defeated Papius Mutilus, the Samnite Consul, and followed up his victory
by the capture of the strong town of Bovianum.

Meanwhile Pompeius Strabo had been equally successful in the north.
Asculum was reduced after a long and obstinate siege. The Marrucinians,
Vestinians, Pelignians, and finally the Marsians, laid down their arms
before the end of the year. Their submission was facilitated by the Lex
Plautia Papiria, proposed by the Tribunes M. Plautius Silvanus and C.
Papirius Carbo (B.C. 89), which completed the arrangements of the Lex
Julia, and granted, in fact, every thing which the Allies had demanded
before the war. All citizens of a town in alliance with Rome could
obtain, by this law, the Roman franchise, provided they were at the time
resident in Italy, and registered their names with the Praetor within
sixty days.[66]

The war was thus virtually brought to a conclusion within two years, but
300,000 men, the flower of Rome and Italy, perished in this short time.
The only nations remaining in arms were the Samnites and Lucanians, who
still maintained a guerrilla warfare in their mountains, and continued
to keep possession of the strong fortress of Nola, in Campania, from
which all the efforts of Sulla failed to dislodge them.

It now remained to be settled in what way the new citizens were to be
incorporated in the Roman state. If they were enrolled in the
thirty-five tribes, they would outnumber the old citizens. It was
therefore resolved to form ten new tribes, which should consist of the
new citizens exclusively; but, before these arrangements could be
completed, the Civil War broke out.

[Footnote 66: A law of the Consul Pompeius bestowed the Latin franchise
upon all the citizens of the Gallic towns between the Po and the Alps,
so that they now entered into the same relations with Rome as the Latins
had formerly held.]

[Illustration: Terracina.]

CHAPTER XXVI.

FIRST CIVIL WAR. B.C. 88-86.

One reason which induced the Senate to bring the Social War to a
conclusion was the necessity of attacking Mithridates, king of Pontus,
one of the ablest monarchs with whom Rome ever came into contact. The
origin and history of this war will be narrated in the following
chapter. The dispute between Marias and Sulla for the command against
Mithridates was the occasion of the first Civil War. The ability which
Sulla had displayed in the Social War, and his well-known attachment to
the Senatorial party,