thus what had formerly been quite right, had ceased to be so, now that circumstances were changed. On the whole, though I am by no means blind to the grievous faults of Marius,--nay, if you will, to his vices,--it certainly shows a want of sense, to speak of him as if it had been better for the republic that he had never been born. That he was worthy of his high renown, is undeniable; and though his cruelties are not to be excused, he was indeed a great man, and one ought to try to understand and account for his failings. Two such different men, as Cicero and Cæsar, had a great fondness for Marius: Cæsar, when a boy, loved with all his soul the husband of his aunt Julia; and Cicero, even in spite of his party, felt proud of being, as an Arpinate, the countryman of Marius. Marius now employed his second and third consulships in forming a new army. Happily for Rome, the Cimbri were all this while in Spain. Eleven years had now passed since their first appearance; so that we see how quickly the tide of emigration which no bounds could hitherto stay, set in towards the west: had they succeeded in Spain, it is very possible that they would have gone to Africa. Marius had to find soldiers as he best could: what was left of the old army, was shattered and demoralized, all but the troops which had returned from Numidia; he was therefore obliged to train his raw levies for the field, by mingling them with the few veterans who had won many a battle: in his fourth consulship, his army was formed. In the third already, he had been in the south of France near the Rhone, probably on the frontiers of Provence and Dauphiné, between Arles and Avignon; and that part of the country, which was as near the enemy as could be, he had chosen as his exercising ground, that he might force his men to keep with all their might on the alert: those who were not able to stand the work, sank under it; the rest were so much the better soldiers. As the Rhone, like all the rivers of the Mediterranean, has its mouth choked up with silt, he dug in all haste a canal to open a free communication with the sea. During his fourth consulship he advanced towards the spot where the Isere and the Rhone meet, expecting that the Cimbri and Teutones would return from Spain: it was thought that they would cross the Alps, and follow the same road which Hannibal had once chosen. All feelings of hatred in the Gauls, had of course died away. If it be true that Marius was obliged to use intrigues to get this consulship, it is a very bad case, and a proof of the blind infatuation of the oligarchy.