UNIT I: ROMAN HISTORY

SECTION I: ANCIENT HISTORY

Period III: The Period of the Revolutions, 146-49 B.C.

(a) Rise of the Senate; the Gracchi; Sulla; etc.

In the course of little more than a century, Rome had become the supreme power in the civilized world. By all men, says Polybius, it was taken for granted that nothing remained but to obey the commands of the Romans.12 For the future the interest of Roman history centres in her attempts to perform the two Herculean tasks which this unique position laid upon her,—the efficient government of the subject peoples, and their defence against the barbarian races which swarmed around them on all sides. They were tasks under which the old republican constitution broke down, and which finally overtaxed the strength even of the marvellous organization framed and elaborated by Augustus and his successors.

At the outset the difficulties of Rome were increased by the rapidity with which her new duties came upon her. From a century, first of deadly struggle, and then of dazzlingly easy success, she emerged to find herself called upon to govern a world with the primitive machinery of a small city state, and to deal with new and complicated administrative problems which she had as yet had no leisure to study. Nor was it until her own political system had been remodelled that she was able to deal effectively with the government of the empire at large. During the period which has now to be considered, the period of the so-called Revolution, but little advance was made towards a better imperial organization, and that little was made by men who, like Caesar and Pompey, belonged, both in the methods and aims of their policy and in the position they held, to the empire rather than to the republic.

Constitutional Changes (265-146 B.C.)

Although in its outward form the old constitution had undergone little change during the age of war and conquest from 265 to 146, the causes, both internal and external, which brought about its fall had been silently at work throughout. Its form was in strictness that of a moderate democracy. The patriciate had ceased to exist as a privileged caste, and there was no longer any order of nobility recognized by the constitution. The senate and the offices of state were in law open to all,8 and the will of the people in their comitia had been in the most explicit and unqualified manner declared to be supreme alike in the election of magistrates, in the passing of laws, and in all matters touching the " caput" of a Roman citizen. But in practice the constitution had become an oligarchy.

Ascendancy of the Senate

The senate, not the assembly, ruled Rome, and both the senate and the magistracies were in the hands of a class which, in defiance of the law, arrogated to itself the title and the privileges of a nobility. The ascendency of the senate is too obvious and familiar a fact to need much illustration here. It is but rarely that the assembly was called upon to decide questions of policy, and then the proposal was usually made by the magistrate in obedience to the express directions of the senate. In the enormous majority of cases the matter was settled by a senatus consultum. without any reference to the people at all. The assembly decides for war or peace , but 'the conduct of the war and the conditions of peace are matters left to the senate. Now and then the assembly confers a command upon the man of its choice, or prolongs the imperium of a magistrate," but, as a rule, these and all questions connected with foreign affairs are settled within the walls of the senate house. It is the senate which year after year assigns the commands and fixes the number and disposition of the military forces,8 directs the organization of a new province,9 conducts negotiations, and forms alliances. Within Italy, though its control of affairs was less exclusive, we find that, besides supervising the ordinary current business of administration, the senate decides questions connected with the Italian allies, sends out colonies, allots lands, and directs the suppression of disorders. Lastly, both in Italy and abroad it managed the finances.10 Inseparably connected with this monopoly of affairs to the exclusion of the assembly was the control which in practice, if not in theory, the senate exercised over the magistrates. The latter had become what Cicero wrongly declares they were always meant to be, merely the subordinate ministers of the supreme council,11 which assigned them their departments, provided them with the necessary equipment, claimed to direct their conduct, prolonged their commands, and rewarded them with triumphs. It was now at once the duty and the interest of a magistrate to be "in auctoritate senatus," " subject to the authority of the senate," and even the once formidable " tribuni plebis " are found during this period actively and loyally supporting the senate, and acting as its spokesmen in the assembly.12

Its Causes

The causes of this ascendency of the senate are not to be found in any additions made by law to its constitutional prerogatives, but first of all in the fact that the senate was the only body capable of conducting affairs in an age of incessant war. The voters in the assembly, a numerous, widely scattered body, many of whom were always away with the legions abroad, could not readily be called together, and when assembled were very imperfectly qualified to decide momentous questions of military strategy and foreign policy. The senate, on the contrary, could be summoned in a moment,13 and included in its ranks all the skilled statesmen and soldiers of the commonwealth, while its forms of procedure were at least better fitted than those of the comitia for securing the careful discussion and prompt decision of the question before it. The subordination of the magistrates was equally the result of circumstances, though it suited the senatorial advocates of a later day to represent it as an original principle of the constitution, and though it was encouraged and confirmed by the policy of the senate itself.14 For, as the numbers of the magistrates, and also the area of government, increased, some central controlling power became absolutely necessary to prevent collisions between rival authorities, and to secure a proper division of labour, as well as to enforce the necessary concert and co-operation,15 nor could such a power be found anywhere in the republican system but in the senate, standing as it necessarily did in the closest relations with the magistrate, and composed as it was increasingly of men who were or had been in office.

The "Nobiles"

Once more, behind both senate and magistrates lay the whole power and influence of the new nobility. These " nobiles " are essentially distinct from the older and more legitimate patrician aristocracy. Every patrician was of course noble, but the majority of the "noble families " in 146 were not patrician but plebeian. The title had been gradually appropriated, since the opening of the magistracies, by those families whose members had held curule office, and had thereby acquired the "jus imaginum." It was thus in theory within the reach of any citizen who could win election even to the curule aedileship, and, moreover, it carried with it no legal privileges whatsoever. Gradually, however, the ennobled plebeian families drew together, and combined with the older patrician gentes to form a distinct order. Office brought wealth and prestige, and both wealth and prestige were liberally employed in securing for this select circle a monopoly of political power, and excluding new men. Already by the close of the period it is rare for any one but a noble to find his way into high office or into the senate. The senate and magistrates are the mouthpieces of this order, and are identified with it in policy and interest. Lastly, it must be allowed that both the senate and the nobility had to some extent justified their power by the use they made of it. It was their tenacity of purpose and devoted patriotism which had carried Rome through the dark days of the Hannibalic war. The heroes of the struggle with Carthage belonged to the leading families; the disasters at the Trasimene Lake and at Cannae were associated with the blunders of popular favourites.

Weakness of the Senatorial Government

From the first however, there was an inherent weakness in this senatorial government. It had no sound constitutional basis, and with the removal of its accidental supports it fell to the ground. Legally the senate had no positive authority. It could merely advise the magistrate when asked to do so, and its decrees were strictly only suggestions to the magistrate, which he was at liberty to accept or reject as he chose. It had it is true become customary for the magistrate not only to ask the senate's advice on all important points, but to follow it when given. But it was obvious that if this custom were weakened, and the magistrates chose to act independently, the senate was powerless. It might indeed anathematize the refractory official, or hamper him if it could by setting in motion against him a colleague or the tribunes, but it could do no more, and these measures, though as a rule effective in the case of magistrates stationed in Rome, failed just where the senate's control was most needed and most difficult to maintain—in its relations with the generals and governors of provinces abroad. The virtual independence of the proconsul was before 146 already exciting the jealousy of the senate and endangering its supremacy.0 Nor again had the senate any legal holdover the assembly. Except in certain specified cases, it rested with the magistrate to decide whether any question should be settled by a decree of the senate or a vote of the assembly." If he decided to make a proposal to the assembly, he was not bound except by custom to obtain the previous approval of the senate, and the constitution set no limits to the power of the assembly to decide any question whatsoever that was laid before it. The right of the people to govern was still valid, and though it had long lain dormant any year might see a magistrate in office resolved on recalling the people to a larger share in the conduct of affairs by consulting them rather than the senate, and an assembly bent on the exercise of its lawful prerogatives.

