The verdant picturesque landscape began to
inundate his vision. The dirty, flat campgrounds were becoming a distant
vision and the rows of tent peaks could no longer be seen. He would turn
around every few steps and look to where he had spent so many years. It
wasn't that he was attached to that camp sight in particular, he just couldn't
shake that scene of living. The idea of not being surrounded by both high
walls and rows of tents or thousands of soldiers on huge, open battlefields
was flabbergasting. The very ground he walked on was much the same as the
battlefields on which he had commanded thousands of human lives to cause
massive destruction and blood shed upon those of a different cause and aim.
Then, he had been so great, so supreme a ruler, so calm and collected. Now,
now that these battlefields were rid of the millions of nail-soled sandals
and the grass received the aid of time, how could they look so scary to
him? He stopped and looked around him, gathering his surroundings. A confused
expression was cast upon his face, for, he had taken a path on which there
was no previous tread . Of all the dirt roads leading out of the camp, he
had chosen none of them. He found himself on top of a hill, looking down
into a beautiful valley, dotted with enormous trees and blossoming flowers.
The sun beat down on his pale neck. Even this heat he related to the military,
wishing he had his neckpiece on his galea.
Marius could no longer hear the rough bark of each soldier as their legate gave orders. The peaceful surroundings only made him miss the gruff obedient sounds of the soldiers even more. But he walked on, as was his order. Marius walked for hours, not knowing where he was and where he would go. He hadn't been officially released for but a day, yet he felt so depressed already. He began to grow very weary as sunset slowly approached. He took a break at a nearby stream and cupped his hands into the cool water. As he lifted his hands up to his mouth the water ran like liquid glass along his rough callused hands through each indenture and settled as a small pool in his palms. His sun-burned lips were momentarily put at ease when the ice-cold water seeped into every crack and made its way down his throat like a snake of cool mercury. Marius wiped his wet hands across his burning brow and looked upward. He saw a large tree on the opposite side of the stream that, he decided, would provide shade until the sun had completely vanished. A large, black crow sat upon the outermost reaching branch and seemed to look at the crouched, weary man with pity set in his eyes. Marius, finally breaking from the trance of the bird, ran his fingers across his lips only to find them more jagged and painful to the touch than before. He looked down at the deceiving water as it invited him to be fooled once again. He sighed hopelessly and struggled to find the strength in his knees in order to stand once again. He groaned painfully as his knees made small cracking sounds when he forced them to stretch. He made his way over to the tree and collapsed as his back slid down the smooth, gray trunk. Wishes of his youth, and his health, began to his head, struggling to figure out why he was not in shape like the soldiers.
He thought back, to just months before when he left Rome to confront Mithradates. He smiled as he thought about how when he was absent he was elected to an augurate and was needed back in his beloved Rome. The people had called for him. He began to perk up and his chest raised as he remembered being back in command during the Social Wars with Italy, where he was ever so successful on the northern front. He slumped down once again, however, when he remembered when the real trouble had started. He remembered the fury of not receiving ultimate command of the wars. Through that frustration he had retired. He was given another opportunity however, while Sulla was fighting Mithradates: Sulpicius had given command to Marius by the concilium plebis. When Sulla returned, however, the soldiers remained loyal to Sulla (who gained back command) and warned Marius to never show up in Rome again. He felt a huge lump in his throat and tears began to run down his dirt streaked face as he remembered the great pain he had felt when the soldiers all turned their backs on him and obeyed the wretched Sulla. Even as he looked back, it was all a blur, he couldn't find the reason why they had not liked him, it seemed as if no matter how hard he tried he was not one to accept his own flaws. He wiped his brow in frustration, although he was not perspiring.
The abrupt screech of the big, black crow interrupted the setting sun's serenity. Marius began to drift in and out of sleep as a small sliver of the sun hung aloft on a distant mountain peak. The sky burned with radiant pinks, oranges and deep reds. Marius opened one eye and caught a glimpse of the beauty. All of a sudden the sun began to rise out of its low hover, and Marius, amazed, also rose out of slumber. The blood red sphere of a sun rose gently but swiftly high into the air. The sky filled with the red streaks as if being rapidly tainted. Marius forgot all about his physical and mental grievances and stood. He stood tall and proud like he always used to do on the battlefield. His face beamed with unexplained pride. In the distant sky he began to be able to make out a bunch of winged creatures heading toward him. As they neared he could see that they were six gray, huge eagles. He dropped to his knees and began to bawl. His tears poured out and mixed with the dirt floor of the forest. He knelt there with his head down, and his hand on his brow, not looking as the birds passed over the large tree. When he had sensed the emptiness of the air once again he raised his head and peered through the cracks between his fingers at the sky. He felt run down and defeated and was ready to collapse onto the ground from exhaustion once again when he heard a solitary note. The note of a bird, the sweetest sound he had ever heard. The single note rang clear and true for miles of the open land, or so it seemed. He looked up slowly to the top of his resting tree. There, sitting on the very same branch, on the very same spot where the crow had been, a gorgeous, brilliantly white, eagle with wings wide and chest raised. Marius stood up slowly, with his eyes entranced by the majestic creature the whole time. He raised his hands to his mouth slowly in disbelief. His eyes, fully open, and his mouth, yearning to speak freely but yet silent. He had seen six eagles and then a seventh! It was not only a seventh eagle, but it was pure white. The eagle took flight and disappeared in the distance. When the eagle could no longer be seen, Marius began to scream aloud. He began to run around like a mad man, telling trees and flowers of his experience and what it meant to him. He would scream, "I'm going to Rome! Once again I will win consulship, one more time, a seventh time!"
Marius began to run. He ran through the night and through the next day until he found a town. He proceeded with his Roman life; he ran for consulship and won for the seventh time in 86 BCE as he had interpreted. But, unfortunately for him and fortunately for Rome and its armies, 17 days later he died from his poor health and age.
