Page:Roman Constitutional History, 753-44 B.C..djvu/220

206 (praetor peregrinus) those to which one or more parties were foreigners. These changes necessitated a more exact definition and classification of crimes and misdemeanors, and consequently involved a development of criminal law, as well as of criminal procedure. Other results were more or less indirect. Trials for high treason and other political offenses were in general transferred from the popular assemblies to the court for cases of treason; and hence the tribunes, as well as the people, to that extent lost their old jurisdiction. Since these six courts, moreover, did not have the power to sentence a criminal to death, capital punishment for such offenses was practically abolished. These courts also encroached on the old sphere of the civil law and the jurisdiction of the aediles. Under these circumstances the present senatorial privilege of furnishing the jurymen was of the highest importance.

Military Colonies. — In the course of the year 81 Sulla provided for his legions, amounting perhaps to one hundred and twenty thousand men, by assignments of public land and by the establishment of colonies, — for example, at Faesulae, Praeneste, and Pompeii. Only one colony was founded outside of Italy, at Aleria in Corsica. He thus redeemed his pledges to his comrades in arms, increased the number of small Italian farms, and established garrisons that would defend his constitution along with their own position and possessions. To secure permanent results, he made the allotments of land inalienable.

Introduction of Municipal Government. — In connection with these colonies a system of municipal government seems to have been introduced on a large scale. The old Roman colonies had not possessed local self-government (p. 99). But during the earlier part of the second century B.C., when the Roman colonies were superseding the Latin, they were