And from 167 at least, onwards, there were increasing indications that both the acquiescence of the people and the loyalty of the magistrates were failing. The absorbing excitement of the great wars had died away; the economic and social disturbance and distress which they produced were creating a growing feeling of discontent; and at the same time the senate provoked inquiries into its title to govern by its failure any longer to govern well. In the East there was growing confusion ; in the West a single native chieftain defied the power which had crushed Carthage. At home the senate was becoming more and more simply an organ of the nobility, and the nobility were becoming every year more exclusive, more selfish, and less capable and unanimous.

But if the senate was not to govern, the difficulty arose of finding an efficient substitute, and it was this difficulty that mainly determined the issue of the struggles which convulsed Rome from 133 to 49. As the event showed, neither the assembly nor the numerous and disorganized, magistracy were equal to the work ; the latter were gradually pushed aside in favour of a more centralized authority, and the former became only the means by which this new authority was first encouraged in opposition to the senate and finally established in a position of impregnable strength. The assembly which made Pompey and Caesar found out too late that it could not unmake them.

It is possible that these constitutional and administrative difficulties would not have proved so rapidly fatal to the republic had not its very foundations been sapped by the changes which followed more or less directly on the conquest of the world. These changes can only be glanced at here. Civic equality and solidarity were alike destroyed by the concentration of wealth in a few hands, the disappearance of the small independent freeholder, and the growing numbers of freedmen and clients. The Roman community became not only unmanageably large, but hopelessly divided by class distinctions and interests, and wide differences in habits of life and modes of thought. The old traditions, beliefs, and usages inseparably connected with the republican regime, and essential to its continuance, lost ground daily before the incoming flood of new fashions, intellectual and social, from Greece and the East. Before the republic fell, Roman society was already in structure, temper, and mind thoroughly unrepublican.

The first systematic attack upon the senatorial government is connected with the names of Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus, and its immediate occasion was an attempt to deal with no less a danger than the threatened disappearance of the class to which of all others Rome owed most in the past. For, while Rome had been extending her sway westward and eastward, while the treasury had been enriched, and while her nobles and merchants were amassing colossal fortunes abroad, the small freeholders throughout the greater part of Italy were sinking deeper into ruin under the pressure of accumulated difficulties. The Hannibalic war had laid waste their fields and thinned their numbers, and when peace returned to Italy it brought with it no revival of prosperity. The heavy burden of military service still pressed ruinously upon them, and in addition they were called upon to compete with the foreign corn imported from beyond the sea, and with the foreign slave-labour purchased by the capital of wealthier men. Farming became unprofitable, and the hard laborious life with its scanty, returns was thrown into still darker relief when compared with the stirring life of the camps with its opportunities of booty, or with the cheap provisions, frequent largesses, and gay spectacles to be had in the large towns. The small holders went off to follow the eagles or swell the proletariate of the cities, and their holdings were left to run waste or merged in the vineyards, oliveyards, and above all in the great cattle-farms, of the rich, and their own place was taken by slaves. The evil was not equally serious in all parts of Italy. It was least felt in the central highlands, in _Campania, and in the newly settled fertile valley of the Po. It was worst in Etruria and in southern Italy; but everywhere it was serious enough to demand the earnest attention of Roman statesmen. Of its existence the government had received plenty of warning in the declining numbers of able-bodied males returned at the census, in the increasing difficulties of recruiting for the legions, in servile outbreaks in Etruria and Apulia, and between 200 and 160 a good deal was attempted by way of remedy. In addition to the foundation of twenty colonies, there were frequent allotments of land to veteran soldiers, especially in Apulia and Samnium. In 180 40,000 Ligurians were removed from their homes and settled on vacant lands once the property of a Samnite tribe, and in 160 the Pomptine marshes were drained for the purpose of cultivation. But these efforts were only partially successful. The colonies planted in Cisalpine Gaul and in Picenum flourished, but of the others the majority slowly dwindled away, and two required recolonizing only eight years after their foundation. The veterans who received land were unfitted to make good farmers ; and large numbers, on the first opportunity, gladly returned as volunteers to a soldier's life. Moreover, after 160 even these efforts ceased, and with the single exception of the colony of Auximum in Picenum (157) nothing was done to check the spread of the evil, until in 133 Tiberius Gracchus, on his election to the tribunate, set his hand to the work.

Tiberius Gracchus

The remedy proposed by Gracchus amounted in effect to the resumption by the state of as much of the " common land " as was not held in occupation by authorized persons and conformably to the provisions of the Licinian law. Unauthorized occupiers were to be evicted ; in other cases the occupation was reduced to a maximum size of 1000 acres; the public pastures were reclaimed for agriculture. And the land thus rescued for the community from the monopoly of a few was to be distributed in allotments. It was a scheme which could quote in its favour ancient precedent as well as urgent necessity. Of the causes which led to its ultimate failure something will be said later on ; for the present we must turn to the constitutional conflict which it provoked. The senate from the first identified itself with the interests of the wealthy occupiers, and Tiberius found himself forced into a struggle with the senate, which had been no part of his original plan. He fell back on the legislative sovereignty of the assembly ; he resuscitated the half-forgotten powers of interference vested in the tribunate in order to paralyse the action of the senatorial magistrates, and finally lost his life in an attempt to make good one of the weak points in the tribune's position by securing his own re-election for a second year. But the conflict did not end with his death.

Gaius Gracchus

It was renewed on a wider scale, and with a more deliberate aim by his brother Gaius, who on his election to the tribunate (123) at once came forward as the avowed enemy of the senate. The latter suddenly found its control of the administration threatened at a variety of points. On the invitation of the popular tribune the assembly proceeded to restrict the senate's freedom of action in assigning the provinces. It regulated the taxation of the province of Asia and altered the conditions of military service. In home affairs it inflicted two serious blows on the senate's authority by declaring the summary punishment of Roman citizens by the consuls on the strength of a senatus consultum to be a violation of the law of appeal, and by taking out of the senate's hands the control of the newly established court for the trial of cases of magisterial misgovernment in the provinces.20 Tiberius had committed the mistake of relying too exclusively on the support of one section only of the community; his brother endeavoured to enlist on the popular side every available ally. The Latins and Italians had opposed an agrarian scheme which took from them land which they had come to regard as rightfully theirs, and gave them no share in the benefit of the allotments.21 Gaius not only removed this latter grievance,22 but ardently supported and himself brought forward the first proposals made in Rome for their enfranchisement.23

The indifference of the city populace, to whom the prospect of small holdings in a remote district of Italy was not a tempting one, was overcome by the establishment of regular monthly doles of corn at a low price. Finally, the men of business—the publicans, merchants, and money-lenders—were conciliated by the privilege granted to them of collecting the tithes of the new province of Asia, and placed in direct rivalry with the senate by the substitution of men of their own class as judges in the " quaestio de repetundis," in place of senators. The organizer of this concerted attack upon the position of the senate fell, like his brother, in a riot.

