in the old tribes; but we can only conjecture what was actually done.
Sulpicius had already carried such a measure, but it had been probably
revoked by Sulla before he left Italy. In 84, just before his return,
the Senate, it is said, gave the Italians the right of voting, and
distributed the libertini, or freed slaves, among the thirty-five
tribes. Perhaps this was a formal ratification of what had been passed
before under Cinna's coercion.

[Sidenote: Cinna's supremacy.] Cinna was now all-powerful at Rome.
For four successive years, 87 to 84 B.C., he was consul; and with the
exception of Asia, Macedonia, Greece, and Africa, where Metellus had
escaped and was in arms, the whole Roman world was at his feet. But
he did not know how to use his power. He may have removed the
restrictions on grain, and did proclaim Sulla and Metellus outlaws;
but, though he should have bent every energy to hinder Sulla's return,
he did worse than nothing, and, instead of Sertorius, sent the
incapable Flaccus and the ruffian Fimbria against the general who had
just taken Athens and defeated Archelaus. The miscarriage of their
enterprise will be told in the next chapter. When Cinna suddenly
became alive to the fact that the avenger was at hand, and that either
he must act promptly or Sulla would be in Rome, he hastened to Ancona,
where he sent one division of the army across to the opposite coast.
But the second division was driven back by a storm; and the soldiers
then dispersed, saying that they would not fight against their own
countrymen. On this the rest of the army refused to embark. Cinna went
to harangue them, and one of his lictors in clearing a way struck
a soldier. Another soldier struck him. [Sidenote: Cinna slain at
Ancona.] Cinna told his lictors to seize this second mutineer, and in
the tumult that arose Cinna was slain. Plutarch says that the troops
murdered him because he was suspected of having killed Pompeius, and
that, when he tried to bribe a centurion with a signet-ring to spare
him, the centurion replied that he was not going to seal a bond but
slay a tyrant. But Cinna probably died as he lived, a brave man, and
one who could not have held ascendency for so long, and over men like
Sertorius, had he not been an able as well as a brave man.

* * * * *

CHAPTER XI.

THE FIRST MITHRIDATIC WAR.

Events have been anticipated in order to relate the close of Cinna's
career. But it