the storm
increased; Marius was sea-sick, and they were forced to go ashore at
Circeii (Monte Circello). Some herdsmen told them that horsemen had
just been there in pursuit; so they spent the night in a thick wood,
hungry, and tortured by anxiety. Next day they went to the coast
again, and Marius implored the men to stand by him, telling them that
when he was a child an eagle's nest fell into his lap, with seven
young ones in it, and the soothsayers had said that it meant that
he should attain to the highest honours seven times. [Sidenote:
Minturnae.] About two miles and a half from Minturnae they spied some
horsemen making towards them; and, plunging into the sea, they swam
towards some merchantmen near the shore. Two slaves swam with Marius,
keeping him up, and he got into one ship, and his son-in-law into the
other, while the horsemen shouted to the crew to put ashore, or throw
Marius overboard. The captains consulted together, and a terrible
moment it must have been for the fugitives. But the spell of the
Cimbric victories was potent still, and the captains replied that they
would not give up Marius. So the soldiers rode off in a rage. But the
sailors, having so far acted generously, were anxious to get rid of
their dangerous guest, and, landing at the mouth of the Liris, on
pretence of waiting for a fair wind, told Marius to go ashore and get
some rest, and, while he was lying down, sailed away. Half stupified,
he scrambled through bogs, and dykes, and mud, till he came to an
old man's cottage, and begged the owner to shelter a man who, if he
escaped, would reward him beyond his hopes. The man told him that he
could hide him in a safer place than his cottage; and, showing him a
hole by the riverside, covered him up in it with some rushes. But he
was soon rudely disturbed. Geminius was on his trail, and Marius heard
some of his emissaries loudly threatening the old man for hiding an
outlaw. In his terror Marius stripped and plunged into the river, and
so betrayed himself to the pursuers, who hauled him out naked and
covered with mud, and gave him up to the magistrates of Minturnae. By
these he was placed under a strong guard in the house of a woman named
Fannia. She, like Geminius, had a personal grudge against him, for in
his sixth consulship he had fined her four drachmas for ill-conduct.
But now when she saw his misery she forgot her resentment, and did
her best to cheer him. Nor was this difficult, for the stou