The senate was legally entitled, if he became a candidate for the consulship, to bid him begin with the quaestorship; if he requested a triumph, to remind him of the great Scipio, who under like circumstances had renounced his triumph over conquered Spain.

Nor was Pompeius less dependent constitutionally on the good will of the senate as respected the lands promised to his soldiers.

But, although the senate--as with its feebleness even in animosity was very conceivable--should yield those points and concede to the victorious general, in return for his executioner's service against the democratic chiefs, the triumph, the consulate, and the assignations of land, an honourable annihilation in senatorial indolence among the long series of peaceful senatorial Imperators was the most favourable lot which the oligarchy was able to hold in readiness for the general of thirty-six.
That which his heart really longed for--the command in the Mithradatic war--he could never expect to obtain from the voluntary bestowal of the senate: in their own well-understood interest the oligarchy could not permit him to add to his Africa and European trophies those of a third continent; the laurels which were to be plucked copiously and easily in the east were reserved at all events for the pure aristocracy.

But if the celebrated general did not find his account in the ruling oligarchy, there remained-- for neither was the time ripe, nor was the temperament of Pompeius at all fitted, for a purely personal outspoken dynastic policy-- no alternative save to make common cause with the democratic party.
No interest of his own bound him to the Sullan constitution; he could pursue his personal objects quite as well, if not better, with one more democratic.

On the other hand he found all that he needed in the democratic party.