The heads of the State for this year were Lucius Valerius Flaccus and Publius Licinius Crassus. Each was covetous of the attractive command; for the Asiatic campaigns of the past had been easy, and there was no reason to suppose that a pretender who headed a multitude of slaves would be more difficult to vanquish than a king like Antiochus who had had at his call all the forces of Asia. The chances of a triumph were becoming scarcer; here was one that was almost within the commander's grasp. But there were even greater prizes in store. The happy conqueror would be the first to touch the treasure of the Attalids, and secure for the State a prize which had already been the source of political strife; he would reap for himself and his army a royal harvest from the booty taken in the field or from the sack of towns, and he would almost indubitably remain in the conquered country to organise, perhaps to govern for years, the wealthiest domain that had fallen to the lot of Rome, and to treat like a king with the monarchs of the protected states around. These attractions were sufficient to overcome the religious scruples of both the candidates; for it chanced that both Crassus and Flaccus were hampered by religious law from assuming a command abroad. The one was chief pontiff and the other the Flamen of Mars; and, if the objections were felt or pressed, the obvious candidate for the Asiatic campaign was Scipio Aemilianus, the only tried general of the time. But Scipio's chances were small. The nature of the struggle did not seem to demand extraordinary genius, and Scipio, although necessary in an emergency, could not be allowed to snatch the legitimate prizes of the holders of office.[519] So the contest lay between the pontiff and the priest. The controversy was unequal, for, while the pontiff was the disciplinary head of the state religion, the Flamen was in matters of ritual and in the rules appertaining to the observance of religious law subject to his jurisdiction. Crassus restrained the ardour of his colleague by announcing that he would impose a fine if the Flamen neglected his religious duties by quitting the shores of Italy. The pecuniary penalty was only intended as a means of stating a test case to be submitted, as similar cases had been twice before,[520] to the decision of the people. Flaccus entered an appeal against the fine, and the judgment of the Comitia was invited. The verdict of the people was that the fine should be remitted, but that the Flamen should obey the pontiff.[521] As Crassus had no superior in the religious world, it was difficult, if not impossible, for the objections against his own tenure of the foreign command to be pressed.[522] The people, perhaps grateful for the Gracchan sympathies of Crassus, felt no scruple about dismissing their pontiff to a foreign land, and readily voted him the conduct of the war.