Plutarch: Lives of the noble Grecians and Romans
the city; yet, nevertheless, at their request, Turpillius was
dismissed safe and without receiving any injury; whereupon he was
accused of betraying it to the enemy. Marius, being one of the
council of war, was not only violent against him himself, but also
incensed most of the others, so that Metellus was forced, much
against his will, to put him to death. Not long after the accusation
proved false, and when others were comforting Metellus, who took
heavily the loss of his friend, Marius, rather insulting and
arrogating it to himself, boasted in all companies that he had
involved Metellus in the guilt of putting his friend to death.
Henceforward they were at open variance; and it is reported that
Metellus once, when Marius was present, said, insultingly, "You, sir,
design to leave us to go home and stand for the consulship, and will
not be content to wait and be consul with this boy of mine?"
Metellus's son being a mere boy at the time. Yet for all this Marius
being very importunate to be gone, after several delays, he was
dismissed about twelve days before the election of consuls; and
performed that long journey from the camp to the seaport of Utica, in
two days and a night, and there doing sacrifice before he went on
shipboard, it is said the augur told him, that heaven promised him
some incredible good fortune, and such as was beyond all expectation.
Marius, not a little elated with this good omen, began his voyage,
and in four days, with a favorable wind, passed the sea; he was
welcomed with great joy by the people, and being brought into the
assembly by one of the tribunes, sued for the consulship, inveighing
in all ways against Metellus, and promising either to slay Jugurtha
or take him alive.
He was elected triumphantly, and at once proceeded to levy soldiers,
contrary both to law and custom, enlisting slaves and poor people;
whereas former commanders never accepted of such, but bestowed arms,
like other favors, as a matter of distinction, on persons who had the
proper qualification, a man's property being thus a sort of security
for his good behavior. These were not the only occasions of ill-will
against Marius; some haughty speeches, uttered with great arrogance
and contempt, gave great offense to the nobility; as, for example,
his saying that he had carried off the consulship as a spoil from the
effeminacy of the wealthy and high-born citizens, and telling the
people that he gloried in wounds he had himself received for them, as
much as others did in the monuments of dead men and images of their
ancestors. Often speaking of the commanders that had been
unfortunate in Africa, naming Bestia, for example, and Albinus, men
of very good families, but unfit for war, and who had miscarried
through want of experience, he asked the people about him, if they
did not think that the ancestors of these nobles had much rather have
left a descendant like him, since they themselves grew famous not by
nobility, but by their valor and great actions? This he did not say
merely out of vanity and arrogance, or that he were willing, without
any advantage, to offend the nobility; but the people always
delighting in affronts and scurrilous contumelies against the senate,
making boldness of speech their measure of greatness of spirit,
continually encouraged him in it, and strengthened his inclination
not to spare persons of repute, so he might gratify the multitude.
As soon as he arrived again in Africa, Metellus, no longer able to
control his feelings of jealousy, and his indignation that now when
he had really finished the war, and nothing was left but to secure
the person of Jugurtha, Marius, grown great merely through his
ingratitude to him, should come to bereave him both of his victory
and triumph, could not bear to have any interview with him; but
retired himself, whilst Rutilius, his lieutenant, surrendered up the
army to Marius, whose conduct, however, in the end of the war, met
with some sort of retribution, as Sylla deprived him of the glory of
the action, as he had done Metellus. I shall state the circumstances
briefly here, as they are given at large in the life of Sylla.
Bocchus was king of the more distant barbarians, and was
father-in-law to Jugurtha, yet sent him little or no assistance in
his war, professing fears of his unfaithfulness, and really jealous
of his growing power; but after Jugurtha fled, and in his distress
came to him as his last hope, he received him as a suppliant, rather
because ashamed to do otherwise, than out of real kindness; and when
he had him in his power, he openly entreated Marius on his behalf,
and interceded for him with bold words, giving out that he would by
no means deliver him. Yet privately designing to betray him, he sent
for Lucius Sylla, quaestor to Marius, and who had on a previous
occasion befriended Bocchus in the war. When Sylla, relying on his
word, came to him, the African began to doubt and repent of his
purpose, and for several days was unresolved with himself, whether he
should deliver Jugurtha or retain Sylla; at length he fixed upon his
former treachery, and put Jugurtha alive into Sylla's possession.
Thus was the first occasion given of that fierce and implacable
hostility which so nearly ruined the whole Roman empire. For many
that envied Marius, attributed the success wholly to Sylla; and Sylla
himself got a seal made on which was engraved Bocchus betraying
Jugurtha to him, and constantly used it, irritating the hot and
jealous temper of Marius, who was naturally greedy of distinction,
and quick to resent any claim to share in his glory, and whose
enemies took care to promote the quarrel, ascribing the beginning and
chief business of the war to Metellus, and its conclusion to Sylla;
that so the people might give over admiring and esteeming Marius as
the worthiest person.