Failure of the Attempt at Agrarian Reform

The agrarian reforms of the two Gracchi had little permanent effect. Even in the lifetime of Gaius the clause in his brother's law rendering the new holdings inalienable was repealed, and the process of absorption recommenced. In 118 a stop was put to further allotment of occupied lands, and finally, in 111, the whole position of the agrarian question was altered by a law which converted all land still held in occupation into private land. The old controversy as to the proper use of the lands of the community was closed by this act of alienation. The controversy in future turns, not on the right of the poor citizens to the state lands, but on the expediency of purchasing other lands for distribution at the cost of the treasury.

But, though the agrarian reform failed, the political conflict it had provoked ended only with the dictatorship of Caesar, and the lines on which it was waged were in the main those laid down by Gaius Gracchus. The sovereignty of the assembly continued to be the watchword of the popular party, and a free use of the tribunician powers of interference and of legislation remained the most effective means of giving effect to their aims. At the same time the careers of both Tiberius and Gaius had illustrated the weak points of their position,—the uncertain temper and varying composition of the assembly, the limited tenure of office enjoyed by the tribunes and the possibility of disunion in their own body, and, lastly, the difficulty of keeping together the divergent interests which Gaius had for a moment united in hostility to the senate.

Marius (118-100 B.C.)

Ten years after the death of Gaius the populares once more summoned up courage to challenge the supremacy of the senate; and it is important as marking a step in advance that it was on a question not of domestic reform but of foreign administration that the conflict was renewed. The course of affairs in the client state of Numidia since Micipsa's death in 118 had been such as to discredit a stronger government than that of the senate. In open defiance of Roman authority, and relying on the influence of his own well-spent gold, Jugurtha had murdered both his legitimate rivals, Hiempsal and Adherbal, and made himself master of Numidia. The declaration of war wrung from the senate (112) by popular indignation had been followed by the corruption of a consul (111) and the crushing defeat of the proconsul Albinus. On the news of this crowning disgrace the storm burst, and on the proposal of the tribunes a commission of inquiry was appointed into the conduct of the war. But the popular leaders did not stop here. Caecilius Metellus, who as consul (109) had succeeded to the command in Numidia, was an able soldier but a rigid aristocrat; and they now resolved to improve their success by entrusting the command instead to a genuine son of the people. Their choice fell on Gaius Marius (see MARIUS), an experienced officer and administrator, but a man of humble birth, wholly illiterate, and one who, though no politician, was by temperament and training a hater of the polished and effeminate nobles who filled the senate.13 He was triumphantly elected, and, in spite of a decree of the senate continuing Metellus as proconsul, he was entrusted by a vote of the assembly with the charge of the war against Jugurtha.14





Jugurtha was vanquished ; and Marius, who had been a second time elected consul in his absence, arrived at Rome in January 104, bringing the captive prince with him in chains.15 But further triumphs awaited the popular hero. The Cimbri and Teutones were at the gates of Italy; they had four times defeated the senatorial generals, and Marius was called upon to save Rome from a second invasion of the barbarians.16 After two years of suspense the victory at Aquae Sextiae (102), followed by that on the Raudine plain (101), put an end to the danger by the annihilation of the invading hordes; and Marius, now consul for the fifth time, returned to Rome in triumph. There the popular party welcomed him as a leader, and as one who would bring to their aid the imperium of the consul and all the prestige of a successful general. Once more, however, they were destined to a brief success followed by disastrous defeat. Marius became for the sixth time consul ;17 of the two popular leaders Glaucia became praetor and Saturninus tribune.

Saturninus and the Appuleian Laws

But neither Marius nor his allies were statesmen of the stamp of the Gracchi; and the laws proposed by Saturninus had evidently no other serious aim in view than that of harassing the senate. His corn law merely reduced the price fixed in 123 for the 631. monthly dole of corn, and the main point of his agrarian law lay in the clause appended to it requiring all senators to swear to observe its provisions.18 The laws were carried; the senators with the exception of Metellus took the oath; but the triumph of the popular leaders was short-lived. Their recklessness and violence had alienated all classes in Rome; and their period of office was drawing to a close. At the elections fresh rioting took place, and at last Marius as consul was called upon by the senate to protect the state against his own partisans. In despair Saturninus and Glaucia surrendered, but while the senate was discussing their fate they were surrounded and murdered by the populace.

The popular party had been worsted once more in their struggle with the senate, but none the less their alliance with Marius, and the position in which their votes placed him, marked an epoch in the history of the revolution. The six consulships of Marius represented not merely a party victory but a protest against the system of divided and rapidly-changing commands, which was no doubt the system favoured by the senate, but was also an integral element of the republican constitution, and in assailing it the populares weakened the republic even more than they irritated the senate. The transference of the political leadership to a consul who was nothing if not a soldier was at once a confession of the insufficiency of the purely civil authority of the tribunate and a dangerous encouragement of military interference in political controversies. The consequences were already foreshadowed by the special provisions made by Saturninus for Marius's veterans, and in the active part taken by them in the passing of his laws. Indirectly too Marius, though no politician, played an important part in this new departure.

Military Reforms of Marius

His military reforms at once democratized the army and attached it more closely to its leader for the time being. He swept away the last traces of civil distinctions of rank or wealth within the legion, admitted to its ranks all classes, and substituted voluntary enlistment under a popular general for the old-fashioned compulsory levy. The efficiency of the legion was increased at the cost of a complete severance of the ties which bound it to the civil community and to the civil authorities.

The defeat of Saturninus was followed by several years of quiet; nor was the next important crisis provoked directly by any efforts of the discredited popular party. It was due partly to the rivalry which had been growing more bitter each year since 122 between the senate and the commercial class, and secondly to the long impending question of the enfranchisement of the Italian allies. The publicani, negotiatores, and others, who constituted what was now becoming known as the equestrian order, had made unscrupulous use of their control of the courts and especially of the " quaestio de repetundis" against their natural rivals, the official class in the provinces. The threat of prosecution before a hostile jury was held over the head of every governor, legate, and quaestor who ventured to interfere with their operations in the provinces. The average official preferred to connive at their exactions; the bolder ones paid with fines and even exile for their courage. In 93 the necessity for a reform was proved beyond a doubt by the scandalous condemnation of P. Rutilius Rufus, ostensibly on a charge of extortion, in reality as the reward of his efforts to check the extortions of the Roman equites in Asia.

