SOLDIERS AND SAILORS tnand in the African campaign. He was moderately successful. Towns were taken, battles were won : Metellus was incorruptible, and the Numidians sued for peace. But Jugurtha wanted terms, and the consul demanded unconditional surrender. Jugurtlui withdrew into the desert; the war dragged on ; and Marius, perhaps ambitious, perhaps impatient at the general's want of vigor, began to think that he could make quicker work of it. The popular party were stirring jirain in Rome, the Senate having so notoriously disgraced itself. There was just irritation that a petty African prince could defy the whole power of Rome for so many years ; and though a democratic consul had been unheard of for a century, the name of Marius began to be spoken of as a possible candidate. Marius consented to stand. The law required that he must be present in person at the election, and he applied to his commander for leave of absence. Metellus laughed at his pretensions, and bade him wait another twenty years. Marius, however, persisted, and was allowed to go. The patricians strained their re- sources to defeat him, but he was chosen with enthusiasm. Metellus was re- called, and the conduct of the Numidian war was assigned to the new hero of the " Populares." A shudder of alarm ran, no doubt, through the Senate house, when the deter- mination of the people was known. A successful general could not be disposed of so easily as oratorical tribunes. Fortunately, Marius was not a politician. He had no belief in democracy. He was a soldier, and had a soldier's way of thinking on government and the methods of it. His first step was a reformation in the army. Hitherto the Roman legions had been no more than the citizens in arms, called for the moment from their various occupations, to return to them when the occasion for their services was past. Marius had perceived that fewer men, better trained and disciplined, could be made more effective and be more easily handled. He had studied war as a science. He had perceived that the present weakness need be no more than an accident, and that there was a latent force in the Roman state, which needed only organization to resume its ascen- dency. " He enlisted," it was said, " the worst of the citizens," men, that is to say, who had no occupation, and who became soldiers by profession ; and as per- sons without property could not have furnished themselves at their own cost, he must have carried out the scheme proposed by Gracchus, and equipped them at the expense of the state. His discipline was of the sternest. The experiment was new ; and men of rank who had a taste for war in earnest, and did not wish that the popular party should have the whole benefit and credit of the improve- ments, were willing to go with him ; among them a dissipated young patrician, called Lucius Sulla, whose name also was destined to be memorable. By these methods, and out of these materials, an army was formed, such as no Roman general had hitherto led. It performed extraordinary marches, car- ried its water-supplies with it in skins, and followed the enemy across sandy des- erts hitherto found impassable. In less than two years the war was over. The Moors, to whom Jugurtha had fled, surrendered him to Sulla ; and he was brought in chains to Rome, where he finished his life in a dungeon.
