There were street riots. A party of thugs was hired to kill the popular Tribune. Tiberius Gracchus was attacked when he entered the assembly and was beaten to death. Ten years later his brother Gaius tried the experiment of reforming a nation against the expressed wishes of a strong privileged class. He passed a "poor law" which was meant to help the destitute farmers. Eventually it made the greater part of the Roman citizens into professional beggars.
他们策动街头暴乱，一群暴徒被雇佣来要杀死这位深受爱戴的保民官。一天，当提比略步人公民会议的会场时，暴徒们一拥而上去攻击他，将他殴打致死。10年之后，他的兄弟盖约斯再度尝试改革国家，以抵制势力强大的特权阶层的无理要求。他制定了一部"贫民法"，初衷是想帮助那些失去土地、处于赤贫状态的农民。可事与愿违，这部法律最终却使得大部分罗马公民沦为了乞丐。
He established colonies of destitute people in distant parts of the empire, but these settlements failed to attract the right sort of people. Before Gaius Gracchus could do more harm he too was murdered and his followers were either killed or exiled. The first two reformers had been gentlemen. The two who came after were of a very different stamp. They were professional soldiers. One was called Marius. The name of the other was Sulla. Both enjoyed a large personal following.
盖约斯在帝国的边区为贫民建立起一些居留地，可这些居留地没能吸引到它们想收容的那类人。在盖约斯·格拉古做出更多好意的坏事前，他也被暗杀了。他的追随者要么被杀，要么被流放。这最初的两位改革者属于贵族绅士，可随后的两位却是截然不同的类型。他们是职业军人，其中一人名为马略，另一位叫苏拉。各自拥有一大群支持者。
Sulla was the leader of the landowners. Marius, the victor in a great battle at the foot of the Alps when the Teutons and the Cimbri had been annihilated, was the popular hero of the disinherited freemen.
苏拉是庄园主的领袖，而马略身为在阿尔卑斯山脚歼灭条顿人和西姆赖特人的那场伟大战役的胜利者，是被剥夺财产的自由民们的英雄。
Now it happened in the year 88 B.C. that the Senate of Rome was greatly disturbed by rumours that came from Asia. Mithridates, king of a country along the shores of the Black Sea, and a Greek on his mother's side, had seen the possibility of establishing a second Alexandrian Empire.
在公元前88年，从亚洲传来一些谣言，让元老院大感不安。据说黑海沿岸的一个国家，国王名为米特拉达特斯，其母亲是希腊人，他正厉兵袜马、大有重建第二个亚历山大帝国的可能。