During the siege of Pompeii the commander of the Sullan besieging corps, the consular Aulus Postumius Albinus, was put to death with stones and bludgeons by his soldiers, who believed themselves betrayed by their general to the enemy; and Sulla the commander-in-chief contented himself with exhorting the troops to efface the memory of that occurrence by their brave conduct in presence of the enemy.

The authors of that deed were the marines, from of old the least respectable of the troops.

A division of legionaries raised chiefly from the city populace soon followed the example thus given.
Instigated by Gaius Titius, one of the heroes of the market-place, it laid hands on the consul Cato.

By an accident he escaped death on this occasion; Titius was arrested, but was not punished.

When Cato soon afterwards actually perished in a combat, his own officers, and particularly the younger Gaius Marius, were--whether justly or unjustly, cannot be ascertained--designated as the authors of his death.
Economic Crisis Murder of Asellio To the political and military crisis thus beginning fell to be added the economic crisis--perhaps still more terrible--which set in upon the Roman capitalists in consequence of the Social war and the Asiatic troubles.