previously in concert with Saturninus driven the consular
Quintus Caepio into exile(10) he was now (659) on the ground of his own
law accused of high treason, and the jurymen hesitated long--not whether
the accused was guilty or innocent, but whether his ally Saturninus
or his enemy Caepio was to be regarded as the most deserving of their
hate--till at last they decided for acquittal. Even if people were not
more favourably disposed towards the government in itself than before,
yet, after having found themselves, although but for a moment, on the
verge of a real mob-rule, all men who had anything to lose viewed the
existing government in a different light; it was notoriously wretched
and pernicious for the state, but the anxious dread of the still more
wretched and still more pernicious government of the proletariate had
conferred on it a relative value. The current now set so much in that
direction that the multitude tore in pieces a tribune of the people
who had ventured to postpone the return of Quintus Metellus, and the
democrats began to seek their safety in league with murderers and
poisoners--ridding themselves, for example, of the hated Metellus
by poison--or even in league with the public enemy, several of them
already taking refuge at the court of king Mithradates who was secretly
preparing for war against Rome. External relations also assumed an
aspect favourable for the government. The Roman arms were employed but
little in the period from the Cimbrian to the Social war, but everywhere
with honour. The only serious conflict was in Spain, where, during
the recent years so trying for Rome (649 seq.), the Lusitanians and
Celtiberians had risen with unwonted vehemence against the Romans.
In the years 656-661 the consul Titus Didius in the northern and the consul
Publius Crassus in the southern province not only re-established with
valour and good fortune the ascendency of the Roman arms, but also razed
the refractory towns and, where it seemed necessary, transplanted the
population of the strong mountain-towns to the plains. We shall show in
the sequel that about the same time the Roman government again directed
its attention to the east which had been for a generation neglected,
and displayed greater energy than had for long been heard of in Cyrene,
Syria, and Asia Minor. Never since the commencement of the revolution
had the government of the restoration been so firmly established, or so
popular. Consula