But these envyings and calumnies were soon dispersed and cleared away
from Marius, by the danger that threatened Italy from the west; when
the city, in great need of a good commander, sought about whom she
might set at the helm, to meet the tempest of so great a war, no one
would have anything to say to any members of noble or potent
families who offered themselves for the consulship, and Marius,
though then absent, was elected.
Jugurtha's apprehension was only just known, when the news of the
invasion of the Teutones and Cimbri began. The accounts at first
exceeded all credit, as to the number and strength of the approaching
army; but in the end, report proved much inferior to the truth, as
they were three hundred thousand effective fighting men, besides a
far greater number of women and children. They professed to be
seeking new countries to sustain these great multitudes, and cities
where they might settle and inhabit, in the same way as they had
heard the Celti before them had driven out the Tyrrhenians, and
possessed themselves of the best part of Italy. Having had no
commerce with the southern nations, and traveling over a wide extent
of country, no man knew what people they were, or whence they came,
that thus like a cloud burst over Gaul and Italy; yet by their gray
eyes and the largeness of their stature, they were conjectured to be
some of the German races dwelling by the northern sea; besides that,
the Germans call plunderers Cimbri.
There are some that say, that the country of the Celti, in its vast
size and extent, reaches from the furthest sea and the arctic regions
to the lake Maeotis eastward, and to that part of Scythia which is
near Pontus, and that there the nations mingle together; that they
did not swarm out of their country all at once, or on a sudden, but
advancing by force of arms, in the summer season, every year, in the
course of time they crossed the whole continent. And thus, though
each party had several appellations, yet the whole army was called by
the common name of Celto-Scythians. Others say that the Cimmerii,
anciently known to the Greeks, were only a small part of the nation,
who were driven out upon some quarrel among the Scythians, and passed
all along from the lake Maeotis to Asia, under the conduct of one
Lygdamis; and that the greater and more warlike part of them still
inhabit the remotest regions lying upon the outer ocean. These, they
say, live in a dark and woody country hardly penetrable by the
sunbeams, the trees are so close and thick, extending into the
interior as far as the Hercynian forest; and their position on the
earth is under that part of heaven, where the pole is so elevated,
that by the declination of the parallels, the zenith of the
inhabitants seems to be but little distant from it; and that their
days and nights being almost of an equal length, they divide their
year into one of each. This was Homer's occasion for the story of
Ulysses calling up the dead, and from this region the people,
anciently called Cimmerii, and afterwards, by an easy change, Cimbri,
came into Italy. All this, however, is rather conjecture than an
authentic history.
Their numbers, most writers agree, were not less, but rather greater
than was reported. They were of invincible strength and fierceness
in their wars, and hurried into battle with the violence of a
devouring flame; none could withstand them; all they assaulted became
their prey. Several of the greatest Roman commanders with their
whole armies, that advanced for the defense of Transalpine Gaul, were
ingloriously overthrown, and, indeed, by their faint resistance,
chiefly gave them the impulse of marching towards Rome. Having
vanquished all they had met, and found abundance of plunder, they
resolved to settle themselves nowhere till they should have razed the
city, and wasted all Italy. The Romans, being from all parts alarmed
with this news, sent for Marius to undertake the war, and nominated
him the second time consul, though the law did not permit any one
that was absent, or that had not waited a certain time after his
first consulship, to be again created. But the people rejected all
opposers; for they considered this was not the first time that the
law gave place to the common interest; nor the present occasion less
urgent than that when, contrary to law, they made Scipio consul, not
in fear for the destruction of their own city, but desiring the ruin
of that of the Carthaginians.
Thus it was decided; and Marius, bringing over his legions out of
Africa on the very first day of January, which the Romans count the
beginning of the year, received the consulship, and then, also,
entered in triumph, showing Jugurtha a prisoner to the people, a
sight they had despaired of ever beholding, nor could any, so long as
he lived, hope to reduce the enemy in Africa; so fertile in
expedients was he to adapt himself to every turn of fortune, and so
bold as well as subtle. When, however, he was led in triumph, it is
said that he fell distracted, and when he was afterwards thrown into
prison, where some tore off his clothes by force, and others, whilst
they struggled for his golden ear-ring, with it pulled off the tip of
his ear, and when he was, after this, cast naked into the dungeon, in
his amazement and confusion, with a ghastly laugh, he cried out, "O
Hercules! how cold your bath is!" Here for six days struggling with
hunger, and to the very last minute desirous of life, he was
overtaken by the just reward of his villainies. In this triumph was
brought, as is stated, of gold three thousand and seven pounds
weight, of silver bullion five thousand seven hundred and
seventy-five, of money in gold and silver coin two hundred and
eighty-seven thousand drachmas. After the solemnity, Marius called
together the senate in the capitol, and entered, whether through
inadvertency or unbecoming exultation with his good fortune, in his