ng ornaments, the language she used to designate them
was, "Those things you have upon your arms." The soldiers acceded to her
terms; she opened the gates, and they, instead of giving her the
bracelets, threw their _shields_ upon her as they passed, until the poor
girl was crushed down with them and destroyed. This was near the
Tarpeian Rock, which afterward took her name. The rock is now found to
be perforated by a great many subterranean passages, the remains,
probably, of ancient quarries. Some of these galleries are now walled
up; others are open; and the people who live around the spot believe, it
is said, to this day, that Tarpeia herself sits, enchanted, far in the
interior of these caverns, covered with gold and jewels, but that
whoever attempts to find her is fated by an irresistible destiny to lose
his way, and he never returns. The last story is probably as true as
the other.
[Sidenote: Escape of Sylla's wife.]
Marius continued his executions and massacres until the whole of Sylla's
party had been slain or put to flight. He made every effort to discover
Sylla's wife and child, with a view to destroying them also, but they
could not be found. Some friends of Sylla, taking compassion on their
innocence and helplessness, concealed them, and thus saved Marius from
the commission of one intended crime. Marius was disappointed, too, in
some other cases, where men whom he had intended to kill destroyed
themselves to baffle his vengeance. One shut himself up in a room with
burning charcoal, and was suffocated with the fumes. Another bled
himself to death upon a public altar, calling down the judgments of the
god to whom he offered this dreadful sacrifice, upon the head of the
tyrant whose atrocious cruelty he was thus attempting to evade.
[Sidenote: Illness of Marius.]
[Sidenote: Sylla outlawed.]
By the time that Marius had got fairly established in his new position,
and was completely master of Rome, and the city had begun to recover a
little from the shock and consternation produced by his executions, he
fell sick. He was attacked with an acute disease of great violence. The
attack was perhaps produced, and was certainly aggravated by, the great
mental excitements through which he had passed during his exile, and in
the entire change of fortune which had attended his return. From being
a wretched fugitive, hiding for his life among gloomy and desolate
ruins, he found himself suddenly transferred to the mast
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