According to Plutarch, the Dictator Sulla massacred 6,000 prisoners in the Circus Flaminius after the Battle of the Colline Gate in 82 BC. Prisoners of war from the nearby town of Antemnae were rounded up in the Circus and slaughtered while the Senate met in the adjacent Temple of Bellona; the screams which could be heard from the Temple were a way of intimidating the Senators.