nsual pleasures, he was
possessed of great ambition which led him to such a position of prominence
that he was forced to adopt the cause of one of the two political factions
in the state. From that point he must crush his enemies or be crushed by
them; and in this lies the explanation of his attempt to extirpate the
Marian party. As a statesman he displayed little imagination or
constructive ability. He could think of nothing better than to restore the
Senate to a position which it had shown itself unable to maintain; and his
persecutions of his political opponents had not crushed out opposition to
the Senate, but left a legacy of hatred endangering the permanence of his
reforms.

The epoch between the tribunate of Tiberius Gracchus and the death of
Sulla revealed the incapacity of either the Senate or the tribunes and the
Assembly to give a peaceful and stable government to the Roman state.
Sulla's career, anticipating those of Caesar and Augustus, pointed the way
to the ultimate solution.

CHAPTER XIII

THE RISE OF POMPEY THE GREAT: 78-60 B. C.

*The extraordinary commands.* For the period following the death of Sulla
in 78 B. C. Roman history centers around the lives of a small group of
eminent men, whose ambitions and rivalries are the determining factors in
the political life of the state. This is due to the fact that neither the
Senate nor the Assembly have the power to control the men to whom the
needs of the empire compel them to give military authority. The generation
of Marius and Sulla had seen the rise of the professional army which
revealed itself as the true power in the state, and the disturbances of
the Italian and Civil Wars supplied an abundance of needy recruits who
sought service with a popular and successful general for the sake of the
rewards which it lay in his power to bestow. As military achievements were
the sole sure foundation for political success, able men made it the goal
of their ambition to be entrusted with an important military command. The
dangers of civil and foreign wars at first compelled the Senate to confer
military power upon the few available men of recognized ability even when
it distrusted their ulterior motives, and later such appointments were
made by the Assembly through the coalition of the general and the
tribunate. In this way arose the so-called extraordinary commands, that
is, such as involved a military _imp