Discontent of the Italian Allies

The need of reform was clear, but it was not so easy to carry a reform which would certainly be opposed by the whole strength of the equestrian order, and which, as involving the repeal of a Sempronian law, would arouse the resentment of the popular party. The difficulties of the Italian question were more serious. That the Italian allies were discontented was notorious. After nearly two centuries of close alliance, of common dangers and victories, they now eagerly coveted as a boon that complete amalgamation with Rome which they had at first resented as a dishonour. But, unfortunately, Rome had grown more selfishly exclusive in proportion as the value set upon Roman citizenship increased. The politic liberality with which the franchise had once been granted had disappeared. The allies found their burdens increasing and their ancient privileges diminishing, while the resentment with which they viewed their exclusion from the fruits of the conquests they had helped to make was aggravated by the growingly suspicious ana domineering attitude of the Roman government. During the last forty years feelings of hope and disappointment had rapidly succeeded each other; Marcus Fulvius, Gaius Gracchus, Saturninus, had all held out promises of relief—and nothing had yet been done. On each occasion they had crowded to Rome, full of eager expectation, only to be harshly ejected from the city by the consul's orders. The justice of their claims could hardly be denied, the danger of continuing to ignore them was obvious—yet the difficulties in the way of granting them were formidable in the extreme. The temper of senate and people alike was still jealously exclusive, and from a higher than a merely selfish point of view there was much to be said against the revolution involved in so sudden and enormous an enlargement of the citizen body.

Marcus Livius Drusus (91 B.C.)

Marcus Livius Drusus, who as tribune gallantly took up the task of reform, is claimed by Cicero as a member of that party of the centre to which he belonged himself. Noble, wealthy, and popular, he seems to have hoped to be able by the weight of his position and character to rescue the burning questions of the day from the grasp of extreme partisans and to settle them peacefully and equitably. But he, like Cicero after him, had to find to his cost that there was no room in the fierce strife of Roman politics for moderate counsels. His proposal to reform the law courts excited the equestrian order and their friends in the senate to fury. The agrarian and corn laws which he coupled with it alienated many more in the senate, and roused the old anti-popular party feeling; finally, his known negotiations with the Italians were eagerly misrepresented to the jealous and excited people as evidence of complicity with a wide-spread conspiracy against Rome. His laws were carried, but the senate pronounced them null and void. Drusus was denounced in the senate house as a traitor, and on his way home was struck down by the hand of an unknown assassin.

The Social War (90-89 B.C.)

The knights retained their monopoly of the courts, but this and all other domestic controversies were silenced for the time by the news which followed hard upon the murder of Drusus that the Italians were in open revolt against Rome. His assassination was the signal for an outbreak which had been secretly prepared for some time before. Throughout the highlands of central and southern Italy the flower of the Italian peoples rose as one man. Etruria aud Umbria held aloof; the isolated Latin colonies stood firm; but the Sabellian clans, north aud south, the Latinized Marsi and Paeligni, as well as the still Oscan-speaking Samnites and Lucanians, rushed to arms. No time was lost in proclaiming their plans for the future. A new Italian state was to be formed. The Paelignian town of Corfinium was selected as its capital and re-christened with the proud name of Italica. All Italians were to be citizens of this new metropolis, and here were to be the place of assembly and the senate house. A senate of 500 members and a magistracy resembling that of Rome completed a constitution which adhered closely to the very political traditions which its authors had most reason to abjure.

Now, as always in the face of serious danger, the action of Rome was prompt and resolute. Both, consuls took the field; with each were five legates, among them the veteran Marius and his destined rival L. Cornelius Sulla, and even freedmen were pressed into service with the legions. But the first year's campaign opened disastrously. In central Italy the northern Sabellians, and in the south the Samnites, defeated the forces opposed to them. And though before the end of the year Marius and Sulla in the north, and the consul Caesar himself in Campania, succeeded in inflicting severe blows on the enemy, and on the Marsi especially, it is not surprising that, with an empty treasury, with the insurgents' strength still unbroken, and with rumours of disaffection in the loyal districts, opinion in Rome should have turned in the direction of the more liberal policy which had been so often scornfully rejected and in favour of some compromise which should check the spread of the revolt, and possibly sow discord among their enemies.

Lex Julia and Lex Plautia Papiria

Towards the close of the year 90 the consul Caesar carried the "lex Julia," by which the Roman franchise was offered to all communities which had not yet revolted ; early in the next year (89) the Julian law was supplemented by the " lex Plautia Papiria," introduced by two of the tribunes, which enacted that any citizen of an allied community then domiciled in Italy might obtain the franchise by giving in his name to a praetor in Rome within sixty days. A third law (lex Calpurnia) apparently passed at the same time empowered Roman magistrates in the field to bestow the franchise there and then upon all who were willing to receive it. This sudden opening of the closed gates of Roman citizenship was completely successful, and its effects were at once visible in the diminished vigour of the insurgents. By the end of 89 the Samnites and Lucanians were left alone in their obstinate hostility to Rome, and neither, thanks to Sulla's brilliant campaign in Samnium, had for the moment any strength left for active aggression.

The termination of the Social War brought with it no peace in Rome. The old quarrels were renewed with increased bitterness, and the newly enfranchised Italians themselves complained as bitterly of the restriction which robbed them of their due share of political influence by allowing them to vote only in a specified number of tribes. The senate itself was distracted by violent personal rivalries —and all these feuds, animosities, and grievances were aggravated by the widespread economic distress and ruin which affected all classes. Lastly, war with Mithradates had been declared; it was notorious that the privilege of commanding the force to be sent against him would be keenly contested, and that the contest would lie between the veteran Marius and L. Cornelius Sulla.

P. Suplicius Rufus (88 B.C.)

It was in an atmosphere thus charged with the elements of disturbance tnat P. Sulpicius Rufus as tribune brought forward his laws. He proposed—(1) that the command of the Mithradatic war should be given to Marius, (2) that the new citizens should be distributed through all the tribes, (3) that the freedmen should no longer be confined to the four city tribes, (4) that any senator owing more than 2000 denarii should lose his seat, (5) that those exiled on suspicion of complicity with the Italian revolt should be recalled. Whatever may have been Sulpicius's intentions, these proposals inevitably provoked a storm. The old voters bitterly resented the swamping of the existing constituency; the senate rallied its forces to oppose the alteration in the franchise of the freedmen and the proposed purging of its own ranks; and, lastly, both the senate and Sulla himself, now one of the consuls, prepared to resist the transference of the Asiatic command to Marius. Both sides were ominously ready for violent measures. The consuls, in order to prevent legislation, proclaimed a public holiday. Sulpicius replied by arming his followers and driving the consuls from the forum. The proclamation was withdrawn and the laws carried, but Sulpicius's triumph was short-lived. From Nola in Campania, where lay the legions commanded by him in the Social War, Sulla advanced on Rome, and for the first time a Roman consul entered the city at the head of the legions of the republic. Resistance was hopeless. Marius and Sulpicius fled, and Sulla, summoning the assembly of the centuries, proposed the measures he considered necessary for the public security, the most important being a provision that the sanction of the senate should be necessary before any proposal was introduced to the assembly. Then, after waiting in Rome long enough to hold the consular elections, he left for Asia early in 87.

