MARIUS, GAIUS (155-86 B.c.), Roman general, of plebeian descent, the son of a small farmer of Cereatae (mod. Casamare, "home of Marius") near Arpinum. He served first in Spain under Scipio Africanus, and rose from the ranks to be an officer. In 119 as tribune he proposed a law intended to limit the influence of the nobles at elections. This brought him into conflict with the aristocratic party, who prevented him from obtaining the aedile ship. When about forty years of age he married a lady of patrician rank, Julia, the aunt of Julius Caesar. Praetor in 115, he subdued Further Spain. In the war with Jugurtha (109-106) he came to the front as lieutenant of the consul Quintus Caecilius Metellus Numidicus. He came home in 108 to stand for the consulship, was elected, and proceeded to upset all precedent by over-ruling the Senate on the question of his command, and getting the war with Jugurtha assigned to him by the Assembly. He then raised a large army by another unconstitutional departure, enrolling the classes without property (capiti censi), probably the most momen tous step he ever took. He superseded his old commander Metel lus, and took with him as quaestor L. Sulla, who commanded the cavalry. Between them they brought the war to a triumphant issue, and Marius passed two years in his province of Numidia, which he thoroughly subdued and annexed. The surrender of the person of Jugurtha to Sulla gave rise to the view that he, not Marius, had really ended the war, and so laid the foundation of the subsequent enmity between the two leaders.
Marius was next appointed to the command against the Cimbri and Teutones, who had destroyed two Roman armies near the lake of Geneva. Marius, out of unpromising materials and a de moralized soldiery, organized a well-disciplined army, with which he inflicted on the invaders two decisive defeats, the first in 102 at Aquae Sextiae (Aix), 18 m. north of Marseilles, and the second in the following year near Vercellae (Vercelli), about midway be tween Turin and Milan. In 1 oi Marius was elected consul a fifth time (previously in 107, 104, 103, 102), hailed as the "saviour of his country," and honoured with a triumph.
The glorious part of his career was now over. A very able soldier, as a politician he on the whole failed, though he retained the confidence of the popular party almost to the last. But he un
fortunately associated himself with the demagogues Saturninus (q.v.) and Glaucia, in order to secure the consulship for the sixth time (100). Later their excesses forced him to turn against them, and this cost him his popularity. So he left Rome for Asia, where he endeavoured to provoke Mithridates to hostilities. On his re turn he served as legate in the Social War (90), and defeated the Marsi on two occasions. In 88 war broke out with Mithridates, and Sulla was appointed by the senate to the chief command. While Sulla was at Nola with the army, the tribune Sulpicius Rufus started a programme of revolutionary legislation which in cluded the transfer of the command to Marius. Sulla marched on Rome, crushed the revolution, and outlawed Marius, who fled with a price on his head. After a pict uresque series of incidents which included a frustrated attempt to land at Carthage, he settled for the time in Cercina. No sooner had Sulla left for the East, than Cinna's revolution started. Marius joined Cinna, forced his way into Rome and entered on a reign of terror in which senators and nobles were slaughtered wholesale. He had himself elected consul for the seventh time, in fulfilment of a prophecy given to him in early manhood. Less than three weeks afterwards he died of fever, on Jan. 13, 86.
He carried out to their logical conclusion the processes begun by Rufus, and under the new organization the soldier was a man who had no trade but war. He did not himself use the army as a political weapon, but under the new order the great general was bound to become the ruler of the State.
For Marius the original sources are numerous passages in Cicero's works, Sallust's Jugurtha, the epitomes of the lost books of Livy, Plutarch's Lives of Sulla and Marius, Velleius Paterculus, Florus and Appian's Bellum civile. See F. D. Gerlach, Marius and Sulla (Basel, 1856) ; I. Gilles, Campagne de Marius dans la Gaule (187o) ; W. Votsch, Marius als Reformator des romischen Heerwesens (with notes and references to ancient authorities) 1886 ; A. H. J. Greenidge, History of Rome, vol. i. (1904) ; also ROME: History, II. "The Republic."