inquiry, learning all that was important to know, he returned to
Marius. For this he obtained the prize of merit; and in the rest of
the campaign, having given many proofs of his judgment and daring, he
was honoured and trusted by his general. After the close of the war
with the Cimbri and Teutones, he was sent as tribune by Didius[110]
the prætor to Iberia, and he wintered in Castlo,[111] a city of the
Celtiberi. The soldiers, being in the midst of abundance, lost all
discipline, and were generally drunk, which brought them into contempt
with the barbarians, who, by night, sent for aid from their neighbours
the Gyrisœni, and, coming on the soldiers in their lodgings, began to
slaughter them. Sertorius with a few others stole out, and, collecting
the soldiers who made their escape, surrounded the city. Finding the
gates open through which the barbarians had secretly entered, he did
not make the same mistake that they did, but he set a watch there,
and, hemming in the city on all sides, he massacred every man who was
of age to bear arms. When the massacre was over, he ordered all his
soldiers to lay down their own armour and dress, and, putting on those
of the barbarians, to follow him to the city from which the men came
who had fallen on them in the night. The barbarians were deceived by
the armour, and he found the gates open, and a number of men expecting
to meet friends and fellow-citizens, returning from a successful
expedition. Accordingly, most of them were killed by the Romans near
the gates, and the rest surrendered and were sold as slaves.

IV. This made the name of Sertorius known in Iberia; and as soon as he
returned to Rome he was appointed quæstor in Gaul upon the Padus at a
critical time; for the Marsic[112] war was threatening. Being
commissioned to levy troops and procure arms, he applied so much zeal
and expedition to the work, compared with the tardiness and indolence
of the other young men, that he got the reputation of being a man