riends of Marius. Accordingly Sabaco was cited before the judices;
he explained the circumstance by saying that the heat had made him
very thirsty, and he called for a cup of cold water, which his slave
brought to him within the septa, and left it as soon as he had drunk
the water. Sabaco was ejected from the Senate by the next censors, and
people were of opinion that he deserved it, either because he had
given false testimony or for his intemperance. Caius Herennius also
was summoned as a witness against Marius, but he declared that it was
contrary to established usage to give testimony against a client[60]
and that patrons (for this is the name that the Romans give to
protectors) were legally excused from this duty, and that the parents
of Marius, and Marius himself, originally were clients of his house.
Though the judices accepted the excuse as valid, Marius himself
contradicted Herennius, and maintained that for the moment when he was
declared to be elected to a magistracy, he became divested of the
relation of client; which was not exactly true, for it is not every
magistracy which releases a man who has obtained it, and his family,
from the necessity of having a patron, but only those magistracies to
which the law assigns the curule seat. However, on the first days of
the trial it went hard with Marius, and the judices were strongly
against him; yet on the last day, contrary to all expectation, he was
acquitted, the votes being equal.

VI. During his praetorship Marius got only a moderate degree of credit.
But on the expiration of his office he obtained by lot the further
province of Iberia (Spain), and it is said that during his command he
cleared all the robber[61] establishments out of his government, which
was still an uncivilised country in its habits and in a savage state,
as the Iberians had not yet ceased to consider robbery as no
dishonourable occupation. Though Marius had now embarked in a public
career, he had neither wealth nor eloquence, by means of which those
who then held the chief power were used to manage the people. But the
resoluteness of his character, and his enduring perseverance in toil,
and his plain manner of living, got him the popular favour, and he
increased in estimation and influence, so as to form a matrimonial
alliance with the illustrious house of the Caesars,[62] with Julia,
whose nephew Caesar afterwards became the greatest of the Romans and in
some degree imitated his relation