Marius was elected consul for the second time even before he had quite come home from Africa, for it was a time of great danger.  Two fierce and terrible tribes, whom the Romans called Cimbri and Teutones, and who were but the vanguard of the swarms who would overwhelm them six centuries later, had come down through Germany to the settled countries belonging to Rome, especially the lands round the old Greek settlements in Gaul, which had fallen of course into the hands of the Romans, and were full of beautiful rich cities, with houses and gardens round them.  The Province, as the Romans called it, would have been grand plundering ground for these savages, and Marius established himself in a camp on the banks of the Rhone to protect it, cutting a canal to bring his provisions from the sea, which still remains.  While he was thus engaged, he was a fourth time elected consul.

[Illustration:  MARIUS.]

The enemy began to move.  The Cimbri meant to march eastward round the Alps, and pour through the Tyrol into Italy; the Teutones to go by the West, fighting Marius on the way.  But he would not come out of his camp on the Rhone, though the Teutones, as they passed, shouted to ask the Roman soldiers what messages they had to send to their wives in Italy.

When they had all passed, he came out of his camp and followed them as far as Aquae Sextiae, now called Aix, where one of the most terrible battles the world ever saw was fought.  These people were a whole tribe—­wives, children, and everything they had with them—­and to be defeated was utter and absolute ruin.  A great enclosure was made with their carts and wagons, whence the women threw arrows and darts to help the men; and when, after three days of hard fighting, all hope was over, they set fire to the enclosure and killed their children and themselves.  The whole swarm was destroyed.  Marius marched away, and no one was left to bury the dead, so that the spot was called the Putrid Fields, and is still known as Les Pourrieres.

[Illustration:  ONE OF THE TROPHIES, CALLED OF MARIUS, AT THE CAPITOL AT ROME.]

While Marius was offering up the spoil, tidings came that he was a fifth time chosen consul; but he had to hasten into Italy, for the other consul, Catulus, could not stand before the Cimbri, and Marius met him on the Po retreating from them.  The Cimbri demanded lands in Italy for themselves and their allies the Teutones.  “The Teutones have all the ground they will ever want, on the other side the Alps,” said Marius; and a terrible battle followed, in which the Cimbri were as entirely cut off as their allies had been.

Marius was made consul a sixth time.  As a reward to the brave soldiers who had fought under him, he made one thousand of them, who came from the city of Camerinum, Roman citizens, and this the patricians disliked greatly.  His excuse was, “The din of arms drowned the voice of the law;” but the new citizens were provided for by lands in the Province, which the Romans said the Gauls had lost to the Teutones and they had reconquered.  It was very hard on the Gauls, but that was the last thing a Roman cared about.