Editing Gaius Marius (section)

===Seventh consulship and death===
While Sulla was on campaign in Greece, fighting broke out between the conservative supporters of Sulla, led by Octavius, and the popular supporters of Cinna over voting rights for the Italians.{{Sfn|Duncan|2017|p=206}} When Cinna was forced to flee the city by Octavius's gangs, he was able to rally significant Italian support: some 10 legions including the [[Samnites]].{{Sfn|Duncan|2017|pp=206–207}} Marius along with his son then returned from exile in Africa to [[Etruria]] with an army he had raised there, and they placed themselves under Cinna's command to oust Octavius.{{Sfn|Duncan|2017|p=210}} Marius demanded the tribunes lift his banishment by passage of law.{{sfn|Smith|2017|p=43}} Cinna's vastly superior army coerced the Senate into opening the gates of the city.{{Sfn|Duncan|2017|p=211}}

They entered Rome and started to purge a number of their opponents, including Octavius.{{Sfn|Duncan|2017|p=211}} Their heads were exhibited in the Forum. Fourteen of the victims, including six former consuls, were noteworthy individuals:{{sfn|Smith|2017|p=33}}{{Sfn|Duncan|2017|p=213}} Lucius Licinius Crassus (older brother of [[Marcus Licinius Crassus|the triumvir]]), [[Gaius Atilius Serranus]], [[Marcus Antonius Orator]], [[Lucius Julius Caesar (consul 90&nbsp;BC)|Lucius Julius Caesar]], his brother Caesar Strabo, Quintus Mucius Scaevola the Augur, Publius Cornelius Lentulus, Gaius Nemotorius, Gaius Baebius and Octavius Ruso.{{Sfn|Duncan|2017|p=212}} A number of those targeted by the purge were not immediately killed: [[show trials]] were set up before the victims committed suicide.{{sfn|Smith|2017|p=33}} Marius and Cinna also declared Sulla an enemy of the state and stripped him of his proconsular command in the east.{{sfn|Smith|2017|p=33}}

While Marius and Cinna were both responsible for the deaths and the headed pikes in the forum, it is unlikely that Marius and his men killed everyone in their paths, as reported in [[Cassius Dio]] and Plutarch.{{sfn|Smith|2017|p=36}} The killings, more likely, served to terrorise the political opposition.{{sfn|Smith|2017|p=37}} With competitors suitably frightened, show elections were held for 86&nbsp;BC,{{efn|Smith believes that the account in Livy's ''Periochae'' is confused, in part due to misuse of the verb ''renuntio'' therein, preferring the tradition in Plutarch and Appian instead. {{harvnb|Smith|2017|pp=44–46}}.}} with Marius and Cinna being elected by the {{lang|la|comitia centuriata}} irregularly.{{sfn|Smith|2017|p=49}} Within a fortnight of assuming the consulship for the seventh time, Marius was dead.{{Sfn|Evans|1995|p=168}}{{sfn|Plut. ''Mar.''|loc=46.5}}

Plutarch relates several opinions on the end of Marius: one, from [[Posidonius]], holds that Marius contracted [[pleurisy]]; Gaius Piso has it that Marius walked with his friends and discussed all of his accomplishments with them, adding that no intelligent man ought leave himself to fortune.{{sfn|Plut. ''Mar.''|loc=45}} Plutarch then anonymously relates that Marius, having gone into a fit of passion in which he announced in a delusionary manner that he was in command of the Mithridatic War, began to act as he would have on the field of battle; finally, Plutarch relates that, ever an ambitious man, Marius lamented on his deathbed that he had not achieved all of which he was capable, despite his having acquired great wealth and having been chosen consul more times than any man before him.{{sfn|Plut. ''Mar.''|p=595}}

After his death, [[Lucius Valerius Flaccus (consul 86&nbsp;BC)|Lucius Valerius Flaccus]], another patrician like Cinna, was elected as the sole candidate to succeed Marius as consul;{{sfn|Smith|2017|pp=51–52}} Flaccus was dispatched immediately with two legions to fight Mithridates alongside (but not with) Sulla.{{sfn|Smith|2017|pp=52–54}} While Marius is at times blamed for the purges, his sudden death more than likely was used to deflect blame, avoiding an actual change in policy.{{sfn|Smith|2017|p=33}} Cinna and one of his later consular colleagues, [[Gnaeus Papirius Carbo (consul 85 BC)|Carbo]], would lead their faction into the [[Sulla's civil war|civil war]], which continued until their defeat (and that of Marius's son) by Sulla's army, eventually allowing Sulla to make himself dictator.{{sfn|Duncan|2017|pp=220, 236, 242}}