Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 3.djvu/953

941 These laws were all passed during the time that Sulla was dictator, that is, from the end of 82 to  79, and most of them in all probability during the years  81 and 80. It is impossible to determine in what order they were proposed, nor is it material to do so. They may be divided into four classes, laws relating to the constitution, to the ecclesiastical corporations, to the administration of justice, and to the improvement of public morals. Their general object and design was to restore, as far as possible, the ancient Roman constitution, and to give again to the senate and the aristocracy that power of which they had been gradually deprived by the leaders of the popular party. It did not escape the penetration of Sulla that many of the evils under which the Roman state was suffering, arose from the corruption of the morals of the people; and he therefore attempted in his legislation to check the increase of crime and luxury by stringent enactments. The attempt was a hopeless one, for vice and immorality pervaded alike all classes of Roman citizens, and no laws can restore to a people the moral feelings which they have lost. Sulla has been much blamed by modern writers for giving to the Roman state such an aristocratical constitution; but under, the circumstances in which he was placed he could not well have done otherwise. To have vested the government in the mob of which the Roman people consisted, would have been perfect madness; and as he was not prepared to establish a monarchy, he had no alternative but giving the power to the senate. His constitution did not last, because the aristocracy were thoroughly selfish and corrupt, and exercised the power which Sulla had entrusted to them only for their own aggrandisement and not for the good of their country. Their shameless conduct soon disgusted the provinces as well as the capital; the people again regained their power, but the consequence was an anarchy and not a government; and as neither class was fit to rule, they were obliged to submit to the dominion of a single man. Thus the empire became a necessity as well as a blessing to the exhausted Roman world. Sulla's laws respecting criminal jurisprudence were the most lasting and bear the strongest testimony to his greatness as a legislator. He was the first to reduce the criminal law of Rome to a system; and his laws, together with the Julian laws, formed the basis of the criminal Roman jurisprudence till the downfal of the empire.

In treating of Sulla's laws we shall follow the fourfold division which has been given above.

I. Laws relating to the Constitution. — The changes which Sulla introduced in the comitia and the senate, first call for our attention. The Comitia Tributa, or assemblies of the tribes, which originally possessed only the power to make regulations respecting the local affairs of the tribes, had gradually become a sovereign assembly with legislative and judicial authority. Sulla deprived them of their legislative and judicial powers, as well as of their right of electing the priests, which they had also acquired. He did not however do away with them entirely, as might be inferred from the words of Appian (B. C. i. 59); but he allowed them to exist with the power of electing the tribunes, aediles, quaestors, and other inferior magistrates. This seems to have been the only purpose for which they were called together; and all conciones of the tribes, by means of which the tribunes had exercised a powerful influence in the state, were strictly forbidden by Sulla. (Cic. pro Cluent. 40.)

The Comitia Centuriata, on the other hand, were allowed to retain their right of legislation unimpaired. He restored however the ancient regulation, which had fallen into desuetude, that no matter should be brought before them without the previous sanction of a senatusconsultum (Appian, B. C. i. 59); but he did not require the confirmation of the curiae, as the latter had long ceased to have any practical existence. Göttling supposes that the right of provocatio or appeal to the comitia centuriata was done away with by Sulla, but the passage of Cicero (Cic. Verr. Act. i. 13), which he quotes in support of this opinion, is not sufficient to prove it.

The Senate had been so much reduced in numbers by the proscriptions of Sulla, that he was obliged to fill up the vacancies by the election of three hundred new members. These however were not appointed by the censors from the persons who had filled the magistracies of the state, but were elected by the people. Appian says (B. C. i. 100) that they were elected by the tribes. Most modern writers think that we are not to understand by this the comitia tributa, but the comitia centuriata, which voted also according to tribes at this time; but Göttling observes that as the senators were regarded by Sulla as public officers, there is no difficulty in supposing that they were elected by the comitia tributa as the inferior magistrates were. However this may be, we know that these three hundred were taken from the equestrian order. (Appian, l. c.; Liv. Epit. 89.) This election was an extraordinary one, and was not intended to be the regular way of filling up the vacancies in the senate; for we are expressly told that Sulla increased the number of quaestors to twenty, that there might be a sufficient number for this purpose (Tac. Ann. xi. 32.) It was not necessary for Sulla to make any alteration respecting the duties and functions of the senate, as the whole administration of the state was in their hands; and he gave them the initiative in legislation by requiring a previous senatusconsultum respecting all measures that were to be submitted to the comitia, as is stated above. One of the most important of the senate's duties was the appointment of the governors of the provinces. By the Lex Sempronia of C. Gracchus, the senate had to determine every year before the election of the consuls the two provinces which the consuls should have (Cic. de Prov. Cons. 2, 7; Sall. Jug. 27); but as the imperium was conferred only for a year, the governor had to leave the province at the end of that time, unless his imperium was renewed. Sulla in his law respecting the provinces (de Provinciis ordinandis) did not make any change in the Sempronian law respecting the distribution of the provinces by the senate; but he allowed the governor of a province to continue to hold the government till a successor was appointed by the senate, and enacted that he should continue to possess the imperium till he entered the city, without the necessity of its being renewed annually (comp. Cic. ad Fam. i. 9. §12). The time during which the government of a province was to be held, thus depended entirely upon the will of the senate. It was further enacted that as soon as a successor arrived in the province, the former governor must quit it within thirty days (Cic. ad Fam. iii. 6); and the law also limited the 