Page:Roman Constitutional History, 753-44 B.C..djvu/205

Rh to all the loyal allied Latin or Italian cities that desired it; that is to say, to the Latins in general, to the Etruscans, to Heraclea and Neapolis, and to the Latin colonies in cisalpine Gaul. The law may have contained also the provision that the new citizens should be enrolled in only eight of the thirty-five districts (tribus) and thus be made politically harmless. This was no doubt a selfish arrangement, but the Roman government could scarcely be expected to allow the popular assemblies to be revolutionized at a time when the old constitutional checks were ineffectual.

The next measure was intended to attract deserters and thus break down the rebellion. In 89 the law of Marcus Plautius Silvanus and Gaius Papirius Carbo conferred citizenship on all those citizens of allied communities who at the time were residents of Italy and reported within sixty days to the Roman praetor. Finally, the law of the consul Gnaeus Pompeius Strabo, passed in 89, gave the lesser Latin rights (p. 97) to Ravenna, and possibly to other allied communities south of the Po, and also to all the communities between the Po and the Alps which were organized after the Italian fashion. This was the first step in the important work of Romanizing the Gauls.

The Julian law prevented the extension of the rebellion, and the Plautio-Papirian law no doubt contributed largely to its rapid collapse. These two laws, together with that of Pompeius, extended Roman citizenship to all Italy south of the Po. If the Romans had exercised some self-denial, this result might have been attained with less sacrifice; as it was, it involved the loss of more than a hundred thousand lives, and caused irreparable injury to Italian prosperity.

The Plautian Law on Jurors. — The prosecutions before the Varian commission continued, and prevented the reconciliation of the factions at Rome. But the change of public opinion was evident in the judicial sphere, too. The tribune