Page:Roman Constitutional History, 753-44 B.C..djvu/181

Rh ) was to surrender his public horse on becoming a senator. This regulation deprived the senators of the privilege of voting in the equestrian centuries, and tended to separate the nobles and the equestrian class.

Question of Granting Citizenship to the Allies. — The chief aim of the democratic party was to have the commission resume its work, now practically suspended; and it was probably in this connection that the democratic leaders began to think of conferring citizenship on the Italian allies as the easiest way of removing the former objections (p. 165). The aristocrats of the allied communities now turned to the Roman nobility for aid, while the poor citizens looked on the democrats as their natural allies, and began in large numbers to crowd into the city, where they could promote the democratic agitation, at least in the public meetings. To check this movement, the senate followed a Claudian law of 177, and in 126 induced the tribune Marcus Junius Pennus to propose that all freemen who were not citizens should be dismissed from Rome. In spite of the danger of provoking the Latins, and notwithstanding the opposition of the democrats, the measure was carried. As a counter move, the democratic consul of the next year, Marcus Flaccus, brought forward a bill granting citizenship to those allies who desired it, and to the others the right of appeal to the Roman people. He did not attempt to procure the approval of the senate, and soon abandoned the bill, as the people were too selfish to be willing to share their privileges and advantages with the allies.

Having been disappointed repeatedly, the allies were exasperated, and possibly agreed to rebel. The Latin colony Fregellae, the second city in Italy, made an attempt to revolt, but was betrayed and destroyed. The Roman colony Fabrateria was founded in that neighborhood the following year.