Among the slain were Lucius Caesar (consul in 664) the celebrated victor of Acerrae;( 4) his brother Gaius, whose unseasonable ambition had provoked the Sulpician tumult,( 5) well known as an orator and poet and as an amiable companion; Marcus Antonius (consul in 655), after the death of Lucius Crassus beyond dispute the first pleader of his time; Publius Crassus (consul in 657) who had commanded with distinction in the Spanish and in the Social wars and also during the siege of Rome; and a multitude of the most considerable men of the government party, among whom the wealthy were traced out with especial zeal by the greedy executioners.

Peculiarly sad seemed the death of Lucius Merula, who very much against his own wish had become Cinna's successor, and who now, when criminally impeached on that account and cited before the comitia, in order to anticipate the inevitable condemnation opened his veins, and at the altar of the Supreme Jupiter whose priest he was, after laying aside the priestly headband as the religious duty of the dying Flamen required, breathed his last; and still more the death of Quintus Catulus (consul in 652), once in better days the associate of the most glorious victory and triumph of that same Marius who now had no other answer for the suppliant relatives of his aged colleague than the monosyllabic order, "He must die." The Last Days of Marius The originator of all these outrages was Gaius Marius.
He designated the victims and the executioners--only in exceptional cases, as in those of Merula and Catulus, was any form of law observed; not unfrequently a glance or the silence with which he received those who saluted him formed the sentence of death, which was always executed at once.

His revenge was not satisfied even with the death of his victim; he forbade the burial of the dead bodies: he gave orders--anticipated, it is true, in this respect by Sulla--that the heads of the senators slain should be fixed to the rostra in the Forum; he ordered particular corpses to be dragged through the Forum, and that of Gaius Caesar to be stabbed afresh at the tomb of Quintus Varius, whom Caesar presumably had once impeached;( 6) he publicly embraced the man who delivered to him as he sat at table the head of Antonius, whom he had been with difficulty restrained from seeking out in his hiding-place, an slaying with his own hand.

His legions of slaves, and in particular a division of Ardyaeans,( 7) chiefly served as his executioners, and did not neglect, amidst these Saturnalia of their new freedom, to plunder the houses of their former masters and to dishonour and murder all whom they met with there.

His own associates were in despair at this insane fury; Sertorius adjured the consul to put a stop to it at any price, and even Cinna was alarmed.