Gaius Flavius Fimbria (c. 115 – 85 BC) was a Roman general. Born to a recently distinguished senatorial family, he became one of the most violent and bloodthirsty partisans of the consul Cornelius Cinna and his ally, Gaius Marius, in the civil war of 87 BC. During the conflict, Fimbria served them as both cavalry commander and negotiator, and took a leading part in the political purges that followed their capture of Rome, putting a number of prominent aristocrats to death. In 85 BC, during an expedition to Asia Minor, Fimbria took command of the army by instigating a mutiny and murdering his superior. He successfully conducted Rome's ongoing war against the Pontic king Mithradates, recovering much of the province of Asia, ravaging the surroundings and treating the conquered provincials with much savagery. He committed suicide after the troops deserted to a rival Roman general in the vicinity, Sulla. Fimbria's contemporary Cicero remembered him as "the most audacious madman of his times". Life Partisan of Marius Gaius Flavius Fimbria was probably born in 115 or 114 BC. His father presumably was the identically named senator from the previous generation, a novus homo who had been the consul together with Gaius Marius in 104 BC. The younger Fimbria likely also had a close relationship with Marius himself, since he later became one of his supporters and carried out the dirty work of eliminating his political opponents. During the civil war in 87 BC between the consuls Lucius Cornelius Cinna and Octavius, Fimbria, like Marius joined the party of the former. He commanded a cavalry squadron, and probably held the rank of cavalry prefect (praefectus equitum). Cinna sent Fimbria as an envoy to negotiate an alliance with the Samnites, who were still fighting the Social War against the Roman government. Fimbria brought the Samnites into the fold by accepting, as instructed, all their terms for peace, which had already been rejected by the consul Octavius and the Senate. When Octavius was finally forced to capitulate, and allow his rivals into Rome, Fimbria participated in the subsequent purge of Marius' and Cinna's enemies in the city. He commanded the cavalry troop that hunted down and killed the father and brother of the future triumvir Crassus. Fimbria probably also caused the brothers Lucius and Gaius Caesar to be murdered in their homes. The following year, 86 BC, Cinna and Marius, now in undisputed control