When the great General was still away, winding up the affairs of his maritime war against the pirates, there came up the continually pressing question of the continuation of the Mithridatic war.

Lucullus had been absent on that business nearly seven years, and, though he had been at first grandly victorious, had failed at last.

His own soldiers, tired of their protracted absence, mutinied against him, and Glabrio, a later Consul, who had been sent to take the command out of his hands, had feared to encounter the difficulty.

It was essential that something should be done, and one Manilius, a Tribune, a man of no repute himself, but whose name has descended to all posterity in the oration Pro Lege Manilia, proposed to the people that Pompey should have the command.

Then Cicero first entered, as we may say, on political life.