In the first rank of these stood Gnaeus Pompeius.

He was doubtless a Sullan; but we have already shown( 2) how little he was at home among his own party, how his lineage, his past history, his hopes separated him withal from the nobility as whose protector and champion he was officially regarded.
The breach already apparent had been widened irreparably during the Spanish campaigns of the general (677-683).

With reluctance and semi-compulsion the government had associated him as colleague with their true representative Quintus Metellus; and in turn he accused the senate, probably not without ground, of having by its careless or malicious neglect of the Spanish armies brought about their defeats and placed the fortunes of the expedition in jeopardy.
Now he returned as victor over his open and his secret foes, at the head of an army inured to war and wholly devoted to him, desiring assignments of land for his soldiers, a triumph and the consulship for himself.

The latter demands came into collision with the law.

Pompeius, although several times invested in an extraordinary way with supreme official authority, had not yet administered any ordinary magistracy, not even the quaestorship, and was still not a member of the senate; and none but one who had passed through the round of lesser ordinary magistracies could become consul, none but one who had been invested with the ordinary supreme power could triumph.