After Drusus' assassination and the outbreak of the Social War (91–87 BC), Scaurus was prosecuted in 90 BC under the special court of the tribune Quintus Varius Severus, which had been set up to prosecute anyone suspected of rousing the Italians to revolt. However, Scaurus was able to achieve his own acquittal on the basis of his "auctoritas", asking the audience whether they would believe the word of a provincial (Varius was from Spain) or of Scaurus himself, the "princeps senatus".