Page:Roman Constitutional History, 753-44 B.C..djvu/160

146 court was modeled on the civil procedure, and no appeal was allowed. The jurors were during this period senators, who either had been guilty of extortion or hoped one day to be, and hence were not inclined to deal harshly with a fellow sinner. As a result the provincial governors, like many a modern colonial governor, continued to plunder the provincials, and did so with impunity, if they were somewhat moderate.

Formally, the Calpurnian law was of the greatest importance, and led to a new development of the criminal procedure and the institution of a number of similar criminal courts (quaestiones perpetuae), which superseded the popular jurisdiction. Moreover, the question as to what class or classes should furnish the jurors in these courts became one of the greatest political issues during the last epoch of the republic.