Page:Roman Constitutional History, 753-44 B.C..djvu/211

Rh made L. Valerius Flaccus the younger, his colleague. The adherents of Sulla had now for the most part been killed or had fled, and a period of comparative tranquillity ensued. The courts were in session and the Plautian law concerning jurors (pp. 191-192) was perhaps repealed about this time. Flaccus carried a law providing that debtors might cancel their obligations by paying one-fourth or twenty-five per cent. He was intrusted with the conduct of the Mithridatic war as the successor of Sulla, and proceeded with two legions to Asia. He was murdered, however, and his army afterward joined Sulla.

The censors of 86, like those of 89, were not able to enroll all the new citizens, the number registered being only four hundred and sixty-three thousand, but they revised the roll of the senate. Cinna appointed himself and Gnaeus Papirius Carbo consuls for 85 and 84. But early in 84 he was killed by his soldiers. Carbo tried to govern without a colleague, but was compelled to yield to the demand for another consul.

Character of Democratic Rule. — The period from the end of 87 to Sulla's return in 83 is the only instance in which the democrats governed as a victorious party for a considerable time. It is characteristic of the incapacity, as well as of the dishonesty, of these so-called democratic leaders (populares) that apparently nothing was done to introduce democratic constitutional amendments. To be sure, they reduced the senate, in the main, to a political tool; but they trampled on the popular rights even in the matter of consular elections, and left a precedent for future tyrants. At the time of Cinna's death nothing had been done to improve economic conditions by colonization or by the assignment of public land, or to crush the rebellion of the Samnites, or apparently even to organize Italy under the new conditions.