The Roman public had become so familiar with discredit as to be in the habit of imagining it even when it did not exist; but humiliation exhibited in an actual disaster on this colossal scale was sufficiently novel to stir the people to the profoundest depths of grief and fear.[982] To men who thought only of the empire, its glory seemed to be extinguished by the fearful blow; but many of the masses, who knew nothing of war or of Rome's relations with peoples beyond the seas, were filled with a fear too personal to permit their thoughts to dwell solely on the loss of honour. To yet another class, whose knowledge exempted them from such idle terror, the army seemed more than the empire. Rome had not yet learnt to fight with mercenary forces; and the men who had seen service formed a considerable element in the Roman proletariate. Such veterans, especially those whose repute in war could give their words an added point, were unmeasured in their condemnation of the conduct of Aulus. The general had had a sword in his hand; yet he had thought a disgraceful capitulation his only means of deliverance. On no side could a word be heard in defence of the action of the unhappy commander. The blessings of the wives and children of the men whom Aulus's treaty had saved were, if breathed, apparently smothered under a weight of patriotic execration.
The feeling of insecurity must have been rendered greater by the fact that the State still lacked an official head, and the African dependencies possessed no governor in whom any confidence could be reposed. The year must have opened with a series of _interregna_, since no consuls had been elected to assume the government on the 1st of January; Numidia had again been made by senatorial decree a consular province; but since no consul existed to assume the administration, Albinus was still in command of the African army.[983] It was the painful duty of the ex-consul to raise in the senate the question of the ratification of his brother's treaty. Even he could never have attempted to defend it; his dominant feeling was an overwhelming sense of the weight of undeserved ignominy under which he lay, tempered by an undercurrent of fear as to the danger that might follow in the track of the universal disfavour with which he and his brother were regarded. The action that he took even before the senate's opinion was known, was a proof that he regarded the continuance of the war as inevitable. He relieved his mind and sought to restore his credit by pushing on military preparations with a fevered energy; supplementary drafts for the African army were raised from the citizens; auxiliary cohorts were demanded of the Latins and Italian allies. While these measures were in progress, the judgment of the senate was given to the world. It was a judgment based on the often-repeated maxim that no legitimate treaty could be concluded without the consent of the senate and people.[984] It was a decision that recalled the days of Numantia or the more distant history of the Caudine Forks; but the formal sacrifice that followed and was thought to justify those famous instances of breach of contract, was no longer deemed worthy of observance, and Aulus was not surrendered to the vengeance or mercy of the foe with whom he had involuntarily broken faith. This summary invalidation of the treaty may have been the result of a deduction drawn from the peculiar circumstances which had preceded the renewal of the war--circumstances which, as we have seen, might be twisted to support the view that Jugurtha was not an independent enemy of Rome and was, therefore, not entitled to the full rights of a belligerent.