II. This so elated him that he at once aspired to the consulship, passing over all the usual steps of Ædile, Tribune, or Prætor, by which young men generally rose to that office. When the day of election arrived, he appeared with a strong following of devoted partisans from those two towns. When the tribunes of the people, Fulvius and Manius, came forward and protested against a young man taking the highest office in the state by storm, contrary to the laws, and being as it were uninitiated in the very elements of the constitution, the Senate referred the matter to the votes of the people, who elected him consul together with Sextus Ælius, although he was not yet thirty years old. In casting lots for provinces the war with Philip of Macedon fell to his share, greatly to the advantage of the Romans, because in that war they needed a general who would deal with the enemy not entirely by main force, but also win them over by persuasion and diplomacy. The kingdom of Macedonia was amply sufficient for Philip, if he only fought once with the Romans; but to maintain the cost of a long war, to supply his troops, and afford him necessary resources, the co-operation of Greece was essential to him. Unless therefore Greece could be detached from his alliance, the war could not be decided by a single battle. Greece at this time had been brought but little into contact with the Romans, who then for the first time interfered in her politics. Unless, therefore, the Roman general had been a man of high character, willing to act by diplomacy rather than by war, and combining affability of address with a strict sense of justice, the Greeks would have been unwilling to throw off their allegiance to their former masters in order to place themselves under the new and untried dominion of Rome. Of these honourable traits in Titus's character many instances will be found in his acts.