Gaius Marius was a very superstitious man. The first time he ran for consul, it was not driven by ambition, but merely because of a prophecy from an Etrurian Divination practitioner. During that time, he became a high-ranking official in Spain, and it was precisely because of that experience that Sertorius later launched his war against Sulla in Spain.
Unlike Caesar, he did not remove his armor and put on a toga when entering and leaving the Senate of the Directory. It was as if he still faced Libyans or Cimbri rather than refined, well-born colleagues. His voice was hoarse and rough, which was considered rude.
But if Caesar had entered the Senate of the Directory in armor as Marius did, assassinating him would not have been so easy.
Marius was crude in manner, could not speak Greek, and spoke only Latin, so he rarely attended banquets.
All his life, he was a country bumpkin wandering outside aristocratic society, outside political factions, and outside society itself.
But Marius saved Rome. Even the aristocrats who despised him had to admit that. The people's adoration for him was unprecedented and unsurpassed. They called him the third Romulus—the third founder of Rome after the two brothers raised by a wolf.
After Marius returned in triumph, he did not use his military power to overthrow the Senate of the Directory, though he could have done so effortlessly at the time. His power far surpassed that of Gracchus. Although Gracchus's land reform had the support of the farmers, the day he was assassinated happened to be the busy farming season. Other than his followers, the farmers could not help him.
Marius disbanded his army according to the system of the time and followed Gaius Gracchus's example by serving as a constitutional magistrate. But because the