[108-107 B.C.]
Caius Marius, who in the next few years was to play so conspicuous a part in Roman history, was a man of low birth, the son of a Latin peasant from the village of Cereatæ, near Arpinum. He was lacking in all higher culture. He was essentially a soldier, with the inborn faculty for war. When only twenty-two, he distinguished himself in the army of Scipio Æmilianus in Numantia by his bravery and by his soldierly bearing. Ambition drove him into the service of the state. In 119, supported by the powerful Metellus, he became a tribune of the people, and at that time, with much determination and military impetuosity, he carried through a law directed against the nobles, dealing with bribery and the fraudulent acquisition of office. When the consul Cotta prevailed upon the senate to oppose the law and to call Marius to account, the latter appeared in the senate and threatened to imprison Cotta by force, if he did not abandon his resolve. Cotta appealed to his fellow consul, L. Cæcilius Metellus; and when the latter agreed with Cotta, Marius ordered his servant to conduct Metellus to prison. As no tribune would intercede on Metellus’ behalf, the senate gave way and the law took its course.
From that time Marius was established in the favour of the people; but the nobility worked against the ambitious aspirant where they could, and they succeeded in defeating him when he stood for the curule chair, and again when he sought the plebeian ædileship. The prætorship he succeeded in obtaining in the year 115, but with the greatest difficulty.
Marius remained legate to Q. Metellus in the Jugurthine War because of the opportunities offered for showing military activity. He helped Metellus to re-establish military discipline and to win victory for the Roman standard. His courage and knowledge of warfare, his cunning and intrepidity, and strict military discipline, were everywhere celebrated; he gained the affections of the common soldiers by sharing with them all their hardships and privations. After the battle of Muthul, where he especially distinguished himself, his praise was in every mouth; and the soldiers wrote home that there would be no end to the war unless Marius was made consul and commander-in-chief. This was vexatious to Metellus, and there seems to have been considerable friction between these two proud men. When Marius asked for furlough from the commander-in-chief that he might go to Rome and make application for the consulship, Metellus with the pride of rank annoyed him with the question, “Will you not be content if you become consul with my son?” Metellus’ son was then twenty-two years old.
Metellus only granted Marius leave of absence twelve days before the election to the consulship took place; but Marius travelled the whole way from the camp to Utica in two days and one night, and from Utica he arrived in Rome within four days. On his application for the consulship he did not scruple to disparage Metellus’ conduct of the war, and hinted that he was purposely protracting the struggle so as to remain longer in command; and he promised that with even half the troops he would in a short time deliver Jugurtha, dead or alive, into the hands of the Romans. The people treated the election as a party question, and Marius as one of themselves was chosen consul by unanimous acclamation, and the conduct of the African War transferred into his hands. This was, after a long interval, another case in which a homo novus attained to the consulate—naturally to the great annoyance of the nobility, who however could do nothing against the will of the people, excited as they were at the idea that after long oppression they had found in Marius a chief and a leader of their own.
[107-104 B.C.]
Marius made use of the time before his departure for the seat of war to irritate the people in every way against the rule of the nobility. “The haughty nobles,” said he, “passed their youth in luxury and revelling; then, when elected to the post of general, they would hasten to glean from Greek books some information on the subject of the art of war. Let the people leave them to their revels, and choose their generals from men who are inured to heat and cold, and every hardship, who, instead of pictures of ancestors, have honourable wounds and marks of conflict to display.”
When levying the troops he was to lead to Africa, he chose his men contrary to the prevailing system—from the lowest orders of the people, the so-called proletariat. Through this innovation he gained at any rate a number of devoted adherents; but he degraded the tone of the army by putting swords into the hands of people without homes or property, who would seek profit in warfare and be more eager to serve their general than their country.
When Marius came to Africa, he received his army from the hands of the legate Rufus; Metellus, infuriated, had already left, in order to avoid the rival who was to supplant him. He continued the war and was favoured by fortune, though he did not end it immediately, as he had pledged himself to do.