THE ADVENTURES OF MARIUS.
93--84.
The chief foe of Marius was almost always his second in command, Publius
Cornelius Sulla, one of the men of highest family in Rome. He had all
the high culture and elegant learning that the rough soldier Marius
despised, spoke and wrote Greek as easily as Latin, and was as well read
in Greek poetry and philosophy as any Athenian could be; but he was
given up to all the excesses of luxury in which the wealthy Romans
indulged, and his way of life had made him frightful to look at. His
face was said to be like a mulberry sprinkled with salt, with a terrible
pair of blue eyes glaring out of it.
In 93 he was sent to command against Mithridates, king of Pontus, one
of the little kingdoms in Asia Minor that had sprung up out of the
break-up of Alexander's empire. Under this king, Mithridates, it had
grown very powerful. He was of Persian birth, had all the learning and
science both of Greece and the far East, and was said in especial to be
wonderfully learned in all plants and their virtues, so as to have made
himself proof against all kinds of poison, and he could speak
twenty-five languages.
He had great power in Asia Minor, and took upon himself to appoint a
king of Cappadocia, thus leading to a quarrel with the Romans. In the
midst of the Social War, when he thought they had their hands full in
Italy, Mithridates caused all the native inhabitants of Asia Minor to
rise upon the Romans among them in one night and murder them all, so
that 80,000 are said to have perished. Sulla was ordered to take the
command of the army which was to avenge their death; but, while he was
raising his forces, Marius, angry that the patricians had hindered the
plebeians and Italians from gaining more by the Social War, raised up a
great tumult, meaning to overpower the patricians' resistance. He would
have done more wisely had he waited until Sulla was quite gone, for that
general came back to the rescue of his friends with six newly-raised
legions, and Marius could only just contrive to escape from Rome, where
he was proclaimed a traitor and a price set on his head. He was now
seventy years old, but full of spirit. First he escaped to his own farm,
whence he hoped to reach Ostia, where a ship was waiting for him; but a
party of horsemen were seen coming, and he was hidden in a cart full of
beans and driven down the coast, where he embarked, meaning to go to
Africa; but adverse winds and want of food forced him to land at
Circæum, whence, with a few friends, he made his way along the coast,
through woods and rocks, keeping up the spirits of his companions by
telling them that, when a little boy, he robbed an eyrie of seven
eaglets, and that a soothsayer had then foretold that he would be seven
times consul. At last a troop of horse was seen coming towards them, and
at the same time two ships near the coast. The only hope was in swimming
out to the nearest ship, and Marius was so heavy and old that this was
done with great difficulty. Even then the ships were so near the shore
that the pursuers could command the crew to throw Marius out, but this
they refused to do, though they only waited till the soldiers were gone,
to put him on shore again. Here he was in a marshy, boggy place, where
an old man let him rest in his cottage, and then hid him in a cave under
a heap of rushes. Again, however, the troops appeared, and threatened
the old man for hiding an enemy of the Romans. It was in Marius'
hearing, and fearing to be betrayed, he rushed out into a pool, where he
stood up to his neck in water till a soldier saw him, and he was dragged
out and taken to the city of Minturnæ.
[Illustration: THE CATAPULT.]
There the council decided on his death, and sent a soldier to kill him,
but the fierce old man stood glaring at him, and said. "Darest thou
kill Caius Marius?" The man was so frightened that he ran away, crying
out, "I cannot kill Caius Marius." The Senate of Minturnæ took this as
an omen, and remembered besides that he had been a good friend to the
Italians, so they conducted him through a sacred grove to the sea, and
sent him off to Africa. On landing, he sent his son to ask shelter from
one of the Numidian princes, and, while waiting for an answer, he was
harassed by a messenger from a Roman officer of low rank, forbidding his
presence in Africa. He made no reply till the messenger pressed to know
what to say to his master. Then the old man looked up, and sternly
answered. "Say that you have seen Caius Marius sitting in the ruins of
Carthage"--a grand rebuke for the insult to fallen greatness. But the
Numidian could not receive him, and he could only find shelter in a
little island on the coast.
There he soon heard that no sooner had Sulla embarked for the East than
Rome had fallen into dire confusion. The consuls, Caius Octavius and
Publius Cornelius Cinna, were of opposite parties, and had a furious
fight, in which Cinna was driven out of Rome, and at the same time the
Italians had begun a new Social War. Marius saw that his time was come.
He hurried to Etruria, where he was joined by a party of his friends and
five hundred runaway slaves. The discontented Romans formed another army
under Quintus Sertorius, and the Samnites, who had begun the war,
overpowered the troops sent against them, and marched to Rome, declaring
they would have no peace till they had destroyed the wolf's lair. Cinna
and an army were advancing on another side, and, as he was really
consul, the Senate in their distress admitted him, hoping that he would
stop the rest; but when he marched in and seated himself again in the
chair of office, he had by his side old Marius clothed in rags.
[Illustration: ISLAND ON THE COAST.]
They were bent on revenge, and terrible it was, beginning with the
consul, Caius Octavius, who had disdained to flee, and whose head was
severed from his body and displayed in the Forum, with many other
senators of the noblest blood in Rome, who had offended either Marius or
Cinna or any of their fierce followers. Marius walked along in gloomy
silence, answering no one; but his followers were bidden to spare only
those to whom he gave his hand to be kissed. The slaves pillaged the
houses, murdered many on their own account, and everything was in the
wildest uproar, till the two chiefs called in Sertorius with a legion to
restore order.
Then they named themselves consuls, without even asking for an election,
and thus Marius was seven times consul. He wanted to go out to the East
and take the command from Sulla, but his health was too much broken, and
before the year of his consulate was over he died. The last time he had
left the house, he had said to some friends that no man ought to trust
again to such a doubtful fortune as his had been; and then he took to
his bed for seven days without any known illness, and there was found
dead, so that he was thought to have starved himself to death.
Cinna put in another consul named Valerius Flaccus, and invited all the
Italians to enroll themselves as Roman citizens. Then Flaccus went out
to the East, meaning to take away the command from Sulla, who was
hunting Mithridates out of Greece, which he had seized and held for a
short time. But Flaccus' own army rose against him and killed him, and
Sulla, after beating Mithridates, driving him back to Pontus, and making
peace with him, was now to come home.
[Illustration]