1About the same time, at Utica, as Gaius Marius was making sacrifice to the gods with victims, a soothsayer had told him that great and wonderful things were foretold: he should therefore carry out what he was turning over in his mind, trusting in the gods, and put his fortune to the test as often as possible; 1everything would turn out well. 2But even before this a mighty desire for the consulship had been driving him on, and for winning it he had every other qualification in abundance except an ancient family: energy, integrity, great knowledge of warfare, a spirit mighty in war and modest at home, master of lust and of riches, greedy only for glory.
3But he, born and brought up for his whole boyhood at Arpinum, as soon as his age could bear military service he trained himself by serving campaigns, not in Greek eloquence or the refinements of the city: thus amid honourable pursuits his unspoilt character quickly grew to maturity. 4So when he first stood before the people for a military tribuneship, though most did not know his face, he was known by his deeds and was declared elected by all the tribes. 5Then, after that magistracy, he won himself one office after another, and in his posts of authority he always conducted himself in such a way as to be thought worthy of a higher one than he was holding.
6Yet, such a man as he was up to that time — for afterwards he was driven headlong by ambition — he did not dare to aim at the consulship. 6Even then the commons handed the other magistracies, the nobility the consulship, from hand to hand among themselves. 7No new man was so famous or so distinguished by his deeds that he was not thought unworthy of that honour and, as it were, a defilement of it.