Marius, CAIUS, a famous Roman general who was seven times consul, was born of an obscure family at the village of Cereate, near Arpinum, 157 B.C. He served with great distinction at the siege of Numantia (134) under the younger Scipio Africanus, who is said to have hinted that in him the Romans would find a successor to himself. In 119 he was elected tribune of the plebs, and already he had made himself a great popular leader by his vigorous opposition to the nobles. In 114 he went to Spain as propraetor, and cleared the country of the robbers who infested it. He now married Julia, the sister of the father of the great Cæsar. He served in Africa as legate to Q. Cæcilus Metellus during the war against Jugurtha, and was elected consul two years after. He took for his province Numidia, and closed the Jugurthine war in the beginning of 106. The honour of capturing the beaten king fell to his prætor L. Sulla, and from this period dates the birth of that jealousy out of which were to flow so many horrors. Meanwhile, an immense horde of Cimbri, Teutones, and other northern barbarians had burst into Gaul, and repeatedly defeated the Roman forces with great slaughter. Marius was again called to the consulate for the year 104, and for the third, fourth, and fifth time in the following years, 103–101, for it was felt that he alone could save the republic. The war against the Teutones in Transalpine Gaul occupied him for more than two years; but he finally annihilated them in a terrible battle of two days' duration at Aquæ Sextiæ, now Aix, in Provence, where 200,000—according to others, 100,000—Teutones were slain. After this he turned to the Cimbri in the north of Italy, and then he also overthrew at Campi Raudii near Vercellæ, with a like destruction (101). The people of Rome knew no bounds to their joy. Marius was declared the saviour of the state, the third founder of Rome, and was made consul for the sixth time in 100. It has often been remarked that, had he died at this period, he would have left behind him one of the greatest reputations in Roman history. But to perpetuate his power he stooped to the basest arts of the unprincipled demagogue.
When Sulla as consul was entrusted with the conduct of the Mithridatic war, Marius, who had long manifested an insane jealousy of his patrician rival, attempted to deprive him of the command, and a civil war began (88). Marius was soon forced to flee, and, after the most frightful hardships, and numerous hairbreadth escapes, he made his way to Africa. Two romantic incidents stand out among these days of peril. His place of hiding in the marshes of Liris had been discovered, and he had been flung into prison at Minturnæ, when a Cimbrian slave was sent to despatch him, 'Wretch, darest thou slay Caius Marius?' said the old hero as he glared upon him out of the gloom. The slave fled in terror saying, 'I cannot kill Marius,' and the citizens recognising the omen allowed the exile to escape. Scarcely had he reached the shore of Africa, when the Roman governor sent him a summons to leave the country. Said Marius, 'Go, tell the prætor that you have seen Caius Marius a fugitive, sitting on the ruins of Carthage.' Here he remained until a rising of his friends took place under Cinna. He then hurried back to Italy, and, along with Cinna, marched against Rome, which was obliged to yield. Marius was delirious in his revenge upon the aristocracy; a band of 4000 slaves carried on the work of murder for five days and nights. Marius and Cinna were elected consuls together for the year 86, but the former died after he had held the office seventeen days. On the triumph of Sulla his body, which had been buried, not burned, was torn from its grave on the banks of the Anio, and cast into the stream. Lucan tells us how the troubled ghost haunted the spot and scared the peasants from the plough on the eve of impending revolutions.