Sulla fled Rome and went to Campania to the camp of his Social War veterans who were still under arms besieging Nola. He announced the measures that had been taken against him, and his soldiers stoned the envoys of the assemblies who came to announce that the command of the Mithridatic War had been transferred to Marius. Sulla then marched his six legions − 35,000 men − on Rome. This action was an unprecedented event. No general before him had ever crossed the city limits, the "pomerium", with his army. It was so unethical that most of his senatorial officers (with the exception of one, probably Lucullus) refused to accompany him. Sulla justified his actions on the grounds that the Senate had been neutered and the "mos maiorum" ("The way things were done", or "the custom of the ancestors", which as a reference amounted to a Roman constitution although none of it was codified as such) had been offended by the negation of the rights of the consuls of the year to fight the wars of that year. A force of armed gladiators raised by the Marians (Marius offered freedom to any slave that would fight with him against Sulla) failed to resist Sulla's organized military force and Marius and his followers fled the city.