He was as careful for their moral state as for their physical fitness, and labored to exalt their imaginations as well as to harden their bodies.  In that camp, and amidst those toils in which he kept them strictly engaged, frequent sacrifices, and scrupulous care in consulting the oracles, kept superstition at a white heat.  A Syrian prophetess, named Martha, who had been sent to Marius by his wife Julia, the aunt of Julius Caesar, was ever with him, and accompanied him at the sacred ceremonies and on the march, being treated with the greatest respect, and having vast influence over the minds of the soldiers.

Two years rolled on in this fashion; and yet Marius would not move.  The increasing devastation of the country, fire, and famine, the despair and complaints of the inhabitants, did not shake his resolution.  Nor was the confidence he inspired both in the camp and at Rome a whit shaken:  he was twice re-elected consul, once while he was still absent, and once during a visit he paid to Rome to give directions to his party in person.

It was at Rome, in the year 102 B.C., that he learned how the Kymrians, weary of Spain, had recrossed the Pyrenees, rejoined their old comrades, and had at last resolved, in concert, to invade Italy; the Kymrians from the north, by way of Helvetia and Noricum, the Teutons and Ambrons from the south, by way of the maritime Alps.  They were to form a junction on the banks of the Po, and thence march together on Rome.  At this news Marius returned forthwith to Gaul, and, without troubling himself about the Kymrians, who had really put themselves in motion towards the north-east, he placed his camp so as to cover at one and the same time the two Roman roads which crossed at Arles, and by one of which the Ambro-Teutons must necessarily pass to enter Italy on the south.

They soon appeared “in immense numbers,” say the historians, “with their hideous looks and their wild cries,” drawing up their chariots and planting their tents in front of the Roman camp.  They showered upon Marius and his soldiers continual insult and defiance.  The Romans, in their irritation, would fain have rushed out of their camp, but Marius restrained them.  “It is no question,” said he, with his simple and convincing common sense, “of gaining triumphs and trophies; it is a question of averting this storm of war and of saving Italy.”  A Teutonic chieftain came one day up to the very gates of the camp, and challenged him to fight.  Marius had him informed that if he were tired of life he could go and hang himself.  As the barbarian still persisted, Marius sent him a gladiator.

However, he made his soldiers, in regular succession, mount the ramparts, to get them familiarized with the cries, looks, arms, and movements of the barbarians.  The most distinguished of his officers, young Sertorius, who understood and spoke Gallic well, penetrated, in the disguise of a Gaul, into the camp of the Ambrons, and informed Marius of what was going on there.