Page:Cicero And The Fall Of The Roman Republic.djvu/169

63 B.C.] tyranny by putting to death without trial men of notoriously criminal character. To let the prisoners go would be manifestly impolitic, but without breaking the law which forbade that any Roman citizen should be punished with death except by command of the People, measures might be taken which would render the conspirators powerless to do harm for the future. He therefore proposed that the property of the culprits should be confiscated, and that they should be confined in chains in corporate towns of Italy, and that it should be declared illegal for anyone to bring before the Senate or the People any proposal for their release.

It is obviously very difficult to understand how such a proposal could follow on such an argument. Cæsar by proposing an alternative sentence seems to acknowledge the right of the Senate to try these men and to condemn them to punishment of some sort. Why was the Senate better qualified to pronounce a sentence of imprisonment for life, than a sentence of death? This question, though it seems to force itself on the notice of the reader, is never clearly stated, much less solved, by any of our authorities. Appian evades it by making Cæsar propose a mere remand of the prisoners for a legal trial later on. Sallust and Cicero give us little help in explanation, though they state the facts correctly. The most probable answer seems to be that imprisonment in the days of the Roman Republic was not fully recognised as a species of punishment, but only as a harsh method of safe-keeping. For this reason it was not mentioned amongst the punishments against