joined them, and the united mass rolled over the Jura and down the bank of
the Rhone. Roused at last into exertion, the Senate sent into Gaul the
largest force which the Romans had ever brought into the field. They met
the Cimbri at Orange, and were simply annihilated. Eighty thousand Romans
and forty thousand camp-followers were said to have fallen. The numbers in
such cases are generally exaggerated, but the extravagance of the report
is a witness to the greatness of the overthrow. The Romans had received a
worse blow than at Cannae. They were brave enough, but they were commanded
by persons whose recommendations for command were birth or fortune;
"preposterous men," as Marius termed them, who had waited for their
appointment to open the military manuals.

Had the Cimbri chosen at this moment to recross the Alps into Italy, they
had only to go and take possession, and Alaric would have been antedated
by five centuries. In great danger it was the Senate's business to suspend
the constitution. The constitution was set aside now, but it was set aside
by the people themselves, not by the Senate. One man only could save the
country, and that man was Marius. His consulship was over, and custom
forbade his re-election. The Senate might have appointed him dictator, but
would not. The people, custom or no custom, chose him consul a second
time--a significant acknowledgment that the Empire, which had been won by
the sword, must be held by the sword, and that the sword itself must be
held by the hand that was best fitted to use it. Marius first triumphed
for his African victory, and, as an intimation to the Senate that the
power for the moment was his and not theirs, he entered the Curia in his
triumphal dress. He then prepared for the barbarians who, to the alarmed
imagination of the city, were already knocking at its gates. Time was the
important element in the matter. Had the Cimbri come at once after their
victory at Orange, Italy had been theirs. But they did not come. With the
unguided movements of some wild force of nature they swerved away through