Stories swirled immediately that Marian partisans had snuck slaves into the voting lines to put their friend over the top. Shortly after the election, Marius was charged with electoral fraud. The trial lasted for days and witnesses for both sides testified, including Cassius Sabaco, one of Marius’s friends who had allegedly slipped noncitizens into the voting line. Also called was one of Marius’s other noble patrons, Gaius Herennius. But Herennius refused to appear, citing the long-established legal principle that a patron did not have to testify against a client. Marius himself released Herennius from that obligation, saying that the moment he became a praetor he stopped being any man’s client. The trial seemed to be going against Marius, but when the jury returned, there was a surprise verdict: they were tied. In Roman courts, a tie went to the defendant. Marius was now a praetor.29
Despite Marius’s victory, 115 was still a banner year for the Metellans. The shrewd Scaurus was elected consul alongside one of the Metelli cousins, while another Metelli secured a censorship. Proof of the power Scaurus wielded behind the scenes, the Metellan censor named Scaurus princeps senatus. Not only was this honor usually reserved for an older senator, it had never been given to a sitting consul. Still only in his mid-forties, Scaurus would remain princeps senatus for the next twenty-five years, influencing the course of Roman history from atop the senatorial rolls and speaking first in every debate. After putting Scaurus first on the rolls, the censors then purged the Senate of thirty-two men, most of whom we can assume were not friends of the family. Marius’s good friend Cassius Sabaco became a casualty and was expelled for his part in the previous year’s electoral fraud scandal.30
After an uneventful year minding his business in Rome, Marius was sent to Further Spain. Little is known of his time in Spain, but we do know he advanced Roman authority into areas that had become a hotbed of brigands. By 114, Marius had cleared the brigands out of the region, and publicani contractors moved in to open up new mining operations. Like most Roman administrators, Marius saw his time abroad as the time to build a fortune. We assume that he staked a lucrative claim to the unexploited mines, because when he returned to Rome in 113 he was a very rich man.31
Back in Rome, the now forty-five-year-old Marius parlayed his wealth and promising political prospects into a mutually advantageous alliance when he married sixteen-year-old Julia Caesaria. The Julii were an ancient patrician house with roots older than the Republic itself. But their influence had waned over the centuries, and though their name was noble, their purses were empty. Bringing Marius into the family injected both energy and cash into their house. Marius was still a novus homo, but the Julii connection lent him the respectability he would need to attempt to make the leap from praetor to consul—a gap even the most well-connected men often found impossible to clear.32
AS MARIUS’S HUNT for the elusive consulship began, the Kingdom of Numidia exploded into chaos. Jugurtha and Adherbal maintained a tense coexistence for three years, but in 113, Jugurtha made a second bid to become sole ruler of Numidia. He sent raiding parties into his brother’s territory to try to provoke a response so he could portray himself as the victim. But Adherbal did not take the bait. Instead, he sent envoys back to Rome to complain about Jugurtha’s provocation. Tired of the bickering in Numidia and with far bigger concerns on their plate, the Senate wrote to Adherbal, essentially telling him to handle the problem himself.33
When Jugurtha realized the Senate was not coming to Adherbal’s aid, he mustered an army and marched into Adherbal’s half of Numidia. Adherbal raised an army to defend himself, but once again Jugurtha’s superior troops blew right through them. Adherbal fled to his capital of Cirta and closed the gates. The young king was probably pessimistic about his chances, but a group of Italian merchants who lived in Cirta convinced Adherbal to hold out—they told him
