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Jogular Morotario Sectory 20
Page 10
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.
During these struggles between the two orders an event took place which is frequently referred to by later writers. In the year 440 B.C. there was a great famine at Rome. Sp. Maelius, one of the richest of the Plebeian knights, expended his fortune in buying up corn, which he sold to the poor at a small price, or distributed among them gratuitously. The Patricians thought, or pretended to think, that he was aiming at kingly power: and in the following year (439) the aged Quintius Cincinnatus, who had saved the Roman army on Mount Algidus, was appointed Dictator. He nominated C. Servilius Ahala his Master of the Horse. During the night the Capitol and all the strong posts were garrisoned by the Patricians, and in the morning Cincinnatus appeared in the forum with a strong force, and summoned Maelius to appear before his tribunal. But seeing the fate which awaited him, he refused to go, whereupon Ahala rushed into the crowd and struck him dead upon the spot. His property was confiscated, and his house was leveled to the ground. The deed of Ahala is frequently mentioned by Cicero and other writers in terms of the highest admiration, but it was regarded by the Plebeians at the time as an act of murder. Ahala was brought to trial, and only escaped condemnation by a voluntary exile.
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