…the fortress city of Praeneste.

Sulla follows the son of his arch-rival and lays siege to the town, leaving his prefect Quintus Lucretius Ofella to conduct the siege, throttling the town with a ring of rapidly constructed earth and tuff barricades.

Sulla himself moves north to push Carbo, who has withdrawn to Etruria to stand between Rome and the forces of Pompey and Metellus.

Marius gives orders to Lucius Junius Brutus Damasippus, the Urban Praetor, to kill all those who are likely to support Sulla’s return, including his father-in-law, Quintus Mucius Scaevola Pontifex, the ex-consul Lucius Domitius, Publius Antistius and Papirius Carbo among others.

Although both Gnaeus Papirius Carbo and Damasippus attempt to break the siege, they are unsuccessful.

Indecisive battles are fought between Carbo and Sulla's forces but Carbo knows that his cause is lost.

News arrives of a defeat by Norbanus in Gaul, and that he has also switched sides to Sulla.

Although Carbo still has a large army and the Samnites remain faithful to him, he is caught between three enemy armies and with no hope of relief.

So disheartened by his failure to relieve Praeneste, he decides to leave Italy, fleeing to Africa.

It is not yet the end of the resistance however, those remaining Marian forces gather together and attempted several times to relieve young Marius at Praeneste.

A Samnite force under Pontius Telesinus joins in the relief effort but the combined armies are still unable to break Sulla.

Rather than continue trying to rescue Marius, Telesinus moves north to threaten Rome.

Towards the end of the siege, Marius makes one final attempt to escape, this time by digging a tunnel under the walls, but the attempt is uncovered.

Marius commits suicide so as not to fall into enemy hands.

The famous Sanctuary of Fortuna Primigenia, connected with the oracle known as the Praenestine lots (sortes praenestinae) is a radically new structure.

The oldest portion of the primitive sanctuary is situated on the terrace just above the lowest one, in a grotto in the natural rock where there is a spring that developed into a well.

As the archaic shrine was elaborated from the second century BCE, it had been given a colored mosaic pavement representing a seascape: a temple of Poseidon on the shore, with fish of all kinds swimming in the sea.

To the east of this grotto is a large space, now open, but once very possibly roofed, and forming a two-story basilica built against the rock on the north side, and there decorated with pilasters.

To the east is an apsidal hall, often identified with the temple itself, in which was found the famous mosaic with scenes from the Nile, relaid in the Palazzo Barberini-Colonna in Palestrina on the uppermost terrace (now a National Museum).

Under this hall is a chamber, which an inscription on its walls identified as a treasury in the second century BCE.

The sanctuary is redeveloped after 82 on Sulla’s order.

Built on a steep mountainside, it becomes an elaborate, symmetrically laid out complex constructed of molded concrete, featuring a spectacular series of terraces, exedras and porticos on four levels down the hillside, linked by monumental stairs and ramps.

This immense edifice, probably by far the largest sanctuary in Italy, must have presented a most imposing aspect, visible as it was from a great part of Latium, from Rome, and even from the sea.

The inspiration for this feat of unified urbanistic design lies, not in republican Rome, but in the Hellenistic monarchies of the eastern Mediterranean.

Praeneste offers a foretaste of the grandiose Imperial style of the following generation.

Features of the temple will influence Roman garden design on steeply sloped sites through Antiquity and once again in Italian villa gardens from the fifteenth century.

The monument to Victor Emmanuel II in Rome owes much to the Praeneste sanctuary complex.

…Lucius organizes his troops at Praeneste, and is then forced to retreat with his army to …

…the city of Perusia in Etruria, where Lucius is besieged in December by three armies.

Lucius waits for Antony's legions in Gaul to come to his aid.

However, unaware of the war, Antony is still in the eastern provinces, and his legions are unsure of his commands and do not assist Lucius.

Fulvia is at Praeneste during this conflict, known as the Perusine War, but there is evidence that she helps Lucius.

According to Appian, she "urged Ventidius, Asinius, and Calenus from Gaul to help Lucius, and having gathered another army, she sent it to Lucius under the command of Plancus."