Three consuls, L. Cassius, C. Servilius Omepio, and Cu.  Manlius, successively experienced the same fate.  With the barbarians victory bred presumption.  Their chieftains met and deliberated whether they should not forthwith cross into Italy, to exterminate or enslave the Romans, and make Kymrian spoken at Rome.  Scaurus, a prisoner, was in the tent, loaded with fetters, during the deliberation.  He was questioned about the resources of his country.  “Cross not the Alps,” said he; “go not into Italy:  the Romans are invincible.”  In a transport of fury the chieftain of the Kymrians, Boiorix by name, fell upon the Roman, and ran him through.  Howbeit the advice of Scaurus was followed.  The barbarians did not as yet dare to decide upon invading Italy; but they freely scoured the Roman province, meeting here with repulse, and there with re-enforcement from the peoplets who formed the inhabitants.  The Tectosagian Voles, Hymrian in origin and maltreated by Rome, joined them.  Then, on a sudden, whilst the Teutons and Ambrons remained in Gaul, the Kymrians passed over to Spain without apparent motive, and probably as an overswollen torrent divides, and disperses its waters in all directions.  The commotion at Rome was extreme; never had so many or such wild barbarians threatened the Republic; never had so many or such large Roman armies been beaten in succession.  There was but one man, it was said, who could avert the danger, and give Rome the ascendency.  It was Marius, low-born, but already illustrious; esteemed by the Senate for his genius as a commander and for his victories; swaying at his will the people, who saw in him one of themselves, and admired without envying him; beloved and feared by the army for his bravery, his rigorous discipline, and his readiness to share their toils and dangers; stern and rugged; without education, eloquence, or riches; ill-suited for shining in public assemblies, but resolute and dexterous in action; verily made to dominate the vigorous but unrefined multitude, whether in camp or city, partly by participating their feelings, partly by giving them in his own person a specimen of the deserts and sometimes of the virtues which they esteem but do not possess.

He was consul in Africa, where he was putting an end to the war with Jugurtha.  He was elected a second time consul, without interval and in his absence, contrary to all the laws of the Republic.  Scarcely had he returned, when, on descending from the Capitol, where he had just received a triumph for having conquered and captured Jugurtha, he set out for Gaul.  On his arrival, instead of proceeding, as his predecessors, to attack the barbarians at once, he confined himself to organizing and inuring his troops, subjecting them to frequent marches, all kinds of military exercises, and long and hard labor.  To insure supplies he made them dig, towards the mouths of the Rhone, a large canal which formed a junction with the river a little above Arles, and which, at its entrance into the sea, offered good harborage for vessels.  This canal, which existed for a long while under the name of Rossae Mariance (the dikes of Marius), is filled up nowadays; but at its southern extremity the village of Foz still preserves a remembrance of it.  Trained in this severe school, the soldiers acquired such a reputation for sobriety and laborious assiduity, that they were proverbially called Marius’s mules.