Plutarch: Lives of the noble Grecians and Romans
to his baths at Baiae, to cure his body, worn out, as himself
confessed, with age and catarrhs. Marius had, indeed, there, about
Misenum, a villa more effeminately and luxuriously furnished than
seemed to become one that had seen service in so many and great wars
and expeditions. This same house Cornelia bought for seventy-five
thousand drachmas, and not long after Lucius Lucullus, for two
million five hundred thousand; so rapid and so great was the growth
of Roman sumptuosity. Yet, in spite of all this, out of a mere
boyish passion for distinction, affecting to shake off his age and
weakness, he went down daily to the Campus Martius, and exercising
himself with the youth, showed himself still nimble in his armor,
and expert in riding; though he was undoubtedly grown bulky in his
old age, and inclining to excessive fatness and corpulency.
Some people were pleased with this, and went continually to see him
competing and displaying himself in these exercises; but the better
sort that saw him, pitied the cupidity and ambition that made one who
had risen from utter poverty to extreme wealth, and out of nothing
into greatness, unwilling to admit any limit to his high fortune, or
to be content with being admired, and quietly enjoying what he had
already got: why, as if he still were indigent, should he at so
great an age leave his glory and his triumphs to go into Cappadocia
and the Euxine Sea, to fight Archelaus and Neoptolemus, Mithridates's
generals? Marius's pretenses for this action of his seemed very
ridiculous; for he said he wanted to go and teach his son to be a
general.
The condition of the city, which had long been unsound and diseased,
became hopeless now that Marius found so opportune an instrument for
the public destruction as Sulpicius's insolence. This man professed,
in all other respects, to admire and imitate Saturninus; only he
found fault with him for backwardness and want of spirit in his
designs. He, therefore, to avoid this fault, got six hundred of the
equestrian order about him as his guard, whom he named anti-senators;
and with these confederates he set upon the consuls, whilst they were
at the assembly, and took the son of one of them, who fled from the
forum, and slew him. Sylla, being hotly pursued, took refuge in
Marius's house, which none could suspect, by that means escaping
those that sought him, who hastily passed by there, and, it is said,
was safely conveyed by Marius himself out at the other door, and came
to the camp. Yet Sylla, in his memoirs, positively denies that he
fled to Marius, saying he was carried thither to consult upon the
matters to which Sulpicius would have forced him, against his will,
to consent; that he, surrounding him with drawn swords, hurried him
to Marius, and constrained him thus, till he went thence to the forum
and removed, as they required him to do, the interdict on business.
Sulpicius, having thus obtained the mastery, decreed the command of
the army to Marius, who proceeded to make preparations for his march,
and sent two tribunes to receive the charge of the army from Sylla.
Sylla hereupon exasperating his soldiers, who were about thirty-five
thousand full-armed men, led them towards Rome. First falling upon
the tribunes Marius had sent, they slew them; Marius having done as
much for several of Sylla's friends in Rome, and now offering their
freedom to the slaves on condition of their assistance in the war; of
whom, however, they say, there were but three who accepted his
proposal. For some small time he made head against Sylla's assault,
but was soon overpowered and fled; those that were with him, as soon
as he had escaped out of the city, were dispersed, and night coming
on, he hastened to a country-house of his, called Solonium. Hence he
sent his son to some neighboring farms of his father-in-law, Mucius,
to provide necessaries; he went himself to Ostia, where his friend
Numerius had prepared him a ship, and hence, not staying for his son,
he took with him his son-in-law Granius, and weighed anchor.
Young Marius, coming to Mucius's farms, made his preparations; and
the day breaking, was almost discovered by the enemy. For there came
thither a party of horse that suspected some such matter; but the
farm steward, foreseeing their approach, hid Marius in a cart full of
beans, then yoking in his team and driving toward the city, met
those that were in search of him. Marius, thus conveyed home to his
wife, took with him some necessaries, and came at night to the
sea-side; where, going on board a ship that was bound for Africa, he
went away thither. Marius, the father, when he had put to sea, with
a strong gale passing along the coast of Italy, was in no small
apprehension of one Geminius, a great man at Terracina, and his
enemy; and therefore bade the seamen hold off from that place. They
were, indeed, willing to gratify him, but the wind now blowing in
from the sea, and making the waves swell to a great height, they were
afraid the ship would not be able to weather out the storm, and
Marius, too, being indisposed and seasick, they made for land, and
not without some difficulty reached the shore near Circeium.
