Book 2
' No other deeds the fates laid up in store
1
' When Marius,When dragged from his hiding place in the marsh, Marius was sent by the magistrates of Minturnae to the house of a woman named Fannia, and there locked up in a dark apartment. It does not appear that he was there long. A Gallic soldier was sent to kill him; 'and the eyes of Marius appeared to him to dart a strong flame, and a loud voice issued from the gloom, "Man, do you dare to kill Caius Marius?"' He rushed out exclaiming, 'I cannot kill Caius Marius.' (Plutarch, ' Marius,' 38.) victor over Teuton hosts,
' Afric's high conqueror, cast out from Rome,
'Lay hid in marshy ooze, at thy behest,
' O Fortune! by the yielding soil concealed
' And waving rushes; but ere long the chains
' Of prison wore his weak and aged frame,
' And lengthened squalor: thus he paid for crime
' His punishment beforehand; doomed to die
' Consul in triumph over wasted Rome.
'Death oft refused him; and the very foe,
' In act of slaughter, shuddered in the stroke
' And dropped the weapon from his nerveless hand.
' For through the prison gloom a flame of light
' He saw; the deities of crime abhorred;
' The Marius to come. A voice proclaimed
' Mysterious, " Hold! the fates permit thee not
' " That neck to sever. Many a death he owes
' " To time's predestined laws ere his shall come;
' " Cease from thy madness. If ye seek revenge
' " For that he blotted out your Cimbrian tribes,
' " Let this man live, live out his fated days."
' Not as their darling did the gods protect
' The man of blood, but for his ruthless hand
' Fit to prepare that sacrifice of gore
' Which fate demanded. By the sea's despite
' Borne to our foes, Jugurtha's wasted realm
' He saw, now conquered; there in squalid huts
' Awhile he lay, and trod the hostile dust
' Of Carthage, and his ruin matched with hers:
' Each from the other's fate some solace drew,
' And prostrate, pardoned heaven. On LibyanThe Governor of Libya sent an officer to Marius, who had landed in the neighbourhood of Carthage. The officer delivered his message, and Marius replied, 'Tell the Governor you have seen Caius Marius, a fugitive sitting on the ruins of Carthage,' a reply in which he not inaptly compared the fate of that city and his own changed fortune. (Plutarch, 'Marius,' 40.) soil
' Fresh fury gathering,In the 'gathering of fresh fury on Libyan soil,' there appears to be an allusion to the story of Antaeus, in Book IV. next, when Fortune smiled
'The prisons he threw wide and freed the slaves.
' Forth rushed the murderous bands, their melted chains
' Forged into weapons for his ruffian needs.
' No charge he gave to mere recruits in guilt
' Who brought not to the camp some proof of crime.
' How dread that day when conquering Marius seized
' The city's ramparts! with what fated speed
