four consecutive terms (104–101), during which in Germania he led an army to victory. "[A] brave and upright man, who administered justice impartially", he was "uncorruptable." "[A] skillful organizer... an able general, who kept the soldier under discipline [and] at the same time won his affections... [Marius] looked the enemy boldly in the face and joined issue with him at the proper time." Not a man of "eminent military capacity", he enjoyed "the reputation for such capacity." "[Marius took a place] of unparalelled honour among the consulars and the triumphators. But he was none the better fitted on that account for the brilliant circle. His voice remained harsh and loud, and his look wild, as if he still saw before him Libyans or Cimbrians, and not well-bred and perfumed colleagues. ... [H]is want of political culture was unpardonable... what was to be thought of a consul who was so ignorant of constitutional etiquette as to appear in triumphal costume in the senate! In other respects too the plebeian character clung to him. He was not merely—according to aristocratic phraseology—a poor man, but, what was worse, frugal, and a declared enemy of all bribery and corruption. After the manner of soldiers he was not nice, but was fond of his cups... he knew not the art of giving feasts, and kept a bad cook. It was likewise awkward that the consular understood nothing but Latin and declined conversation in Greek. ... Thus he remained throughout his life a countryman cast adrift among aristocrats." Marius, "a farmer by birth and a soldier by inclination", started out as no revolutionary. Yet the "hostile attacks of the aristocracy had no doubt driven him subsequently into the camp of [their] opponents" where "he speedily found himself elevated" as the new popular leader. "[T]he men of quality acknowledged his services" in gaining crucial military victories. Yet "with the people he was more popular than any one before or after him, popular alike by his virtues and by his faults, by his unaristocratic disinterestedness no less than by his boorish roughnesss; he was called by the multitude a third Romulus." Meanwhile, "the wretched government oppressed the land more heavily than did the barbarians." On Marius, "the first man of Rome, the favorite of the people... devolved the task of once more delivering Rome." His "sensuous passion" was stirred. Yet to this rustic and soldier "the political proceedings