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marching toward Italy . There are at least three hundred thousand, the rumors said , and in battle they fight like furies . Their war cries are like the roars of wild beasts, so horrible that no man can describe them ."
These barbarians were called Cim'bri and Teu'ton - es. They belonged to the German race whose home had been on the shores of the North Sea and the Baltic Sea . They had wandered southward as far as Gaul, or what is now France, and there they had burned and plundered and killed. Then they had come still farther south . Some Ro man forces met them in battle be yond the Alps and were defeat ed as badly as their coun trymen had been at Can n æ . The most morti fying part of this defeat was that a barbari an tribe of
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Switzerland, that had joined the others, compelled a Roman army to pass under the yoke. At this the Romans were
Gleyre
ROMAN ARMY PASSING UNDER THE YOKE
THE GRACCHI ; THE RISE OF MARIUS 121
fairly terrified. Barbarians had burned their city once ; they might do it a second time. Prayers and sacrifices were offered , and no man who was able to bear arms was al lowed to leave Italy . Just at this time Marius returned from his victory over Jugurtha. Marius will save us , cried the people . Let us make him consul again . This was contrary to the custom , but the Romans were so alarmed that they thought only of choosing a general who could overcome the barbarians; therefore Marius was elected . He was elected year after year, for the barbarians delayed and the fear of them increased .
At length , in 102 B. C. , they started for Italy. Marius had not wasted the time of their delay ; he had trained his soldiers more and more perfectly , and had kept them busy digging canals and doing other work, so that instead of growing weak, they had become stronger and more ready for battles. The battles came . Marius defeated the barbarians and de stroyed their whole army except sixty thousand, who were sent to Rome to be sold as slaves. In this battle, two com panies , or cohorts , of Italians had been so fearless and valiant that as a reward he made them all Roman citizens . Of course he had no right to do any such thing ; but the din of battle was so loud that I could not hear the laws, he said .
When Marius returned to Rome , the people were almost ready to worship him as a god . Romulus founded our city , they cried . Camillus saved it , and now Marius has saved it a second time. They were eager to give him what ever he wanted , and he was beginning to think himself so great a man that no honor and no power could be more than
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he deserved . Just at this time there was another revolt of the slaves in Sicily, and with the same result defeat, torture, and crucifixion . Before the revolt was fully quieted, there was trouble in Rome, and Marius, stupidly, per haps, rather than wickedly , united with some men who were trying to overthrow the government. He had been consul five times, but he was eager for even greater honors , and he was not at all particular by what means they might be won . He was the ablest general of his age , but he had no idea how to behave in political life. He
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HEAD ,
SUPPOSED TO BE THAT
MARIUS
OF seems to have tried to keep ( In the Uffizi Gallery, Florence ) free from the crimes of his allies , but to have been more than willing to profit by them . Finally, he became so unpopular that he himself saw that Rome was no place for him . He declared that some time before this he had vowed to offer sacrifices to the mother of the gods, and he set sail for Asia to keep his vow .