Although the consulship had at this time, in theory, been for two hundred sixty years open to all Roman citizens, nevertheless, in practice, it had, with occasional exceptions, been confined to the members of the few great families. In fact, so general had this become that a man who was the first of his family to be elected to this office was known as a "new man." Not only was Marius a "new man," but his immediate ancestors, in all probability, were men lower in the social and economic scale than had been the father and grandfather of any previous Roman consul. If the rise of Marius was a source of danger to the senatorial party, the qualities which had rendered his success possible were a source of danger to the whole community. Marius was and had been a soldier, and a soldier only. There is nothing in his whole life to indicate that he combined with the attributes of the general any of those of the statesman, as did Cæsar and Napoleon. The same fighting qualities which brought to him success in war likewise produced success in politics, and the same ferocity of disposition was manifested in both fields. The military ability of Marius, in connection with the peculiar circumstances of the times, soon secured to this general a more absolute control of the Roman community than had previously been possessed by any consul of Rome. The military ability of Marius has never been disputed either by his contemporaries or by later historians. His military successes after his election to the consulship were rapid and decisive. Where his predecessors had failed, Marius succeeded in the Jugurthine War, and the year 104 B.C. witnessed at Rome the triumph of Marius, with the craftiest, ablest, and most unscrupulous of African kings walking in chains as a captive in his train. Of greater importance and benefit to Rome were the great victories won by Marius over those terrible invaders, the Teutones and the Cimbrians, who had been threatening Rome and harassing northern Italy for a number of years. In 102 B.C. the Teutones were defeated by Marius at the battle of Aquæ Sextiæ, where the number of the vanquished who were killed is variously estimated at from one hundred twenty thousand to two hundred thousand. The following year, during the fifth consulship of Marius, the Cimbrians were practically annihilated, sixty thousand being captured and sold as slaves and the remainder of the vast host, with few exceptions, killed.