CAIUS MARIUS 29 of the population, capable of instant combination, and in combination, irresisti- ble, save by opposing combinations of the same kind. The danger from the Germans was no sooner gone than political anarchy broke loose again. Marius, the man of the people, was the saviour of his coun- try. He was made consul a fifth time, and a sixth. The party which had given him his command shared, of course, in his pre-eminence. The elections could be no longer interfered with or the voters intimidated. The public offices were filled with the most violent agitators, who believed that the time had come to revenge the Gracchi, and carry out the democratic revolution, to establish the ideal Republic, and the direct rule of the citizen assembly. This, too, was a chimera. If the Roman Senate could not govern, far less could the Roman mob govern. Marius stood aside, and let the voices rage. He could not be expected to support a system which had brought the country so near to ruin. He had no belief in the visions of the demagogues, but the time was not ripe to make an end of it all. Had he tried, the army would not have gone with him ; so he sat still, till faction had done its work. The popular heroes of the hour were the tribune Saturninus and the praetor Glaucia. They carried corn laws and land laws whatever laws they pleased to propose. The administration re- maining with the Senate, they carried a vote that every senator should take an oath to execute their laws under penalty of fine and expulsion. Marius did not like it, and even opposed it, but let it pass at last. Marius was an indifferent politician. He perceived as well as any one that violence must not go on, but he hesitated to put it down. He knew that the aristocracy feared and hated him. Between them and the people's consul no al- liance was possible. He did not care to alienate his friends, and there may have been other difficulties which we do not know, in his way. The army itself was perhaps divided. On the popular side there were two parties : a moderate one, represented by Memmius, who, as tribune, had impeached the senators for the Jugurthine infamies ; the other, the advanced radicals, led by Glaucia and Sa- turninus. Memmius and Glaucia were both candidates for the consulship ; and as Memmius was likely to succeed, he was murdered. Above the tumults of the factions in the Capitol a cry rising into shrillness began to be heard from Italy. Caius Gracchus had wished to extend the Ro- man franchise to the Jtalian states, and the suggestion had cost him his popu- larity and his life. The Italian provinces had furnished their share of the armies which had beaten Jugurtha, and had destroyed the German invaders. They now demanded that they should have the position which Gracchus designed for them : that they should be allowed to legislate for themselves, and no longer lie at the mercy of others, who neither understood their necessities, nor cared for their in- terests. They had no friends in the city, save a few far-sighted statesmen. Sen- ate and mob had at least one point of agreement, that the spoils of the Empire should be fought for among themselves ; and at the first mention of the invasion of their monopoly a law was passed making the very agitation of the subject punishable by death.
