…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Sulla himself moves north to push Carbo, who has withdrawn to Etruria to stand between Rome and the forces of Pompey and Metellus.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 two forces meet on November 1 of 82 BCE, at the battle of the Colline Gate, just outside of Rome.

The battle is a huge and desperate final struggle with both sides certainly believing their own victory will save Rome.

Sulla is pushed hard on his left flank with the situation so dangerous that he and his men are pushed right up against the city walls.

Crassus' forces, fighting on Sulla's right, however, manage to turn the opposition's flank and drive them back.

The Samnites and the Marian forces fold up and break.

In the end, over fifty thousand combatants lose their lives and Sulla stands alone as the master of Rome.

Having observed the violent results of radical popular reforms, Sulla is naturally conservative.

As such, he seeks to strengthen the aristocracy, and by extension the Senate.

At the end of 82 BCE or the beginning of 81 BCE, the Senate appoints Sulla dictator legibus faciendis et reipublicae constituendae causa ("dictator for the making of laws and for the settling of the constitution").

The decision is subsequently ratified by the "Assembly of the People", with no limit set on his time in office.

Sulla has total control of the city and republic of Rome, except for Hispania (which Marius's general Quintus Sertorius has established as an independent state).

This unusual appointment (used hitherto only in times of extreme danger to the city, such as the Second Punic War, and then only for six-month periods) represents an exception to Rome's policy of not giving total power to a single individual.

Sulla can be seen as setting the precedent for Julius Caesar's dictatorship, and the eventual end of the Republic under Augustus.