First of all, however, if the law passed and Marius was called to the independent carrying out of these immense schemes of conquest and assignation, he would become practically--until those plans should be realized or rather, considering their indefinite and unlimited character, for his lifetime--monarch of Rome; with which view it may be presumed that Marius intended to have his consulship annually renewed, like the tribunate of Gracchus.

But, amidst the agreement of the political positions marked out for the younger Gracchus and for Marius in all other essential particulars, there was yet a very material distinction between the land-assigning tribune and the land-assigning consul in the fact, that the former was to occupy a purely civil position, the latter a military position as well; a distinction, which partly but by no means solely arose out of the personal circumstances under which the two men had risen to the head of the state.

While such was the nature of the aim which Marius and his comrades had proposed to themselves, the next question related to the means by which they purposed to break down the resistance--which might be anticipated to be obstinate--of the government party.

Gaius Gracchus had fought his battles with the aid of the capitalist class and the proletariate.

His successors did not neglect to make advances likewise to these.