No doubt the opposition thus acquired a well-known name, a man of quality, a vehement orator in the Forum; but Lepidus was an insignificant and indiscreet personage, who did not deserve to stand at the head either in council or in the field.

Nevertheless the opposition welcomed him, and the new leader of the democrats succeeded not only in deterring his accusers from prosecuting the attack on him which they had begun, but also in carrying his election to the consulship for 676; in which, we may add, he was helped not only by the treasures exacted in Sicily, but also by the foolish endeavour of Pompeius to show Sulla and the pure Sullans on this occasion what he could do.
Now that the opposition had, on the death of Sulla, found a head once more in Lepidus, and now that this their leader had become the supreme magistrate of the state, the speedy outbreak of a new revolution in the capital might with certainty be foreseen.
The Emigrants in Spain Sertorius But even before the democrats moved in the capital, the democratic emigrants had again bestirred themselves in Spain.

The soul of this movement was Quintus Sertorius.

This excellent man, a native of Nursia in the Sabine land, was from the first of a tender and even soft organization--as his almost enthusiastic love for his mother, Raia, shows--and at the same time of the most chivalrous bravery, as was proved by the honourable scars which he brought home from the Cimbrian, Spanish, and Italian wars.

Although wholly untrained as an orator, he excited the admiration of learned advocates by the natural flow and the striking self-possession of his address.