His recent experiences had embittered the old soldier, and aroused within him a desire for vengeance and for blood which he had never before exhibited in his long political and military life. In dramatic fashion he placed before the eyes of the Roman citizens the ungrateful treatment which he had received in return for the great services he had rendered his country. Clad in the ragged costume of an exile, he led his victorious army to Rome, and, saying with bitterness that "an exile must not enter the city," he waited outside the walls of Rome until the decree of exile against him was formally repealed. If Marius, however, was scrupulous in his observation of the form of the laws prior to his entrance into the city, all his regard for either the form or substance of the law seems to have been lost after such entrance. Marius and Cinna declared themselves consuls of Rome for the year 86 B.C. without any election and without even the formality of summoning a meeting of the comitia tributa. Much more serious than this was the disregard which was manifested by Marius and his followers for the life and property of the Roman citizens. For several days Rome was given up to almost indiscriminate plunder and murder by the soldiers in the armies of Marius and Cinna; and after a stop was finally brought to this extra-judicial pillage and murder it was succeeded by a series of prosecutions almost as destructive, and fully as unjust. It was with these days of slaughter, the most sanguinary and unjust of Marius's whole career, that his life was to end. He was now an old man of seventy, enfeebled by sickness and hardship, and after his desire for vengeance on his enemies had been satisfied there appeared to him nothing left in life worth living for. Reports from the East indicated the military triumph of his great rival Sulla, and the prospect of the speedy return of the leader. To his other worries there was added the belief that the present triumph of his party was but temporary. Finally, overcome by sickness and melancholy, he took to his bed, and died at the end of seven days. Many believed that he had committed suicide, but the truth of this theory can never be anything but a matter of conjecture. Of the character of Marius little need be said. He was primarily a soldier, and only incidentally a politician. The debt which Rome owed to the military ability of Marius can hardly be overestimated. It is probable that but for his services the Roman republic might have been destroyed on either of two different occasions.