Sulla should arrive back in Italy in the spring of 83 BC and marched on Rome determined to restore his will upon the city.
But the Roman government controlled greater troops than his own, more so the Samnites wholeheartedly flung themselves into the struggle against Sulla, who to them represented senatorial privilege and the denial of citizenship to the Italians.
Alas, it came to the decisive Battle of the Colline Gate in August 82 BC, where fifty thousand men lost their lives.
Sulla emerged victorious at the Battle of the Colline Gate and so became the master of the Roman world.
Sulla in no way lacked any of the blood-lust displayed by Marius. Three days after the battle he ordered all of the eight thousand prisoners taken on the battle field to be massacred in cold blood.
Soon after Sulla was appointed dictator for so long as he might think fit to retain office.
He issued a series of proscriptions - lists of people who were to have their property taken and who were to be killed. The people killed in these purges were not only supporters of Marius and Cinna, but so too people Sulla simply disliked or held a grudge against.
The lives of the people of Rome were entirely in Sulla's hands. He could have them killed or he could spare them. One he chose to spare was a dissolute young patrician, whose father's sister had been the wife of Marius, and who himself was the husband of Cinna's daughter - Gaius Julius Caesar.
