But Sulla studiously maintained that he was following a chain of precedent that linked Opimius in 121, to Marius in 100, to Sulla here in 88. What he had done was no different than what they had done: he took extraordinary consular action to quell a violent political faction. But of course, both Opimius and Marius had operated under the senatus consultum ultimum. The Senate had passed no such decree this time. Sulla acted under his own authority only. Legal scholars in the Senate were vexed, but Sulla’s legions spoke for themselves.
IN THE AFTERMATH of their defeat, the inner-circle Marians bolted out of Rome in every direction. Sulpicius ran for the coast but never made it outside the vicinity of Rome. Within a day of taking flight he was betrayed by a slave and executed the moment he was apprehended. Sulla later thanked the slave and said the man “deserved freedom in return for his services in giving information about the enemy.” But as soon as the manumission was complete Sulla “decreed that he should be hurled from the Tarpeian Rock because he had betrayed his master.”45
Marius, meanwhile, fled that night to one of his estates twelve miles outside the city with his son, grandson, and a small party of loyal partisans. Knowing they could not stay in the area they agreed to sail for North Africa, where they would take refuge in the veteran colonies set up in the wake of the Numidian war. These communities had been planted more than fifteen years ago, but hopefully they would remember their former general and patron.46
The next morning Marius and his party set sail from Ostia. Marius’s ship was not quite one hundred miles down the Italian coast when storms threw her against the shore near the city of Terracina. With the ship wrecked, the party had to continue on foot. Knowing Terracina was currently run by one of his enemies, Marius led the party along the coast toward the city of Minturnae, where Marius said he had friends. On the way, some shepherds told them the countryside was lousy with Sulla’s cavalry patrols. Unable to complete the trip before nightfall, Marius and his beleaguered compatriots spent a miserable night hiding in the woods without food or shelter.47
The next morning, Marius led the party back to the shore to continue the walk to Minturnae. While they walked, Marius lifted their spirits by telling them a story from his childhood. When he was a boy he saw an eagle’s nest fall from a tree. Gathering the nest in his cloak, he saw that it contained seven tiny eagles. As an eagle traditionally lays no more than two eggs, the unprecedented little flock was a fabulous find. His parents took the birds to a local seer to inquire if it had any special meaning. The seer was amazed and said their son would “be most illustrious of men, and was destined to receive the highest command and power seven times.” Now on the run and condemned as enemies of the state, Marius reminded his friends that this could not possibly be the end for he had only been consul six times and was yet destined for one more. Somehow, some way, he would be consul again.48
But just miles from Minturnae, they were spotted by a cavalry patrol. With nowhere to turn, someone in Marius’s party saw two ships sailing close to shore. Without waiting for permission from the sailors, the fugitives jumped in the water and swam. Most of the party reached one boat, forced the sailors to take them on board, and used very colorful threats to force the captain to sail them away. The older and slower Marius meanwhile dragged himself aboard the second boat and presented himself to the dumbfounded captain.49
The cavalry detachment hailed the captain from shore and said the wet old man on his boat was the fugitive Gaius Marius. The captain now faced the dilemma Marius would impose on everyone he met during his ordeal: hand over Marius and risk the wrath of his friends, or protect Marius and risk the wrath of his enemies. The captain decided he could not hand Marius over and sailed away. Not immediately following the boat that had sped off with Marius’s companions, the captain steered the craft to the mouth of a nearby river. The captain told Marius to go ashore, rest, and gather some provisions from the trip. As soon as Marius disembarked the captain sailed away. His solution to the dilemma was to set Marius down and run away.50