Marius and Cinna

Sulla had conquered, but his victory cost the republic dear. He had first taught political partisans to look for final success, not to a majority of votes in the forum or campus, but to the swords of the soldiery; and he had shown that the legions, composed as they now were, could be trusted to regard nothing but the commands of a favourite leader. The lesson was well learnt. Shortly after his departure, Cinna as consul revived the proposals of Sulpicius ; his colleague Octavius at the head of an armed force fell upon the new citizens who had collected in crowds to vote, and the forum was heaped high with the bodies of the slain. China fled, but fled like Sulla to the legions. When the senate declared him deposed from his consulship, he replied by invoking the aid of the soldiers in Campania in behalf of the violated rights of the people and the injured dignity of the consulship, and, like Sulla, found them ready to follow where he led. The neighbouring Italian communities, who had lost many citizens in the recent massacre, sent their new champion men and money ; while from Africa, whither he had escaped after Sulla's entry into Rome, came Marius with 1000 Numidian horsemen. He landed in Etruria, where his old veterans flocked to his standard, and at the head of some 6000 men joined Cinna before the gates of Rome. The senate had prepared for a desperate defence, but fortune was adverse, and after a brief resistance they gave way. Cinna was acknowledged as consul, the sentence of outlawry passed on Marius was revoked, and Cinna and Marius entered Rome with their troops. Marius's thirst for revenge was gratified by a frightful massacre, and he lived long enough to be nominated consul for the seventh time. But he held his consulship only a few weeks. Early in 86 he died, and for the next three years Cinna ruled Rome. Constitutional government was virtually suspended. For 85 and 84 Cinna nominated himself and a trusted colleague as consuls. The state was, as Cicero says, without lawful authority. One important matter was carried through—the registration in all the tribes of the" newly enfranchised Italians, but beyond this little was done. The attention of Cinna and his friends was in truth engrossed by the ever-present dread of Sulla's return from Asia. The consul of 86, Valerius Flaccus, sent out to supersede him, was murdered by his own soldiers at Nicomedia. In 85 Sulla, though disowned by his government, concluded a peace with Mithradates.

The Return of Sulla (83 B.C.)

In 84, after settling affairs in Asia and crushing Flaccus's successor Fimbria, he crossed into Greece, and in the spring of 83 landed at Brundusium with 40,000 soldiers and a large following of emigre nobles. Cinna was dead, murdered like Flaccus by his mutinous soldiers; his most trusted colleague Carbo was commanding as proconsul in Cisalpine Gaul; and the resistance offered to Sulla's advance was slight. At Capua Sulla routed the forces of one consul, Norbanus ; at Teanum the troops of the other went over in a body to the side of the outlawed proconsul. After a winter spent in Campania he pressed forward to Rome, defeated the younger Marius (consul 82) near Praeneste, and entered the city without further opposition. In North Italy the success of his lieutenants Metellus, C. Pompeius, and Marcus Crassus had been fully as decisive. Cisalpine Gaul, Umbria, and Etruria had all been won for Sulla, and the two principal leaders on the other side, Carbo and Norbanus, had each fled, one to Rhodes, the other to Africa. Only one foe remained to be conquered. The Samnites and Lucanians whom Cinna had conciliated, and who saw in Sulla their bitterest foe, were for the last time in arms, and had already joined forces with the remains of the Marian army close to Rome. The decisive battle was fought under the walls of the city, and ended in the complete defeat of the Marians and Italians.

Sulla's Dictatorship (81 B.C.)

For a period of nearly ten years Rome and Italy had been distracted by civil war. Constitutional government, whether by senate or assembly, had been in abeyance, while the opposing parties fought out their quarrels with the sword, under the leadership of generals at the head of legions ready and willing to follow them against their fellow citizens and against the established authorities of the state. The strife had spread from the Roman forum to Italy, and from Italy to the provinces; and for the first time the integrity of the empire was threatened by the conflicts of rival governors. The tottering fabric of Italian prosperity had been rudely shaken by the ravages of war. Class hatreds and personal feuds distracted the community, while the enfranchisement of the Italians was in itself a revolution which affected the very foundations of the republic. Such was the situation with which Sulla was now called upon to deal. It was for him to heal the divisions which rent the state asunder, to set in working again the machinery of civil government, and above all so to modify it as to meet the altered conditions, and to fortify it against the dangers which visibly threatened it in the future. The real charge against Sulla is not that he failed to accomplish all this, for to do so was beyond the powers even of a man so able, resolute, and self-confident as Sulla, armed though he was with absolute authority and backed by overwhelming military strength and the prestige of unbroken success. He stands convicted rather of deliberately aggravating some and culpably ignoring others of the evils he should have tried to cure, and of contenting himself with a party triumph when he should have aimed at the regeneration and confirmation of the whole state. His victory was instantly followed, not by any measures of conciliation, but by a series of massacres, proscriptions, and confiscations, of which almost the least serious consequence was the immediate loss of life which they entailed.

Effects of the Sullan Proscriptions

From this time forward the fear of proscription and confiscation recurred as a possible consequence of every political crisis, and it was with difficulty that Caesar himself dissipated the belief that his victory would be followed by a Sullan reign of terror. The legacy of hatred and discontent which Sulla left behind him was a constant source of disquiet and danger. In the children of the proscribed, whom he excluded from holding office, and the dispossessed owners of the confiscated lands, every agitator found ready and willing allies.12 The moneyed men of the equestrian order were more than ever hostile to the senatorial government, which they now identified with the man who cherished towards them a peculiar hatred,13 and whose creatures had hunted them down like dogs. The attachment which the new Italian citizens might in time have learnt to feel for the old republican constitution was nipped in the bud by the massacres at Praeneste and Norba, by the harsh treatment of the ancient towns of Etruria, and by the ruthless desolation of Samnium and Lucania.14 Quite as fatal were the results to the economic prosperity of the peninsula. Sulla's confiscations, following on the civil and social wars, opened the doors wide for a long train of evils. The veterans whom he planted on the lands he had seized15 did nothing for agriculture, and swelled the growing numbers of the turbulent and discontented.16 The " Sullan men " became as great an object of fear and dislike as the "Sullan reign."17 The "latifundia" increased with startling rapidity—whole territories passing into the hands of greedy partisans.18 Wide tracts of land, confiscated but never allotted, ran to waste.19 In all but a few districts of Italy the free population finally and completely disappeared from the open country; and life and property were rendered insecure by the brigandage which now developed unchecked, and in which the herdsmen slaves played a prominent part. The outbreaks of Spartacus in 73, and of Catiline ten years later, were significant commentaries on this part of Sulla's work.20 |