The storm now increasing and their victuals failing, they left their
ship and wandered up and down without any certain purpose, simply as
in great distresses people shun the present as the greatest evil, and
rely upon the hopes of uncertainties. For the land and sea were both
equally unsafe for them; it was dangerous to meet with people, and it
was no less so to meet with none, on account of their want of
necessaries. At length, though late, they lighted upon a few poor
shepherds, that had not anything to relieve them; but knowing
Marius, advised him to depart as soon as might be, for they had seen
a little beyond that place a party of horse that were gone in search
of him. Finding himself in a great straight, especially because
those that attended him were not able to go further, being spent with
their long fasting, for the present he turned aside out of the road,
and hid himself in a thick wood, where he passed the night in great
wretchedness. The next day, pinched with hunger, and willing to make
use of the little strength he had, before it were all exhausted, he
traveled by the seaside, encouraging his companions not to fall away
from him before the fulfillment of his final hopes, for which, in
reliance on some old predictions, he professed to be sustaining
himself. For when he was yet but very young, and lived in the
country, he caught in the skirt of his garment an eagle's nest, as it
was falling, in which were seven young ones, which his parents seeing
and much admiring, consulted the augurs about it, who told them that
he should become the greatest man in the world, and that the fates
had decreed he should seven times be possessed of the supreme power
and authority. Some are of opinion that this really happened to
Marius, as we have related it; others say, that those who then and
through the rest of his exile heard him tell these stories, and
believed him, have merely repeated a story that is altogether
fabulous; for an eagle never hatches more than two; and even Musaeus
was deceived, who, speaking of the eagle, says that, --
"She lays three eggs, hatches two, and rears one."
However this be, it is certain Marius, in his exile and greatest
extremities, would often say, that he should attain a seventh
consulship.
When Marius and his company were now about twenty furlongs distant
from Minturnae, a city in Italy, they espied a troop, of horse making
up toward them with all speed, and by chance, also, at the same time,
two ships under sail. Accordingly, they ran every one with what
speed and strength they could to the sea, and plunging into it, swam
to the ships. Those that were with Granius, reaching one of them,
passed over to an island opposite, called Aenaria; Marius himself
whose body was heavy and unwieldy, was with great pains and
difficulty kept above the water by two servants, and put into the
other ship. The soldiers were by this time come to the seaside, and
from thence called out to the seamen to put to shore, or else to
throw out Marius, and then they might go whither they would. Marius
besought them with tears to the contrary, and the masters of the
ship, after frequent changes, in a short space of time, of their
purpose, inclining, first to one, then to the other side, resolved at
length to answer the soldiers, that they would not give up Marius.
As soon as they had ridden off in a rage, the seamen, again changing
their resolution, came to land, and casting anchor at the mouth of
the river Liris, where it overflows and makes a great marsh, they
advised him to land, refresh himself on shore, and take some care of
his discomposed body, till the wind came fairer; which, said they,
will happen at such an hour, when the wind from the sea will calm,
and that from the marshes rise. Marius, following their advice, did
so, and when the sea-men had set him on shore, he laid him down in an
adjacent field, suspecting nothing less than what was to befall him.
They, as soon as they had got into the ship, weighed anchor and
departed, as thinking it neither honorable to deliver Marius into the
hands of those that sought him, nor safe to protect him.
He thus, deserted by all, lay a good while silently on the shore; at
length collecting himself, he advanced with pain and difficulty,
without any path, till, wading through deep bogs and ditches full of
water and mud, he came upon the hut of an old man that worked in the
fens, and falling at his feet besought him to assist and preserve one
who, if he escaped the present danger, would make him returns beyond
his expectation. The poor man, whether he had formerly known him, or
were then moved with his superior aspect, told him that if he wanted
only rest, his cottage would be convenient; but if he were flying
from anybody's search, he would hide him in a more retired place.
Marius desiring him to do so, he carried him into the fens and bade
him hide himself in an hollow place by the river side, where he laid
upon him a great many reeds, and other things that were light, and
would cover, but not oppress him. But within a very short time he
was disturbed with a noise and tumult from the cottage, for Geminius
had sent several from Terracina in pursuit of him; some of whom,
happening to come that way, frightened and threatened the old man for
having entertained and hid an enemy of the Romans. Wherefore Marius,
arising and stripping himself, plunged into a puddle full of thick
muddy water; and even there he could not escape their search, but was
pulled out covered with mire, and carried away naked to Minturnae,
and delivered to the magistrates. For there had been orders sent
through all the towns, to make public search for Marius, and if they
found him to kill him; however, the magistrates thought convenient to
consider a little better of it first, and sent him prisoner to the
house of one Fannia.
This woman was supposed not very well affected towards him upon an
old account. One Tinnius had formerly married this Fannia; from whom
she afterwards being divorced, demanded her portion, which was
considerable, but her husband accused her of adultery; so the
controversy was brought before Marius in his sixth consulship. When
the cause was examined thoroughly, it appeared both that Fannia had
been incontinent, and that her husband knowing her to be so, had
married and lived a considerable time with her. So that Marius was
severe enough with both, commanding him to restore her portion, and
laying a fine of four copper coins upon her by way of disgrace. But
Fannia did not then behave like a woman that had been injured, but as