ing large sums of money to the
tribes and buying their votes Marius kept Metellus out, and that
Valerius Flaccus was rather the servant than the colleague of Marius
in his sixth consulship. However, the people, never conferred the
office of consul so often on any man except Corvinus Valerius;[107]
though it is said that forty-five years elapsed between the first and
last consulship of Corvinus, while Marius after his first consulship
enjoyed the remaining five in uninterrupted succession.

XXIX. It was in his last consulship that Marius got most odium, from
his participating in many of the violent measures of Saturninus. One
of them was the assassination of Nonius,[108] whom Saturninus
murdered because he was a rival candidate for the tribuneship.
Saturninus, being made a tribune, introduced a measure about the land,
to which[109] was added a clause that the Senate should come forward
and swear that they would abide by whatever the people should vote,
and would make no opposition. In the Senate Marius made a show of
opposing this clause in the proposed law, and he said that he would
not take the oath, nor did he think that any man in his senses would,
for if the law was not a bad one, it was an insult for the Senate to
be compelled to make such concession, instead of giving their consent
voluntarily. What he said, however, was not his real mind, but his
object was to involve Metellus in a difficulty which he could not
evade. For Marius, who considered falsehood to be a part of virtue and
skill, had no intention to observe what he had promised to the Senate;
but as he knew that Metellus was a man of his word, and considered
truth, as Pindar calls it, the foundation of great virtue, he wished
to entrap Metellus into a refusal before the Senate, and as he would
consequently decline taking the oath, he designed in this way to make
him odious to the people for ever: and it fell out so. Upon Metellus
declaring that he would never take the oath, the Senate separated; but
a few days after, Saturninus summoned the Senators to the Rostra, and
urged them to take the oath. When Marius came forward there was
profound silence, and all eyes were turned upon him to see what he
would do. Marius, however, forgetting all his bold expressions before
the Senate, said his neck was not broad enough for him to be the first
to give his opinion on so weighty a matter all at once, and that he
would take the oath and obey the law, if it was a law;