Constitional Legislation of Sulla

His constitutional legislation, while it included many useful administrative reforms, is marked by as violent a spirit of partisanship, and as apparently wilful a blindness to the future. The re-establishment on a legal basis of the ascendency which custom had so long accorded to the senate was his main object. With this purpose he had already, when consul in 88, made the "senatus auctoritas" legally necessary for proposals to the assembly. He now as dictator followed this up by crippling the power of the magistracy, which had been the most effective weapon in the hands of the senate's opponents. The legislative freedom of the tribunes was already hampered by the necessity of obtaining the senate's sanction ; in addition, Sulla restricted their wide powers of interference (intercessio) to their original purpose of protecting individual plebeians, and discredited the office by prohibiting a tribune from holding any subsequent office in the state. The control of the courts (quaestiones perpetuae) was taken from the equestrian order and restored to the senate. To prevent the people from suddenly installing and keeping in high office a second Marius, he re-enacted the old law against re-election, and made legally binding the custom which required a man to mount up gradually to the consulship through the lower offices. His increase of the number of praetors from six to eight, and of quaestors to twenty, though required by administrative necessities, tended, by enlarging the numbers and further dividing the authority of the magistrates, to render them still more dependent upon the central direction of the senate. Lastly, he replaced the pontifical and augural colleges in the hands of the senatorial nobles, by enacting that vacancies in them should, as before the lex Domitia (104), be filled up by co-optation. This policy of deliberately altering the constitution, so as to make it pronounce in favour of his own party, was open to two grave objections. It was not to be expected that the new legal safeguards would protect the senate any more efficiently than the established custom and tradition which the Gracchi had broken down; and, secondly, it was inevitable that the popular party would on the first opportunity follow Sulla's example, and alter the constitution to suit themselves. Still less was Sulla successful in fortifying the republican system against the dangers which menaced it from without. He accepted as an accomplished fact the enfranchisement of the Italians, but he made no provision to guard against the consequent reduction of the comitia to an absurdity, and with them of the civic government which rested upon them, or to organize an effective administrative system for the Italian communities. Of all men, too, Sulla had the best reason to appreciate the dangers to be feared from the growing independence of governors and generals in the provinces, and from the transformation of the old civic militia into a group of professional armies, devoted only to a successful leader, and with the weakest possible sense of allegiance to the state. He had himself, as proconsul of Asia, contemptuously and successfully defied the home government, and he, more than any other Roman general, had taught his soldiers to look only to their leader, and to think only of booty. Yet, beyond a few inadequate regulations, there is no evidence that Sulla dealt with these burning questions, the settlement of which was among the greatest of the achievements of Augustus. One administrative reform of real importance must, lastly, be set down to his credit. The judicial procedure first established in 149 for the trial of cases of magisterial extortion in the provinces, and applied between 149 and 81 to cases of treason and bribery, Sulla extended so as to bring under it the chief criminal offences, and thus laid the foundations of the Roman criminal law.


Footnotes

12. Polyb. xii. 4.

The most important change was the assimilation of the division by classes and centuries with that by tribes, a change effected apparently by the censors in their revision of the register, and probably effected gradually. For a full discussion of the point, see Mommsen, R. G., i. 818 ; Lange, Rom. Alterlh., ii. 463 (where the literature is given) ; Madvig, Verf. d. Rom. Reiehs, i. 117. A second constitutional question was the franchise of the freedmen ; see Nitzsch, Die Gracchen, 132 (Berlin, 1847)

A few offices of a more or less priestly character were still filled only by patricians, e.g., rex sacrorum, flamen Dialis. A plebeian first became "curio maximus" in 209 (545 A.U.C); Livy, xxvii. 8; see Mommsen, Rom. Forsch., i. 77-127.

3 The " lectio senatus" was in the hands of the censors, but whether before Sulla's time their choice was subject to legal restric-tions is doubtful. Cf. Cicero Pro Sestio, 65, " Deligerentur in id consilium ab universo populo."


Mommsen, R. G., i. 781 sq.; bange, Rom. Alterth., ii.
"Ex auctoritate senatus." The lex Flaminia agraria of 232
was an exception, Cic. De Senect., 4 ; Polyb., ii. 21.

6 Livy, xxxi. 5, xxxiii. 25, xxxvii. 55.
7 Livy, xxix. 40, xxx. 27, 41, xxxi. 50.
8 Livy, xxvi. 1, " consules de republica, de administratione belli, ue provinciis exercitibusque patres consuluernnt."
5 Livy, xlv. 18.
10 Ihne, R. G., iv. 43 ; Polyb., vi. 13.
11 Pro Sestio, 65, "quasi ministros gravissimi consilii."
12 Livy, xxvii. 5, xxviii. 45.
13 Livy, xxii. 7; in 191 the senators were forbidden to leave Piome
for more than a day. Nor were more than five to be absent at once ;
Livy, xxxvi. 3.
14 E.g., the abandonment of the dictatorship and the growing infre-
quency of re-election after the Second Punic War.
15 Livy, xxvii. 35 ; xxxv. 42, 48.

Mommsen, R. G., i. 782 sq.
E.g., Livii, Sempronii, Ciecilii, Licinii, &c.

3 Livy, xxii. 34, " plebeios nobiles . . . contemnere plebeni, ex quo contemni apatribusdesierint, eoepisse"; cf. Sail., «/«t<7., 41, "paucorum arbitrio belli domique agitabatur penes eosdem aerarium, provinciae, magistratns." Mommsen, R. G., i. 792, 793. The number of new families ennobled dwindles rapidly after 200 B.C.; Willems, Le Sinai de la Ripuhlique Romaine, i. 366 sq. (Paris, 1878).
6 By declaring his action to be " contra rempublicam." The force of this anathema varied with circumstances. It had no legal value.

6 Livy, xxxviii. 42, of Cn. Manlius Vulso in Asia, 189 B.C.; cf. _also the position of the two Scipios.
The senators' whole duty is " sententiam dicere." The senator was asked " quid censes 1" the assembly " quid velitis jubeatis?" Cf. also the saving clause, " Si eis videretur" (sc. consulibus, &c.) in
Seta., e.g., C\c.,Phil., v. 19.
6 Livy, xxxviii. 42, of Cn. Manlius Vulso in Asia, 189 B.C.; cf. _also the position of the two Scipios.
' Fence the same things, e.g., founding of colonies, are done in one year by a Sctum., in another by a "lex" ; cf. Gic. De Rep., ii. 32; Phil., i. 2, of Antony as consul, "mutata omnia, nihil per senatum, omnia per populum."
8 There was no legal necessity, before Sulla's time, for getting the " senatus auctoritas " for a proposal to the assembly.
9 See generally Mommsen, R. G., i. bk. iii. cap. 6 ; Lange, Rom. Alterth., vol. ii.; Ihne, v. cap. i.

The first law against bribery at elections was passed in 181 B.C. (Livy, xl. 20), and against magisterial extortion in the provinces in 149 (Lex Calpurnia de pecuniis repe tundis). The senators had special seats allotted to them in the theatre in 194 B.C.; Livy, xxxiv. 44, 54.


Mommsen, i. bk. iii. cap. 12, bk. iv. cap. 2 ; Ihne, iv. 173 sq., v. 1-25 ; Nitzsch, Die Gracchen ; Long, Decline and Fall of the Hainan Republic; Beesly, The Gracchi, Marius, and Sulla.
To Spain alone more than 150,000 men were sent between 196 and 169 (Ihne, iii. 319) ; compare the reluctance of the people to declare war against Macedon in 200 B.C., and also the case of Spurius Ligustinus in 171 (Livy, xlii. 34).
Mommsen, i. 837 sq. Ihne, v. 16, thinks that Mommsen has
exaggerated the depressing effects of foreign competition, but hardly makes out his case. 4 Beloch, Hal. Bund, 80 sq.
Liyy, xliii. 14 ; Epit., xlviii., lv. During the period the minimum
qualification for service in the legion was reduced from 11,000 to 4000 asses. 6 Livy, xxxii. 26, xxxiii. 36, xxxix. 29, 41.
Sixteen Roman and four Latin colonies. See Marquardt, Staats-
verw., i. 8 E.g., Livy, xxxi. 4, 12, 39, xxxii. 1.
Livy, xl. 38. 1(1 Livy, Epit., xlvi.
11 Sipontum and Buxentum in 186 ; Livy, xxxix. 23.
12 Plut., T. <?., 9-14; Appian, B. ft, i. 9-13 ; Livy, Epit., lviii.;
Cic; L. Agr., ii. 31. Compare also Mommsen, JR. G., ii. 68 sq.;


Epit., lx.; Tac, Ann., xii. 60; App., _. C, i. 21. For the
kindred lex Acilia, see ft /. L., i. 198 ; Wordsworth, Fragm., 424.

