religious
observances. It is said by some modern writers that the object of
Sulpicius in proposing to enrol the Italians in the old tribes was to
secure the election of Marius to the command against Mithridates. It
is certain, indeed, that Marius longed for it. [Sidenote: Attitude of
Marius.] Daily he was to be seen in the Campus Martius exercising with
the young men, and, though old and fat, showing himself nimble in
arms and active on horseback--conduct which excited some men's
good-humoured sympathy, but shocked others, who thought he had much
better go to Baiae for the baths there, and that such an exhibition
was contemptible in one of his years. Sulpicius may have thought
Marius quite fit for the command, and was warranted in thinking so
by the events of the Social War; but there is no more ground for
supposing that the election of Marius was his primary object than for
considering Plutarch's diatribe a fair estimate of his character.
[Sidenote: Connection of Marius and Sulpicius explained.] He was the
friend and successor of Drusus, and his alliance with Marius was a
means to the end which in common with Drusus he had in view, and
not the end itself. This consideration is essential to a true
understanding of the politics of the time, and just makes the
difference whether Sulpicius was a petty-minded adventurer or
deliberately following in the lines laid down for him by a succession
of statesmen. [Sidenote: Street-fighting.] To the manoeuvre of the
consul he replied by a violent protest that it was illegal. Rome was
being paraded by his partisans--3,000 armed men, and there was a
tumult in which the lives of the consuls were in danger. One, Pompeius
Rufus, escaped, but his son was killed. The other, Sulla, annulled
the justitium, but is said to have got off with his life only because
Marius generously gave him shelter in his own house. In these
occurrences it is impossible not to see that the consuls were the
first to act unfairly. Sulpicius had been intending to bring forward
his laws in the regular fashion. They thwarted him by a trick. Whether
he in anger gave the signal for violence, or whether, as is quite as
likely, his Italian partisans did not wait for his bidding, the blame
of the tumult lay at the door of the other side. In such cases he is
not guiltiest who strikes the first blow, but he who has made blows
inevitable.

[Sidenote: The Sulpician laws carried by force.] The laws of Sulpicius
were carried