Sylla advanced triumphantly through the country, while Marius the younger and his partisans concentrated their forces about the city, and prepared for defense.

The people of the city were divided, the aristocratic faction adhering to the cause of Sylla, while the democratic influences sided with Marius.

Political parties rise and fall, in almost all ages of the world, in alternate fluctuations, like those of the tides.

The faction of Marius had been for some time in the ascendency, and it was now its turn to fall.

Sylla found, therefore, as he advanced, every thing favorable to the restoration of his own party to power.