[334] _Agitabat_ does not express the sentiment of the haruspex; for if so, the verb would be in the subjunctive. [335] Marius accordingly possessed every qualification required of a candidate for the consulship in a very high degree, but he was not a member of an ancient family, being a Roman eques of the municipium of Arpinum. The term 'ancient family' means one which had _imagines_, or images of ancestors who had been invested with the highest offices of the state. A Roman eques answers pretty nearly to a modern country gentleman, and was, generally speaking, a person who had property enough to enable him to serve on horseback in the army. In point of rank he was far below a senator; and no services that he could render to the state as an eques could raise him to the senatorial rank, which was attainable only through the high offices to which he might be elected by the people, and by virtue of which he became a member of the senate. Marius himself had been a senator long before this, as he had been tribune of the people and praetor, and after his praetorship, he now was legatus (lieutenant-general) with Metellus. [336] _Belli_; that is, _in bello_, on account of the following _domi_. [337] _Altus_; that is, _alitus_. See Zumpt, S 198. [338] That is, _quamquam plerique faciem ejus ignorabant, facile tamen notus factus_, &c.; namely, by the report of his distinguished services in the war, which, in the assembly of the people, was communicated by one person to another. [339] _Ad id locorum_, 'until then,' 'until that time,' as in chap. 72: _post id locorum_. See Zumpt, S 434. Marius did not venture to aspire to the consulship; for _appetere_ is not the same as _petere_, the latter denoting the actual suit or canvass. His ambition had not yet been directed to that highest of all offices, until religious superstition suggested it to him, and encouraged him. [340] The _nobiles_ transmitted the consulship to one another _per manus_; that is, after one _nobilis_ had been invested with it, it was, as it were by agreement, given to another, care being taken that no _homo novus_ should come forward as a candidate.