Ihne, v. 25; Marquardt, ___. Staatsverw., i. 437 sq.; Lange, Bom. Alterth., iii. 8 sq.; Nitzsch, Gracchen, 294; Dureau de la Malle, Econ. politique des Remains, ii. 280.
13 Or possibly 750 ; it was in excess of the limit fixed by the
Licinian law; App., _. C., i. 9.
14 Compare the inscription of Popillius Lamas, consul 132, _. I. L.,
i. 551 ; Wordsworth, Fragments of Early La.tin, p. 221.
1?J The allotments were to be inalienable, and were charged with payment of a quit-rent. App., _. ft, i. 10 ; Plut., O. G., 9. Their size is not stated. It is doubtful if the thirty jugera held " agri colendi causa" (compare the lex agraria, 111 B.C.) refer to the Sempro-nian allotments. See _ 1. L., i. 200, and Mommsen's notes.
16 Lex Sempronia de provinciis consularibus; Cic. Pro Domo, 9 ;
De Prov. Cons., 2, 7 ; Sallust, Jug., 27.
17 Lex de provincia Asia; Cic. Verr., 3, 6 ; Fronto Ad Ver., ii. p.
125. 18 Plut., _ G., 5 ; Diod., xxxiv. 25.
19 Plut., _. _., 4 ; Cic. Pro Domo, 31 ; Pro Rab. Perd., 4.
20 Qufestio de repetundis, est. 149 B.C. See Plut., C. <?., 5 ; Livy,
kindred lex Acilia, see ft /. L., i. 198 ; Wordsworth, Fragm., 424.
21 They had succeeded in 129 in suspending the operations of the
agrarian commission. App., B. ft, i. 18; Livy, Epit., lix.; Cic.
De Rep., iii. 41 ; cf. Lex Agraria, line 81; ft /. L., i. 200.
32 Lange, R. A., iii. 32 ; Lex Agr., lines 3, 15, 21.
23 The rogatio Fulvia, 125 EX. ; Val. Max., ix. 5, 1; App., B. ft, i. 21.

4 Lex Minncia, 121 B.C.; App., i. 27 ; Oros., v. 12 ; Festus, 201.


Plut., _. _., _; App., i. 21 ; Livy, Spit., lx.; Festus, 290.
Henee Gaius ranked as the founder of the equestrian order. Plin., .V. xxxiii. 34, "jndicum appellatione separare eum ordinem . . iustituere Gracchi;" Varro ap. Non., 454, "hicipitem civitatem fecit."
Traces of the work of the commission survive in the Miliarium Popilianum, _ I. L., i. 551, in a few Gracchan "termini," ib., 552, 553, 554, 555, in the "limites Gracchani," Liber Colon., ed. Laeh-mann, pp. 209, 210, 211, 229, &c. Compare also the rise in the numbers of the census of 125 B.C.; Livy, Epit., lx.
The so-called lex Thoria; App., i. 27; Cic. Brut, 36; cf. Wordsworth, Fragm., 441.
The "lex agraria," still extant in a fragmentary condition in the museum at Naples. See Mommsen, _. I. L., i. 200 ; Wordsworth, 441 sq.; Bruns, Fontes Juris ___., 54-67 ; App., i. 27.
Cic, Lex Agr., ii. sect. 65.
Efforts were repeatedly made to get over this difficulty, e.g., the
lex Papiria, 131 B.C.: Livy, Epit, lix. Gaius was himself tribune for
two years, 110-109 (cf. Sail., Jug., 37, "tribuni continuare magis-
tratum nitebautur)", and Saturninus in 100 B.C.
0 Sallast, Jug., 5 sq.; Livy, Epit., lxii., lxiv.
0 Sallast, Jug., 5 sq.; Livy, Epit., lxii., lxiv.

10 Calpurnius Bestia; Sail., Jug., 28.
11 lb., 38, 39. lb., 40.
13 Sallust, Jug., 63; Plut., Marius, 2, 3. For the question as to the
position of his parents, see Madvig, Verfas., i. 170; Diod., xxxiv. 38.
14 Sallust, Jug., 73.
15 lb., 114. Forthe chronology of the Jugurthine war, see Monim-
sen, R. G., ii. 146 note; Pelham, Journ. of Phil., vii. 91.
16 Livy, Epit, Ixvii.; Pint., Mar., 12 ; Mommsen, ii. 171 sq.
17 Livy, Epit, lxix.; App., B. ft, i. 28 sq.
18 Forthe "leges Appuleiae," see Livy, Epit, lxix.; App., i. 29 ;
Cic. Pro Balbo, 21 ; Auct. Ad Herennium, i. 12, 21. They included
also allotments to Marius's veterans ; Auct. De Vir. III., 62.


Sallust, Jug., 86, " ipseinterea milites scribere, non more majon::n neque ex classibus, sed uti cujusque cupido erat, capite eensos plerosque." For details, cf. Mommsen, ii. 192 ; Madvig, Verf., ii. 468, 49S; Marquardt, Staatsv., ii. 417, 421.
Livy, Epit.,]xx.\ Veil. Pat., ii. 13; Cicero, Brut,
Mommsen, ii. 218 ; Ihne, iv. 151, v. 253 ; Marquardt, Staats-verw., i. 57, 58.
Lex Junia,'Cic. Be OJf., iii. 11; lex Licinia Mucia, Cic. Pro Corn., fr. 10 ; Ascon., p. 67.
5 Cic. Be Orat., i. 25, and.De homo, 50; Appian, _. C., i. 35; Diod. Sic, xxxvii. 10; Ihne, v. 242.
For the provisions of the "leges Liviae," see App., _. C, i. 35; Livy, Epit., Ixxi. They included, according to Pliny, N. H., xxxiii. 3, a proposal for the debasement of the coinage.
For the provisions of the "leges Liviae," see App., _. C, i. 35; Livy, Epit., Ixxi. They included, according to Pliny, N. H., xxxiii. 3, a proposal for the debasement of the coinage.
Cic. Pro Domo, 16.
For the Social War, see, besides Mommsen, Ihne, Lange ; also Kiene, D. Römische Bundesgenossenkrieg, Leipsic, 1845.



App., B. C., i. 39-49 ; Livy, Epit, lxxii.-lxxvi.
For the lex Julia, see Cicero Pro Balbo, 8 ; Gell., iv. 4 ; App., /3. C., i. 49. For lex Plautia Papiria, see Cic. Pro Archia, 4, and Schol. Boh., p. 353.
Veil. Pat., ii. 20 ; App., B. C, i. 49, 53. Madvig {R. Verf., i. 27) follows Appian in holding that the tribes to which the new voters were confined were newly created tribes. Cf. Mommsen, Bom. Tribus, ii.
App., B. 0., i. 54, and Mithr. 22; Oros., v. 18 ; Livy, Epit, lxxiv.
It had been already declared a consular province for 87, and early in 88 seems to have been assigned to Sulla by decree of the senate.
Cf. Cic. Be Orat, i. 25, iii. 31, and Brutus, 214 ; Veil. Pat., ii.
18, for Sulpicius himself. For his laws, see A-pp., B. C., i. 55 sq.; Livy,
Epit, lxxvii.; Plutarch, Sulla, 8 sq.

