"A law was passed prohibiting any slave from carrying a warlike weapon. Rigorously was this law enforced. At one time a boar of remarkable size was sent as a present to L. Domicius, then prætor of the island. He inquired who had killed it. On being informed that it was a slave, who was employed as a shepherd, he summoned the man before him, and asked how he had contrived to kill so powerful an animal. The shepherd replied that he had killed it with a boar spear. The merciless Domicius ordered him immediately to be crucified for having used a weapon in violation of the law. This rigor was pursued so unrelentingly, that, for a long period, there were no more revolts!" (Abbott's _History of Italy_.) The victories of Marius over the Teutones and Cimbrians had been followed by his sixth election to the consulship. This election, however, had not been secured without great difficulty and tumult. The aristocratic party had been consistently the opponents and enemies of Marius throughout his whole career. The great victories which he had won for Rome, instead of reconciling this class to him, had made them only the more jealous and fearful of him. By this time Marius had in addition, to a great extent, alienated the lower classes of the Roman citizens. The enmity between the proletariat at Rome and the Italians, which had commenced at the time of the younger Gracchus, had been constantly increasing. Marius had inclined more and more toward the side of the Italians. Like most generals, his thoughts and affections were for his soldiers rather than for the state which he served; and the soldiers over whom Marius had command and with whom he had won his great victories were mainly Italians. The degenerate city mob at Rome no longer desired or was fit for military life, and the safety of Rome and the extension of her territories now rested mainly upon those to whom the rights of her citizenship were denied. The Italians, probably appreciating both the strength of their position and the injustice of their treatment, were demanding the rights of Roman citizenship, and in this demand they found a sympathizer in the consul Marius. Immediately after his victories in the north of Italy, Marius, in direct violation of the law, had granted Roman citizenship to one thousand soldiers in his army who had distinguished themselves in the campaign. His excuse was characteristic of the existing conditions and prophetic of the course of Roman history during the succeeding century: "Amid the din of arms, I could not hear the voice of the laws." During his sixth consulship Marius endeavored to secure the Roman franchise for certain of his soldiers in a more regular manner. The tribunes, Apuleius Saturninus and Servilius Glaucia, secured the passage of a law by which Marius was authorized to grant the rights of Roman citizenship to three persons in every colony which enjoyed the Latin franchise.