While his domination was not complete – he largely contented himself with securing the consulship for himself and allies – his political rule set a "crucial precedent"[1] for later strongmen in the republic.
[18] Sulla's reasons and putative reforms notwithstanding, his march on Rome was the subject of deep and broad revulsion at the elections.
[20] Sulla did not support Cinna and instead put forward Publius Servilius Vatia Isauricus, an ally who had recently celebrated a triumph.
[22] Before the results were officially announced, Sulla realised they would be personally unfavourable; seeking not to interfere in the elections directly, he instead tried for a religious solution to protect his actions.
[26] According to Appian, Cinna accepted bribes to support the equal enrolment of the new Italian citizens into the thirty-five tribes.
Attempts by Cinna to promulgate legislation to distribute the new citizens into the tribes were met by tribunician vetoes backed by Octavius, leading to a riot against the tribunes.
[26] Cinna was unharmed and left the city with some of his major supporters, including Quintus Sertorius, Gaius Milonius, Marcus Marius Gratidianus, and six of the ten tribunes of the plebs.
After his departure for Italian towns to raise men and money, the Senate illegally and unconstitutionally stripped Cinna of his consulship and declared him a public enemy (hostis), electing Lucius Cornelius Merula (also the flamen Dialis) in his place.
[28] Cinna reached Nola, an Italian town still holding against Roman siege, where he appeared before the army stationed there in consular regalia.
He addressed them as a mistreated consul who had been unjustly deprived of a gift of the people by the senate, who thereby made a mockery of popular sovereignty.
[29] The Senate and Octavius had ordered Pompey Strabo – a commander in the northern theatre of the Social war – to return to Rome and defend the city with his army.
[31] Strabo eventually sided with Octavius; the Senate, seeking support, also ordered Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius, who was in the field against the Samnites, to make an honourable peace immediately and return to defend the city.
[31] When Metellus negotiated with the Samnites, they demanded citizenship for themselves and all those who had fled to them, release of all war prisoners, and non-reciprocal return of all plunder.
Metellus and the Senate refused; Cinna and Marius seized the opportunity and offered the concessions, gaining the Samnites as allies.
[31] After one of the military tribunes in Rome defected and opened the gates to the Janiculum, Cinna and Marius' forces moved to storm the city; they were stopped by six cohorts from Strabo's army.
Strabo, seeking to leverage his military forces into a second consulship, initiated secret negotiations with Cinna but soon died of plague.
Initially put off by Cinna's demand that they address him as consul, the Senate acquiesced on this point after Merula abdicated his consulship.
[34] Cinna and Marius then moved to purge some of their political opponents, Gaius and Lucius Julius Caesar were killed without trial, along with Publius Licinius Crassus and Marcus Antonius.
[35] Merula – the recently-abdicated suffect consul – and Marius' old rival, Quintus Lutatius Catulus, were brought up on trial before the people, possibly for usurpation of the consulship and perduellio, respectively;[36] they committed suicide before the verdict.
Cicero, more contemporaneous and speaking to men who lived during the Cinnan regime, indicates that Cinna and Marius targeted only political enemies and did not threaten all of Rome's inhabitants or otherwise sack the city.
[45] Sulla eventually drove Mithridates from Asia and secured a peace, the Treaty of Dardanos, with generous terms for Pontus by 85 BC.
They stockpiled money and provisions from all of Italy while levying men and giving warnings that Sulla would, if victorious, overturn Italian enfranchisement.
Appian reports that when Cinna called an assembly, he attempted to impose discipline, which culminated in his men mutinying and killing him.
According to Robin Seager, in the Cambridge Ancient History, "assessment [of it] is rendered painfully difficult by the way in which our scrappy sources are pervaded by the insidious influence of Sulla's own version of events, diffused without competition after his victory" in the civil war.
[1] The short length and partial nature of his dominatio – Cinna seems only to have wanted to be consul every year – have made it difficult to develop a clear assessment of his politics or character.