7 App., loc. eit,i]p.(pmv apyias iroWwv—a favourite stroke of policy. Cf. Cicero Ad Q. F, ii. 4, 4, "dies comitiales exemit omnes .... Latinae instaurantur, nec deerant supplicationes."
8 Marius finally escaped to Africa (see MARIUS) ; Sulpicius was taken and killed ; App., i. 60.

App., B. C, i. 59, /iTjSez' irl airpofiouhevTOv is rhv hr\fxoi>
(inpepecrBai. For the other laws mentioned by Appian, see Mommsen, ii. 258. 10 Livy, Epit, lxxix.; Veil., ii. 20.
Cic. Pro Sestio, 77 ; Catil., iii. 24.
13 Tibur and Prameste especially.


The consuls of 86, 85, 84 were all nominated without election. Livy, Epit, Ixxx., lxxxiii.; App., i. 75.
Brut, 227.
The nobles had fled to Sulla in large numbers; Velleius, ii. 23.
This work was accomplished apparently by the censors of 86 ; but cf. Lange, iii. 133 ; Mommsen, ii. 315 ; Livy, Epit, lxxxiv.
Livy, Epit., lxxxii. Appian, Mithr., 52 ; Pint., Sulla, 23.
Livy, Epit., lxxxiii.; Veil., ii. 23 ; Plut., Suit, 22.
In 84 ; App., B. C, i. 78 ; Livy, Epit, lxxxiii.
Livy, Epit., lxxxviii., " cum Samnitibus ante portam Collinam debellavit ; Plut., Sulla, 29, and Crassus, 6. According to App., i. 93, and Livy, he. cit, 8000 captives were massacred. Florus, iii. 21, gives 4000. Prseneste surrendered, was razed to the ground, and its population put to the sword,
In Asia between Sulla and Fimbria. In 82 Pompey crushed the
Marian leader Carbo in Africa. In Spain Q. Sertorius maintained himself for ten years (82-72).


10 Compare especially Mommsen's brilliant chapter, which is, how-
ever, too favourable (ii. 335-377), and also Lange (iii. 144 sq.), where
most of the special literature on the Sullan legislation is given.
11 App., i. 95 sq.; Dio Cassius, fr. 109; Plut., Sulla, 31. The
number of the proscribed is given as 4700 (Valer. Max.), including,
according to Appian, 2600 members of the equestrian order.
12 E.g., Catiline, in 63. Sail., Cat, 21, 37. For the "liberipro-
scriptorum," see Velleius, ii. 28. 13 Cic. Pro Cluent., 151.
14 Cic., Phil., v. 43, "tot municipiorum maximae calamitates."
Cic. Pro Domo, 30 ; Cic. Ad Att, i. 19 ; Florus, iii. 21 ; Strabo, p.
223, 254.
15 Livy, Epit, lxxxix.; App., B. C, i. 100 ; Cicero, Catil., ii. 20.
16 Sail., Cat., 28. 17 Cic, Lex Agr., ii. 26.
18 Cic, Lex Agr., ii. 26, 28, iii. 2,—the territories of Prsenesw and
of the Hirpini. 19 Cic, Lex Agr., ii. 27, iii. &.
20 See especially Cicero's oration Pro Tvllio. For the " pastores" of Apulia, Sail., Cat, 28.

1 For Sulla's dictatorship as in itself a novelty, see App., i. 98 ; Hut., Sulla, 33; Cic. Ad AIL, 9, 15 ; Cic. Be Legg., i. 15.
Cic. Be Legg., iii. 22, "injuriae faciendae potestatem ademit, anxilii ferendi reliquit." Cf. Cic., Verr., i. 60 ; Livy, Epit., Ixxxix.
Cic. Pro Cornel., fr. 78 ; Ascon. In Corn., 78 ; Appian, i. 100.
Velleius, ii. 32 ; Tac., Ann., xi. 22 ; Cic, Verr., i. 13.
5 App., B. C, i. 100; ef. Livy, vii. 42 (342 B.C.), "ne quis enndeni magistratum intra decern annos caperet."
6 The custom had gradually established itself. Cf. Livy, xxxii. 7. The " certus ordo magistratuum " legalized by Sulla was—quasstorship, praatorship, consulate; App., i. 100.
7 Pompon., Be Orig. Juris (Big., i. 2, 2); Velleius, ii. 89. Com-pare also Cicero In Pison., 15, with Id. Pro Milone, 15. The increase was connected with his extension of the system of " quaestiones perpetuae," which threw more work on the prajtors as the magistrates in charge of the courts.
Tac, Ann., xi. 22. The quajstorship henceforward carried with it the right to be called up to the senate. By increasing the number of quaestors, Sulla provided for the supply of ordinary vacancies in the senate and restricted the censors' freedom of choice in filling them up. Fragments of the "lex Cornelia de XX quaestoribus " survive. See C. I. L., 108.
Dio Cass., xxxvii. 37 ; Ps. Ascon., 102 (Orelli). He also increased their numbers; Livy, Epit., Ixxxix.
He did propose to deprive several communities which had joined Cinna of the franchise, hut the deprivation was not carried into effect; Cic. Pro Domo, 30, and Pro CtBcina, 33, 35.
There is no evidence to show that Sulla's legislation touched at
all upon municipal government in Italy; cf. Monnnsen, ii. 361 sq.
Mommsen, ii. 355 ; Marquardt, Staatsverw., i. 378.

12 Sail., Cat., ii., "L. Sulla exercitum, quo sibi fldum faceret, contra
morem majorum luxuriöse nimisque liberaliter habuerat."

13 There was a " lex Cornelia de provinciis ordinandis," but only two of its provisions are known :—(1) that a magistrate sent out with the imperium should retain it till he re-entered the city (Cic Ad Fam., i. 9, 25), a provision which increased rather than diminished his free- dom of action; (2) that an outgoing governor should leave his pro- vince within thirty days after his successor's arrival (Cic Ad Fam., iii. 6, 4). A " lex Cornelia de majestate" contained, it is true, a definition of treason evidently framed 'n the light of recent experience. The magistrate was forbidden " exire de provincia, educere exercitum, bellum sua sponte gerere, in regnum injussu populi ac senatus ac- cedere," Cic. In Pis., 21. Sulla also added one to the long list of laws dealing with extortion in the provinces. But the danger lay, not in the want of laws, but in the want of security for their observance by an absolutely autocratic proconsul. The present writer cannot agree with those who would include among Sulla's laws one retaining consuls and prtetors in Rome for their year of office and then sending them out to a province. This was becoming the common practice before 81. After 81 it is invariable for prators, as needed for the judicial work, and invariable but for two exceptions in the case of consuls ; but nowhere is there a hint that there had been any legislation on the subject, and there are indications that it was convenience and not law which maintained the arrangement.


Read the rest of this article:
Rome - Table of Contents