d then to keep the senate in check by means
of the rabble, but had no liking for street-riots and violent outrages.
As early as the first tribunate of Saturninus his armed bands had their
skirmishes with the equites; the vehement opposition which his election
as tribune for 654 encountered shows clearly how small was the party
favourable to him. It should have been the endeavour of Marius to avail
himself of the dangerous help of such associates only in moderation,
and to convince all and sundry that they were destined not to rule, but
to serve him as the ruler. As he did precisely the contrary, and the
matter came to look quite as if the object was to place the government
in the hands not of an intelligent and vigorous master, but of the mere
-canaille-, the men of material interests, terrified to death at the
prospect of such confusion, again attached themselves closely to the
senate in presence of this common danger. While Gaius Gracchus, clearly
perceiving that no government could be overthrown by means of the
proletariate alone, had especially sought to gain over to his side
the propertied classes, those who desired to continue his work began by
producing a reconciliation between the aristocracy and the bourgeoisie.

Variance between Marius and the Demogogues

But the ruin of the enterprise was brought about, still more rapidly
than by this reconciliation of enemies, through the dissension which
the more than ambiguous behaviour of Marius necessarily produced among
its promoters. While the decisive proposals were brought forward by
his associates and carried after a struggle by his soldiers, Marius
maintained an attitude wholly passive, just as if the political leader
was not bound quite as much as the military, when the brunt of battle
came, to present himself everywhere and foremost in person. Nor was
this all; he was terrified at, and fled from the presence of, the
spirits which he had himself evoked. When his associates resorted to
expedients which an honourable man could not approve, but without which
in fact the object of their efforts could not be attained, he attempted,
in the fashion usual with men whose ideas of political morality are
confused, to wash his hands of participation in those crimes and at the
same time to profit by their results. There is a story that the general
once conducted secret negotiations in two different rooms of his house,
with Saturninus and his partisans in the one, and wi