Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 20.djvu/786

Rh 762 ROME [HISTORY. 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 consu" in 88, made the "senatus auctoritas" legally necessary for proposals to the assembly. He now as dictator 1 followed this up by crippling the power of the magistracy, which had been the most effective weapon in the hands oi the senate's opponents. The legislative freedom of the tribunes was already hampered by the necessity of obtain- ing the senate's sanction ; in addition, Sulla restricted their wide powers of interference (intercessio) to their original purpose of protecting individual plebeians, 2 and discredited the office by prohibiting a tribune from holding any sub- sequent office in the state. 3 The control of the courts (quaestiones perpetuae) was taken from the equestrian order and restored to the senate. 4 To prevent the people from suddenly installing and keeping in high office a second Marius, he re-enacted the old law against re-election, 5 and made legally binding the custom which required a man to mount up gradually to the consulship through the lower offices. 6 His increase of the number of prsetors from six to eight, 7 and of quaestors to twenty, 8 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 sena- torial nobles, by enacting that vacancies in them should, as before the lex Domitia (104), be filled up by co-optation. 9 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 tra- dition 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 con- stitution to suit themselves. Still less was Sulla success- ful in fortifying the republican system against the dangers which menaced it from without. He accepted as an accomplished fact the enfranchisement of the Italians, 10 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. 11 Of all men, too, Sulla had the best reason 1 For Sulla's dictatorship as in itself a novelty, see App., i. 98 ; Plut., Sulla, 33; Cic. Ad Alt., 9, 15 ; Cic. De Legg., i. 15. 2 Cic. De Legg., iii. 22, "injuriae faciendae potestatem ademit, auxilii ferendi reliquit." Cf. Cic., Verr., i. 60 ; Livy, Epit., Ixxxix. 8 Cic. Pro Cornel., fr. 78 ; Ascon. In Corn., 78 ; Appian, i. 100. 4 Velleius, ii. 32 ; Tac., Ann., xi. 22 ; Cic., Verr., i. 13. 5 App., B. C., i. 100; cf. Livy, vii. 42 (342 B.C.), "ne quis eundem magistratum intra decem annos caperet." 6 The custom had gradually established itself. Cf. Livy, xxxii. 7. The " certus ordo magistratuum " legalized by Sulla was qusestorship, pnetorship, consulate; App., i. 100. 7 Pompon., De Orig. Juris (Dig., i. 2, 2); Velleius, ii. 89. Com- pare also Cicero InPison., 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 prators as the magistrates in charge of the courts. 8 Tac., Ann., xi. 22. The qusestorship 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. 9 Dio Cass., xxxvii. 37 ; Ps. Ascon., 102 (Orelli). He also increased their numbers ; Livy, Epit., Ixxxix. 10 He did propose to deprive several communities which had joined Cinna of the franchise, but the deprivation was not carried into effect ; Cic. Pro Domo, 30, and Pro Caecina, 33, 35. 11 There is no evidence to show that Sulla's legislation touched at all upon municipal government in Italy; cf. Mommsen, ii. 361 sq. 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, con- temptuously 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. 12 Yet, beyond a few inadequate regulations, there is no evidence that Sulla dealt with these burning ques- tions, the settlement of which was among the greatest of the achievements of Augustus. 13 One administrative re- form of real importance must, lastly, be set down to his credit. The judicial procedure first established in 149 C05-673. for the trial of cases of magisterial extortion in the pro- vinces, 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. 14 The Sullan system stood for nine years, and was then Ov overthrown as it had been established by a successful soldier. It was the fortune of Cn. Pompeius, a favourite f j, officer of Sulla, first of all to violate in his own person the constitn- fundamental principles of the constitution re-established tion, 70 by his old chief, and then to overturn it. In Spain the =684 - Marian governor Q. Sertorius (see SERTORIUS) had defeated one after another of the proconsuls sent out by the senate, and was already in 77 master of all Hither Spain. 15 To 677. meet the crisis, the senate itself took a step which was in fact the plainest possible confession that the system sanctioned afresh by Sulla was inadequate to the needs of the state. Pompey, who was not yet thirty, and had never held even the quaestorship, was sent out to Spain with proconsular authority. 10 Still Sertorius held out, until in 73 he was foully murdered by his own officers. 681. The native tribes who had loyally stood by him submitted, and Pompey early in 71 returned with his troops to Italy, 683 where, during his absence in Spain, an event had occurred which had shown Roman society with startling plainness tiow near it stood to revolution. In 73 Spartacus, 17 a 681. Thracian slave, escaped with seventy others from a gladia- tors' training school at Capua. In an incredibly short 12 Sail., Cat., ii., "L. Sulla exercitum, quo sibi Mum faceret, contra morem majorum luxuriose nimisque liberaliter habuerat." ls There was a " lex Cornelia de provinciis ordinandis," but only two of its provisions are known : (1) that a magistrate sent out with the mperium should retain it till lie re-entered the city (Cic. Ad Fam., . 9, 25), a provision which increased rather than diminished his free- dom of action ; (2) that an outgoing governor should leave his pro- ,'iuce within thirty days after his successor's arrival (Cic. Ad Fam., ii. 6, 4). A " lex Cornelia de majestate " contained, it is true, a definition of treason evidently framed in the light of recent experience. The magistrate was forbidden " exire de provincia, educere exercitum, )ellum sua sponte gerere, in regnum injussu populi ac senatus ac- edere," Cic. In Pis., 21. Sulla also added one to the long list of laws lealing with extortion in the provinces. But the danger lay, not in lie want of laws, but in the want of security for their observance by an absolutely autocratic proconsul. The present writer cannot agree vith those who would include among Sulla's laws one retaining consuls ind praetors in Rome for their year of office and then sending them out ,o a province. This was becoming tiie common practice before 81. After 81 it is invariable for prsctors, 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 ubject, and there are indications that it was convenience and not law which maintained the arrangement. Mommsen, ii. 355 ; Marquardt, Staatsverio., i. 378. 14 For this, the most lasting of Sulla's reforms,'see Mommsen, ii. 159 ; Rein, Criminal- Recht ; Zumpt, Criminal- Prozess d. Romer. 14 For the Sertorian War, see Plutarch, Sertorius. 16 Plut., Pomp., 17 ; Livy, Epit., zci. For Pompey's earlier life, ee POMPEY. 17 App., i. 116 ; Livy, Epit., xcv. ; Plut., Crass., 8 sq.
 * ime he found himself at the head of a numerous force