the Romans saw fit to yield to demands which many even of those whose patriotism led them to fight against the allies believed to be just. The Roman citizenship was extending to all the nations of the peninsula south of the Po, the new citizens being either distributed, according to one account, among eight of the old tribes, or arranged, according to another, in fifteen new ones. At the same time the Latin franchise was conferred on the Gauls between the Po and the Alps. Sulla had gained greater distinction in the Marsic War than Marius, who was now verging on old age. The public eye was consequently turned to Sulla; and as, on the appearance of the Cimbric hosts twenty years before, the Romans had placed their dependence on Marius, so now, on the breaking out of war in the East, they placed their dependence on his younger rival. Mithridates VI, the young king of Pontus, an Oriental by birth, but of Greek education, and a man of splendid abilities, had been for some years silently extending his dominions in western Asia; and the Romans, long jealous of his movements, had at length openly warned him to desist. Mithridates scouted the warning; marched through Asia Minor, putting the Romans to the sword; and was welcomed everywhere by the Asiatic Greeks as a deliverer from the Roman yoke: ultimately (B. C. 88), crossing over into Greece, he menaced the Empire near its centre.