Page:Roman Constitutional History, 753-44 B.C..djvu/202

188 an agrarian law be passed. In this way all the public domains in Italy and Sicily, including the Campanian lands and those occupied by the allies, were to be distributed. No opportunity for further distribution would be left. The monthly allowance of grain was to be furnished at a lower price than before, and every eighth denarius was to be coined of copper in place of silver and be plated, in order to enable the treasury to bear the additional burdens.

The Fate of the Laws of Drusus. — Drusus had enjoyed at first the support of M. Aemilius Scaurus, the first senator, Q. Mucius Scaevola, the foremost jurist, L. Licinius Crassus and M. Antonius, the greatest orators of the age, and of younger men like Gaius Aurelius Cotta and P. Sulpicius Rufus. His chief opponents were the consul L. Marcius Philippus, whom he arrested once during the contest, and Q. Servilius Caepio, a son of the consul of 106, whom he threatened to hurl from the Tarpeian rock. He met with the greatest opposition from the equestrian class, and was supported in an indifferent and lukewarm way by a great many senators. The large majority of the people were not interested in the bill respecting jurors, but favored the other bills. Hence Drusus, in violation of the Caecilio-Didian law, combined his proposals concerning jurors and the distribution of grain and lands, and forced them through in a violent and irregular way. Philippus induced the senate to decree that the laws were null and void. Drusus, who disdained to intercede, proceeded, notwithstanding the decree, to have them executed.

Citizenship of the Italians and Death of Drusus. — Drusus may from the first have intended to obtain citizenship for the Italian allies. At any rate he was suspected and accused of treason in his connections with them, and it was perchance mainly on that account that he had been deserted