Whether this breach of custom arose from his insolent disposition or his want of good manners, he had wit enough to see that the senators did not like it, and accordingly he soon went out, and returned in the usual dress of a magistrate. The state of public affairs would of course be the matter for deliberation, and as the province of Gallia had already been assigned to Marius, it only remained to provide him with an army. He was allowed to make his own choice, and he took the troops which Rutilius had been drilling. His colleague Fimbria had Italy for his province.

It is not known where Marius was or what he was doing during the years B.C. 104 and B.C. 103, in which year he was consul for the third time. He was employed, says Velleius, in making preparation for the war, but we cannot suppose that he was at Rome all this time, nor yet in Italy. If he was in Transalpine Gallia, he had certainly no conflict with the enemy, who seems to have made no movement towards Italy after the defeat of the Romans on the Rhone. A passage in "Livy's Epitome," and another in "Plutarch's Life of Marius," offer the only explanation of the difficulty. The barbarians, instead of crossing the Alps, wasted all the country between the Rhone and the Pyrenees. Probably Massilia and the Massaliot settlements were protected by their walls. On their road to the Pyrenees the invaders would pass the new Roman settlement of Narbo; and we may be certain what was the fate of this colony, if it was not in a state of defence. The men of the north crossed into Spain by the defiles of the eastern Pyrenees, where they would find a road ready made. They wasted every thing as usual, but they were now in a country from which every invader has at last been compelled to retreat; and in Central Spain they found in the Celtiberi an enemy who was more than a match for them. They returned into Gallia, and there joined the Teutones, as the Epitome says. The invaders of Spain were the Cimbri, according to the same authority. This brief notice of the invasion of the Spanish peninsula may be an historical fact. The final contest between the Roman and the barbarian was deferred to B.c. 102; and the invasion of Spain by the northern barbarians during the years B.C. 104

and 103 was a piece of good luck for Marius, as Plutarch

says.

Among the legati of Marius was L. Cornelius Sulla, who had the credit of bringing the war with Jugurtha to a close by his daring and his cunning. Marius, himself a vain man, was jealous of the reputation of Sulla, who also was of an arrogant temper, and not disposed to let his services be forgotten. Sulla had a seal-ring cut in commemoration of his successful perfidy, and he wore it constantly. The subject was Bocchus surrendering and Sulla receiving the surrender of Jugurtha. Yet Marius knew that Sulla would be useful; and he had him as a legatus in his second consulship, B.C. 104. In this year Sulla, who had already caught one king, succeeded in laying hold of another, who is named Copillius, king of the Tectosages. This confirms the conjecture that Marius was in the south of France in B.C. 104; or if Sulla only was there, we must still suppose that Marius was not far off, somewhere in North Italy.

Perhaps these two years saved Rome. Marius had time to bring his recruits into good discipline, to strengthen them by exercise, and to gain the confidence of his men. He was inexorable in punishing all breaches of military order, but he was also just, and he gave his army a signal example of his impartiality. Marius had a nephew serving under him, an officer whom Plutarch names C. Lusius. This man conceived a passion for a young soldier under his command, named Trebonius, and had often ineffectually attempted to seduce him. One night he sent a servant with orders to bring Trebonius. The young man came in obedience to his superior, and was introduced into the tent, but when Lusius attempted to use violence, Trebonius drew his sword and killed the villain.

Marius was absent when this happened, but on his return. he brought Trebonius to trial. There were many, says Plutarch, who joined in making the charge against Trebonius, and there was not one to speak in his favour. The officers perhaps thought that such a breach of discipline deserved punishment, and if they were no better than Lusius, they would view his crime as a small matter. But Trebonius

must have had some friends, for after boldly telling the whole story, he produced witnesses to prove that he had often resisted the importunity of Lusius, and had always rejected the temptation of money. The general commended the conduct of Trebonius, and with his own hands placed on his head a crown such as was conferred for noble deeds according to an old Roman fashion; a fit reward, says the biographer of Marius, for such an act at a time when good examples were much needed.

