don his ambiguous position.

Marius Commander-in-Chief

Thereupon Metellus left the province, which he had been compelled by
decree of the people to give up to his former lieutenant Marius who
was now consul; and the latter assumed the supreme command for the
next campaign in 648. He was indebted for it in some degree to a
revolution. Relying on the services which he had rendered and at
the same time on oracles which had been communicated to him, he had
resolved to come forward as a candidate for the consulship. If the
aristocracy had supported the constitutional, and in other respects
quite justifiable, candidature of this able man, who was not at all
inclined to take part with the opposition, nothing would have come
of the matter but the enrolment of a new family in the consular
Fasti. Instead of this the man of non-noble birth, who aspired to
the highest public dignity, was reviled by the whole governing caste
as a daring innovator and revolutionist; just as the plebeian
candidate had been formerly treated by the patricians, but now
without any formal ground in law. The brave officer was sneered at
in sharp language by Metellus--Marius was told that he might wait with
his candidature till Metellus' son, a beardless boy, could be his
colleague--and he was with the worst grace suffered to leave almost
at the last moment, that he might appear in the capital as a candidate
for the consulship of 647. There he amply retaliated on his
general the wrong which he had suffered, by criticising before the
gaping multitude the conduct of the war and the administration of
Metellus in Africa in a manner as unmilitary as it was disgracefully
unfair; and he did not even disdain to serve up to the darling
populace--always whispering about secret conspiracies equally
unprecedented and indubitable on the part of their noble masters--
the silly story, that Metellus was designedly protracting the war
in order to remain as long as possible commander-in-chief. To the
idlers of the streets this was quite clear: numerous persons
unfriendly for reasons good or bad to the government, and especially
the justly-indignant mercantile order, desired nothing better than such
an opportunity of annoying the aristocracy in its most sensitive point:
he was elected to the consulship by an enormous majority, and not only
so, but, while in other cases by the law of Gaius Gracchus the
decision as to the respective functions to be assigned to the con