"Like all extraordinary commands, this new office no doubt required the confirmation of the people; but it was an undoubted prerogative of the senate to define the sphere of every command, and, in fact, to control and limit it in all ways. The people had hitherto interfered only on the proposition of the senate, or at any rate of a magistrate himself qualified for the office of general. Even during the Jugurthine War, when the command was transferred to Marius by popular vote, it was only to Marius as consul for the year. But now a private man was to be invested by the tribes with extraordinary authority, and the sphere of his office was defined by themselves. The new commander was empowered to confer prætorian powers--that is, the highest military and civil authority--upon adjutants chosen by himself, though hitherto such authority could only be conferred with the coöperation of the burgesses; while the office of general, which was usually conferred for one year only, with strict limitations as to forces and supplies, was now committed almost without reserve to one man, who could draw upon the whole resources of the state. "Thus at one stroke the government was taken out of the hands of the senate, and the fortunes of the empire committed for the next three years to a dictator." The passage of this measure was one of the greatest triumphs in the life of Pompey. The success of Pompey against the pirates was complete and immediate, and appeared in striking contrast with the ill-success which had attended the Roman armies in Asia during the previous few years. In 66 B.C. Gaius Manilius, one of the tribunes, introduced a bill recalling the Roman generals then conducting the war in Asia Minor and transferring the control of the Roman armies in this section to Pompey, giving also to Pompey the full power to make peace and alliances. This proposed law brought about a most peculiar condition of affairs in Roman politics. Few, if any, truly favored the procedure, which was in direct violation of all the principles of the Roman constitution--a greater violation even than the law which had conferred upon Pompey his extraordinary powers as proconsul of the seas. But while everybody feared the passage of this law, everybody, with the exception of the extreme aristocratic party led by Catulus, feared more to oppose it, and the law was passed with little opposition.