rsed or joined the rest of their forces
at Antemnae. But in any case they were full of despair. Three thousand
offered to surrender. But Sulla never gave mercy, though he often sold
it for an explicit or tacit consideration. He swore to spare them if
they turned on their own comrades. They did so, and Sulla, taking them
to Rome with four or five thousand other prisoners, placed them in
the Circus Flaminius and had them all slain. [Sidenote: Sulla's
cold-blooded ferocity.] He was haranguing the Senate in the temple of
Bellona, and the cries of the poor wretches alarmed his audience; but
he told them to attend to what he was saying, for the noise they heard
was only made by some malefactors, whom he had ordered to be
chastised. This last blind rush of the Sabellian bull on the lair of
the wolves, which Pontius had told his followers they must destroy,
had failed only by a hair's breadth, and since the days of the Gauls
Rome had never been in such peril. But now at last Sulla had
triumphed, and could afford to gratify his pent-up passion for
vengeance. This butchery in the Circus was but the beginning of what
he meant to do. [Sidenote: Executions.] The four leaders, Pontius,
Carrinas, Damasippus, and Censorinus, were all beheaded; and, in the
same ghastly fashion in which, it was said, Hannibal had learnt the
death of Hasdrubal, so those blockaded in Praeneste learnt the fate of
the relieving army and their own fate also by seeing four heads stuck
on poles outside the town walls. They were half starving and could
resist no longer. Marius and a younger brother of Pontius killed each
other before the surrender. Ofella sent the head of Marius to Sulla,
who had it fixed up before the Rostra, and jeered at it in his
pitiless fashion, quoting from Aristophanes the line,

You should have worked at the oar before trying to handle the helm.

[Sidenote: Massacre at Praeneste.] Then he went to Praeneste, and made
all the inhabitants come outside and lay down their arms. The Roman
senators who had been in the place had been already slain by Ofella.
Three groups were made of the rest, consisting of Samnites, Romans,
and Praenestines. The Romans, the women, and the children were spared.
All the others, 12,000 in number, were massacred, and Praeneste was
given over to pillage.

[Sidenote: Fate of Norba.] So ruthless an example provoked a desperate
resistance at Norba. It was betrayed to Lepidus by night; but the
citizens stabbed and