[4] Taking up a position as a lieutenant-general,[17] or legate, in Gaius Claudius Nero's army, Metellus, along with Lucius Veturius Philo and Publius Licinius Varussent, was sent back to Rome in 207 BC to announce the Roman victory in and death of Hasdrubal Barca at the Battle of the Metaurus.

[11] Several of the equites under Gaius Claudius Nero's command highly praised Caecilius Metellus and Veturius Philo for their actions during the campaign, and exhorted the people to elect the two as consuls for the next year.

[5][18] Accordingly, appointed by Salinator, Caecilius Metellus served as consul in the year 206 BC, alongside the previously mentioned Lucius Veturius Philo.

[18] Before leaving Rome, the two new consuls were instructed by the senate to return to their lands plebeians who had been displaced during earlier years of the war in the ravaged and desolated province.

The senate also commanded this due to complaints they had received from inhabitants of the province concerning neighboring Gauls, who, taking advantage of the wartime confusion, laid waste to many areas therein.

The consuls found that many had returned to their homes upon their arrival in the province at the beginning of that spring, and, presumably to drive away the roving Gauls and still-present Carthaginian-aligned forces that yet held control in parts of Bruttium traitorous to Rome, ravaged the district of Consentia, taking much loot with them.

Metellus made Veturius Philo, with whom he seemingly would have been close after years of service together, his magister equitum, before successfully overseeing the election of Marcus Cornelius Cethegus and Publius Sempronius Tuditanus to the consulships of 204 BC.

[12] After the completion of the Second Punic War, in 201 BC, Metellus, appointed decemvir, was sent along with nine other prominent Romans by the praetor of Rome, Marcus Junius Pennus,[26] to Samnium and Apulia to organize the redistribution of public lands to veterans returning from the victorious campaign against Hannibal in Africa.

"[28][18] In 193 BC, Metellus is mentioned by Livy as delivering a speech to the tribunes of the people, Marcus Titinius and Gaius Titinius, concerning the contradictions present in written reports delivered to the senate by a consul of that year, Lucius Cornelius Merula, and a staff officer of his, Marcus Claudius Marcellus, concerning a battle against the Boian Gauls which had taken place that year near Mutina.

[29][30] Later, in 185 BC, Caecilius Metellus was sent as an ambassador alongside Marcus Baebius Tamphilus and a Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus to the Court of Philip V of Macedon, to investigate various charges brought against the Macedonian king by some Thessalians and Epirotes, as well as Eumenes II of Pergamum, in the wake of the Roman victory in the Seleucid War.

Caecilius Metellus dIsparaged them for their harsh treatment of the Spartans, referring to poor management of that city-state after its defeat at the hands of the league during the Laconian War of 195 BC, which included "the razing of their walls, the removal of the population as slaves into Achaia, and the abolition of the laws of Lycurgus, on which up to that day the stability of their State had rested".