out to govern the
provinces, the expenses were repaid by cruel grinding and robbing the
people of the conquered states.

CHAPTER XXIII.

THE WARS OF MARIUS.

106-98.

After the death of Massinissa, king of Numidia, the ally of the Romans,
there were disputes among his grandsons, and Jugurtha, whom they held to
have the least right, obtained the kingdom. The commander of the army
sent against him was Caius Marius, who had risen from being a free Roman
peasant in the village of Arpinum, but serving under Scipio AEmilianus,
had shown such ability, that when some one was wondering where they
would find the equal of Scipio when he was gone, that general touched
the shoulder of his young officer and said, "Possibly here."

Rough soldier as he always was, he married Julia, of the high family of
the Caesars, who were said to be descended from AEneas; and though he was
much disliked by the Senate, he always carried the people with him. When
he received the province of Numidia, instead of, as every one had done
before, forming his army only of Roman citizens, he offered to enlist
whoever would, and thus filled his ranks with all sorts of wild and
desperate men, whom he could indeed train to fight, but who had none of
the old feeling for honor or the state, and this in the end made a great
change in Rome.

Jugurtha maintained a wild war in the deserts of Africa with Marius, but
at last he was betrayed to the Romans by his friend Bocchus, another
Moorish king, and Lucius Cornelius Sulla, Marius' lieutenant, was sent
to receive him--a transaction which Sulla commemorated on a signet ring
which he always wore. Poor Jugurtha was kept two years to appear at the
triumph, where he walked in chains, and then was thrown alive into the
dungeon under the Capitol, where he took six days to die of cold and
hunger.

Marius was elected consul for the second time even before he had quite
come home from Africa, for it was a time of great danger. Two fierce and
terrible tribes, whom the Romans called Cimbri and Teutones, and who
were but the vanguard of the swarms who would overwhelm them six
centuries later, had come down through Germany to the settled countries
belonging to Rome, especially the lands round the old Greek settlements
in Gaul, which had fallen of course into the hands of the Romans, and
were full of beautiful rich cities, with houses and gardens round them.
The Province, as the Romans called it, would have been gran