1Then Marius goes into winter quarters, as he had begun to do: he had decided to spend the winter in the coastal towns for the sake of supplies; 1yet he did not become careless or overbearing through victory, but advanced in a square formation just as if in sight of the enemy. 1Sulla with the cavalry had charge on the extreme right, on the left Aulus Manlius with the slingers and archers, and besides the cohorts of Ligurians. 2The front and rear he had assigned to the tribunes with the light-armed maniples. 3Deserters, held of least account and best acquainted with the region, scouted the enemy's route. 3At the same time the consul, as though no one had been given charge, saw to everything, was present among all, and praised and rebuked those who deserved it.
4He himself was armed and alert, and he compelled the soldiers to be so too. 4And in just the same way that he marched, he fortified his camp, sent cohorts from the legions to keep watch at the gates and auxiliary cavalry in front of the camp, posted others besides on the rampart in the fortifications, and went round the sentries himself, not so much from distrust that his orders would be carried out, as so that the soldiers might bear willingly a labour shared equally with their commander. 5And indeed Marius, both at that time and at other times in the Jugurthine War, kept his army in check by shame rather than by punishment.
5Many said that this was done to court popularity: that from boyhood he had taken pleasure in the hardship he was used to, and in the other things which the rest call miseries; 5and yet the commonwealth was served as well and as honourably as it would have been under the harshest command.