s Silanus was defeated by the Cimbri; in B.C. 107 the Tigurini cut
in pieces, near the Lake of Geneva, the army of the Consul L. Cassius
Longinus, the colleague of Marias, who lost his life in the battle; and
shortly afterward M. Aurelius Scaurus was also defeated and taken
prisoner. But the most dreadful loss was still to come. In B.C. 105 two
consular armies, commanded by the Consul Cn. Mallius Maximus and the
Proconsul Cn. Servilius Caepio, consisting of 80,000 men, were completely
annihilated by the barbarians: only two men are said to have escaped the
slaughter.

These repeated disasters hushed all party quarrels. Every one at Rome
felt that Marius was the only man capable of saving the state, and he
was accordingly elected Consul by the unanimous votes of all parties
while he was still absent in Africa. He entered Rome in triumph, as we
have already said, on the 1st of January, B.C. 104, which was the first
day of his second Consulship. Meantime the threatened danger was for a
while averted. Instead of crossing the Alps and pouring down upon Italy,
as had been expected, the Cimbri marched into Spain, which they ravaged
for the next two or three years. This interval was advantageously
employed by Marius in training the new troops, and accustoming them to
hardships and toil. It was probably during this time that he introduced
the various changes into the organization of the Roman army which are
usually attributed to him. Notwithstanding the sternness and severity
with which he punished the least breach of discipline, he was a favorite
with his new soldiers, who learned to place implicit confidence in their
general, and were delighted with the strict impartiality with which he
visited the offenses of the officers as well as of the privates. As the
enemy still continued in Spain, Marius was elected Consul a third time
for the year B.C. 103, and also a fourth time for the following year,
with Q. Lutatius Catulus as his colleague. It was in this year (B.C.
102) that the long-expected barbarians arrived. The Cimbri, who had
returned from Spain, united their forces with the Teutones. Marius first
took up his position in a fortified camp upon the Rhone, probably in the
vicinity of the modern Arles; and as the entrance of the river was
nearly blocked up by mud and sand, he employed his soldiers in digging a
canal from the Rhone to the Mediterranean, that he might the more easily
obtain his supplies from the sea.[65] Meantime