Page:Roman Constitutional History, 753-44 B.C..djvu/180

166 introduced special measures with or without general party support. The tribunes and, for the time being, the commissioners were the natural democratic leaders. They belonged for the most part to the nobility, where, in fact, party distinctions were the strictest and most important.

Political Indifference of the Multitude. — The farmers usually did not participate to any great extent in legislation and elections. The multitude in the city were interested only in laws that would redound to their profit, and were otherwise indifferent For this reason they could not be depended upon, and supported now a democrat, now an aristocrat, according to each one's oratorical talents, or bribes, or other inducements.

Moreover, the meetings in the streets (contiones), which had become a factor in politics, occupied a still lower plane than the assemblies (concilium plebis, comitia). In these, slaves and freedmen, beggars and street urchins, Egyptians, Syrians, and Romans shouted and applauded or hissed and howled at the orator, and not every politician had, like Aemilianus, the courage to face them and oppose a popular measure. The tribunes in particular made use of such meetings as a ready means of agitation.

Minor Democratic Successes. — Gaius Papirius Carbo, tribune in 131, succeeded in introducing voting by ballot in legislation; but, on account of the opposition of Aemilianus and others, he failed in his attempt to make plebeian tribunes reëligible without any restriction as to interval or number of terms. Within a few years, however, such a law was passed, with the limitation that reëlection should be permissible only in case there was not a sufficient number of qualified candidates. This restriction could be evaded.

Soon after the death of Aemilianus, another enactment was carried, providing that every knight (eques equo