Page:Roman Constitutional History, 753-44 B.C..djvu/216

202 In the ordinary course of affairs they were also safe from the censorial power of expulsion, and the oligarchic principle that they should enjoy a life tenure of their seats was established.

Powers and Influence of the Senate. — The senate was to be the only privileged order of any importance. Sulla accordingly humbled the equestrian class in different ways. His chief measure was to deprive the knights of the privilege of being jurymen and to restore it to the senators. Indirectly he thus made the senate once more independent, and furnished it with very efficient means of judicial control, especially in regard to the provincial governors. By reason of this and other changes the senate had apparently a fair opportunity to become, as of old, supreme in legislation, administration, and control of the courts.

Degradation of the Tribunes. — The tribunes had in general been the democratic leaders and the principal antagonists of the senate from the time of the Gracchi to that of Sulpicius, and were now to be rendered harmless and subservient; abolition of the office does not seem to have been contemplated. Sulla decreed that only senators should be eligible to the tribunate, and ex-tribunes were to be incapable of holding any other office. In this manner he intended to prevent the members of the nobility, which had usually furnished the revolutionary leaders, from entering on a career of tribunician demagogism. But in case the opposition should still seek expression through the tribunate, he renewed the old provision that no tribune was to submit a bill to the people without the previous sanction of the senate. Perhaps he also took away the criminal jurisdiction of the tribunes, and he certainly restricted their power of intercession. In consequence of these regulations the tribunate seemed to be a shadow without substance.