Page:Roman Constitutional History, 753-44 B.C..djvu/209

Rh law — declared public enemies, whom any one might kill with impunity. Sulpicius was slain; the others escaped, but were then banished, and their property confiscated. The Sulpician laws were canceled by a decree of the senate.

Laws of Sulla and Pompeius Rufus. — With the aid of his colleague, Sulla secured the adoption of a series of enactments, in order to strengthen the oligarchy and prevent future revolutions. The assembly of centuries was once more to be organized according to the Servian principles, as it had been before 220. The knights, and others who possessed an estate of $2200 or more, would then form a majority. No tribune was to lay a bill before the people without the previous sanction of the senate, as was the case before 287. This condition was intended to serve as a substitute for the former political or religious veto, which had practically been lost during the period of revolution since 133. Three hundred members of the conservative party were admitted to the senate. The economic conditions were to be improved by the enforcement of the legal maximum of twelve per cent interest and the establishment of colonies.

Although these laws had been carried by means of an army, resolute magistrates might have been able to maintain them and uphold the senatorial government. Sulla had, however, not secured favorable results at the elections. L. Cornelius Cinna, a determined but worthless democrat, was elected consul for 87, together with Gnaeus Octavius, a conservative. A number of the tribunes were also democrats. Moreover, Pompeius Rufus, who was to have charge of cisalpine Gaul and the army in the North, was killed by the soldiers, probably through the instigation of the proconsul, Gnaeus Pompeius Strabo. Nevertheless, Sulla in the spring of 87 left Italy for the East, where his presence was imperatively needed.