xecuting in his case sentence of
death was openly expressed. The government party attempted to get
rid of the proposal by tribunician intervention; but the interceding
tribunes were violently driven from the assembly, and in the furious
tumult the first men of the senate were assailed with stones.
The investigation could not be prevented, and the warfare of
prosecutions pursued its course in 651 as it had done six years
before; Caepio himself, his colleague in the supreme command Gnaeus
Mallius Maximus, and numerous other men of note were condemned: a
tribune of the people, who was a friend of Caepio, with difficulty
succeeded by the sacrifice of his own civic existence in saving at
least the life of the chief persons accused.(23)

Marius Commander-in-Chief

Of more importance than this measure of revenge was the question how
the dangerous war beyond the Alps was to be further carried on, and
first of all to whom the supreme command in it was to be committed.
With an unprejudiced treatment of the matter it was not difficult to
make a fitting choice. Rome was doubtless, in comparison with earlier
times, not rich in military notabilities; yet Quintus Maximus had
commanded with distinction in Gaul, Marcus Aemilius Scaurus and
Quintus Minucius in the regions of the Danube, Quintus Metellus,
Publius Rutilius Rufus, Gaius Marius in Africa; and the object
proposed was not to defeat a Pyrrhus or a Hannibal, but again
to make good the often-tried superiority of Roman arms and Roman
tactics in opposition to the barbarians of the north--an object which
required no genius, but merely a stern and capable soldier. But it
was precisely a time when nothing was so difficult as the unprejudiced
settlement of a question of administration. The government was, as
it could not but be and as the Jugurthine war had already shown, so
utterly bankrupt in public opinion, that its ablest generals had to
retire in the full career of victory, whenever it occurred to an
officer of mark to revile them before the people and to get himself as
the candidate of the opposition appointed by the latter to the head of
affairs. It was no wonder that what took place after the victories of
Metellus was repeated on a greater scale after the defeats of Gnaeus
Mallius and Quintus Caepio. Once more Gaius Marius came forward, in
spite of the law which prohibited the holding of the consulship more
than once, as a candidate for the supreme magistracy; and not o