. [Sidenote: Sulla flies to the army, which marches on
Rome.] Sulla fled to the army; and, perhaps, it was only now that
Sulpicius, knowing or thinking that he knew that Sulla would march on
Rome, carried a resolution in the popular assembly for making Marius
commander in the east. Two tribunes were accordingly sent to the camp
at Nola to take the army from Sulla. His soldiers immediately slew
them; and, burning for the booty of Asia and attached to their
fortunate leader, they, when without venturing to hint at the means
by which he could avenge it, he complained of the wrong done to him,
clamorously called on him to lead them to Rome. All his officers,
except one quaestor, left him; but he set out with six legions and was
joined by Pompeius on the way. Two praetors met him and forbade his
advance. They escaped with their lives, but the soldiers broke their
fasces and tore off their senatorial robes. A second and a third time
the Senate sent to ask his intentions. 'To release Rome from her
tyrants,' was the grim reply. Then he vouchsafed an offer that the
Senate, Marius, and Sulpicius should meet him in the Campus Martius to
come to terms. If this meant that he would come with his army at his
back, it was an absurd proposal. If it meant that he would come alone,
it was a falsehood. In either case it was a device to fritter away
time. [Sidenote: Sulla's astuteness and superstition.] For all the
while that he was bandying meaningless messages he continued his
onward march. He had sacrificed, and the soothsayer Postumius, when he
saw the entrails, had stretched out his hands to him, and offered to
be kept in chains for punishment after the battle if it was not a
victory. He, too, had himself seen a vision of good omen. Bellona, or
another goddess, had, he dreamed, put a thunderbolt in his hands, and,
naming his enemies one by one, bidden him strike them, and they were
consumed to ashes.

Again envoys came from the Senate forbidding him to come within five
miles of Rome. Perhaps they still felt as secure in the immemorial
freedom of the city from military rule as the English Parliament did
before Cromwell's _coup d'etat_. Again he amused them, and no doubt
himself also, with a falsehood, and, professing compliance, followed
close upon their heels. With one legion he occupied the Caelian Gate,
with another under Pompeius the Colline Gate, with a third the Pons
Sublicius, while a fourth was posted outside as a reserve. Thus,