Page:Roman Constitutional History, 753-44 B.C..djvu/208

194 the freedmen were to be enrolled in all the districts, and no senator was to be allowed to owe more than about $440 (2000 (denarii). For the sake of party advantage Sulpicius sacrificed the inviolability of the sentences passed by jurymen — a dangerous precedent. In regard to the new citizens he was in the main carrying out the policy of Drusus. The exclusion of senators who were in debt, and therefore dependent, might increase the independence of individual senators, but the measure was probably intended to remove political opponents.

Sulpicius had recently acted as a champion of constitutional procedure, but now resorted to violence himself. He forced Sulla to revoke a proclamation of holidays (feriae imperativae), which made meetings of the popular assemblies illegal for the rest of the year. Then, on Sulla's departure, he carried his bills and the additional provision that, in place of Sulla, Marius should as proconsul be placed in charge of the province of Asia and the Mithridatic war.

Civil War and Death of Sulpicius. — Sulla was not willing to yield the command to an old rival, and he could rely on his soldiers, who, partly through his own management and partly as a result of the military reforms of Marius, were simply mercenaries who were devoted, above all, to their leader and eager for Asiatic spoils. Though the superior officers, with one exception, refused to follow him, he marched on Rome and occupied the city with his legions. This was the first instance of the kind, and introduced a new epoch in Roman history. Civil war was, however, only the natural development of a course of events begun by the massacre of Tiberius Gracchus and his followers, and facilitated by the senatorial policy of leaving the city without effective police protection. The mob gave way to the army. Sulpicius, with Marius and his nephew and adopted son. Gaius Marius, were probably by a senatorial decree — in any case without due process of