Disregarding the new obligation to obtain the previous
consent of the Senate, Cinna called the assembly together to repeal the
acts which Sylla had forced on them. Sylla, it is to be remembered, had as
yet won no victories, nor was expected to win victories. He was the
favorite of the Senate, and the Senate had become a byword for incapacity
and failure. Again, as so many times before, the supremacy of the
aristocrats had been accompanied with dishonor abroad and the lawless
murder of political adversaries at home. No true lover of his country
could be expected, in Cinna's opinion, to sit quiet under a tyranny which
had robbed the people of their hereditary liberties.
The patricians took up the challenge. Octavius, the other consul, came
with an armed force into the Forum, and ordered the assembly to disperse.
The crowd was unusually great. The country voters had come in large
numbers to stand up for their rights. They did not obey, They were not
called on to obey. But because they refused to disperse they were set upon
with deliberate fury, and were hewn down in heaps where they stood. No
accurate register was, of course, taken of the numbers killed; but the
intention of the patricians was to make a bloody example, and such a scene
of slaughter had never been witnessed in Rome since the first stone of the
city was laid.
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