The report of this just judgment of Marius was carried to Rome, and contributed to his being elected in his absence consul for the year B.C. 103. His colleague was L. Aurelius Orestes. Marius still had the province of Transalpine Gallia, for the barbarians were expected early in the year 103, and there was no other man to whom the defence of Italy could be safely entrusted. But this year also passed quietly, and nothing was done in Gallia. The consul Orestes died during his office, and Marius, leaving Manius Aquillius in command of the army, came to Rome to hold the Comitia. There were now many candidates for the consulship, but Marius wished to be elected again. For this purpose he gained the assistance of the popular leader, the tribune L. Appuleius Saturninus, who addressed the electors, and recommended Marius for a fourth consulship. Marius affected to decline the honour, on which Saturninus called him a traitor to his country for refusing the consulship at so critical a time. The farce was plain to all, but as the danger from the north was not past, the electors voted for Marius. Q. Lutatius Catulus, who was esteemed by the nobility and not disliked by the people, was the other consul.

CHAPTER II.

THE ROMAN ARMY IN THE TIME OF

C. MARIUS.

FROM the time of Marius there was a change in the constitution of the Roman legions. The census ceased to be the foundation of the delectus or conscription. The mass of citizens was poor, and the property was in the hands of a small number. The tribune, L. Marcius Philippus, who unsuccessfully attempted to carry an Agrarian Law (B.c. 104), declared that there were not two thousand citizens who possessed any property-an assertion which is probably a great exaggeration, but still some indication of the state of society at that time. Cicero, who quotes this statement of Philippus, says nothing about the truth or falsehood of it: he only remarks on the pernicious tendency of such talk, and that it leads towards schemes for the equalization of property; and what greater mischief, he asks, can there be than this? The passage of Cicero has been perverted by some critics in a strange way. They admit that a Roman agrarian law related to the resumption by the state of public land only; and yet they suppose that this law of the tribune Philippus proposed that there should be å general equal division of landed property. Such a monstrous proposal was never made in any country, nor can we believe that Philippus made it at Rome, whatever he may have said about the land being held by so few owners, and so many persons being unable to get any share of it. If Cicero had really said what these critics suppose him to say, we might reasonably doubt the truth of his statement; but any man of sound judgment, who looks at the original, will see that Cicero only says, that such talk

tended to encourage wild revolutionary schemes. In whatever way the question about the concentration of the land in the hands of a few owners may be ultimately settled, no change will ever be effected by any scheme so absurd as some modern writers have falsely attributed to the tribune Philippus.

After the Social War, B.C. 90, when the Roman citizenship was given to a large part of Italy, the means of supplying the Roman legions with soldiers were still more abundant. Muster-rolls of all the Italians able to bear arms were doubtless still kept; but the strict old conscription was no longer necessary. The poor man by enlisting in the army got pay, sometimes booty, and he had a prospect of a grant of land when his term of service was over. The legionary soldiers, instead of being disbanded when they were not wanted, remained in service for a long time. Those persons who had any means of living, and no taste for war, though not legally excused from service, would certainly not be summoned, when willing men could be had, as many as were wanted. A few of the richer class would join the army as officers, with the hope of promotion and rising to the highest honours of the state. Though we have no reason to believe that there was any legal change in the mode of raising soldiers, for the Romans kept the forms of old institutions long after their purpose had ceased, it is certain that from the time of Marius the armies had the character of volunteer paid troops, and the modern system of standing armies was firmly established. Thus an instrument was ready to the hands of successful generals for the overthrow of the constitution, an inevitable result in all systems of government which are founded on popular election, when a large part of the citizens are converted into soldiers.

A Roman army now consisted of the legionary soldiers, the auxiliary infantry, the cavalry, the artillerymen and engineers, and the general's staff, and the troops about his person.

Up to the time of the Social War the Latini and the Italian allies were the auxiliary troops. The employment of foreign mercenaries in the Roman army began before the time of Marius, and it was continued.

VOL. II.