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 Marius, as I have told in the Life of Caesar.  There is evidence both of the temperance of Marius and also of his endurance, which was proved by his behaviour about a surgical operation.  Both his legs, it is said, had become varicose,[63] and as he disliked this deformity, he resolved to put himself in the surgeon’s hands.  Accordingly he presented to the surgeon one of his legs without allowing himself to be bound; and without making a single movement or uttering a single groan, with steady countenance and in silence he endured excessive pain during the operation.  But when the surgeon was going to take the other leg, Marius refused to present it, saying that he perceived the cure was not worth the pain.

VII.  When Caecilius Metellus[64] was appointed consul with the command of the war against Jugurtha, he took Marius with him to Libya in the capacity of legatus.[65] Here Marius signalised himself by great exploits and brilliant success in battle, but he did not, like the rest, seek to increase the glory of Metellus and to direct all his efforts for the advantage of his general, but disdaining to be called a legatus of Metellus, and considering that fortune had offered him a most favourable opportunity and a wide theatre for action, he displayed his courage on every occasion.  Though the war was accompanied with many hardships, he shrunk not from danger however great, and he thought nothing too mean to be neglected, but in prudent measures and careful foresight he surpassed all the officers of his own rank, and he vied with the soldiers in hard living and endurance, and thus gained their affections.  For certainly there is nothing which reconciles a man so readily to toil as to see another voluntarily sharing it with him, for thus the compulsion seems to be taken away; and the most agreeable sight to a Roman soldier is to see his general in his presence eating common bread or sleeping on a coarse mat, or taking a hand in any trench-work and fortification.