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nothing but slaughter and booty, roving and warlike as well by inclination as necessity, would have harassed by continual inroads, a people which had let them see that they were at once richer and weaker than themselves. The prudent firmness of the Senate, and the valour of Marius saved Rome for this time from the danger under which it afterwards sunk. All the citizens now turned their eyes towards the conqueror of Jugurtha, as their last and only support. They decreed him consular honours for the fourth time, and associated with him Catulus Luctatius, a person scarcely inferior to him in military skill, and who far excelled him in all the other qualities, which make a great stateſman.
Marius having quickly discovered that the ill success of his predecessors was the effect of their imprudence, formed to himself a very different plan of conduct. In particular, he resolved not to join battle with the enemy, till their furious ardour was abated, and till his soldiers familiarized to the sight of them, should no longer consider themselves as conquered before they came to blows. Their former victories, their tallness of stature, rendered still more terrible by their dress, their ferocious air, their barbarous shouts, and unusual manner of fighting, had all contributed to
