Page:Roman Constitutional History, 753-44 B.C..djvu/223

Rh worthless oligarchy, which was incapable of carrying on the government, and which he knew to be incapable. He was a general who of his own accord restored a cowardly and incompetent garrison, gave it a few more catapults of the same old type, and then left it to shift for itself. His constitution did not contain any original ideas. Its essential features were either renewals of antiquated provisions, or the extension and regulation of existing institutions, such as the admission of ex-quaestors to the senate and the increase of the number of criminal courts. He neither improved, nor effectually restricted, nor abolished, the popular assemblies, although it was absurd that the multitude in one Italian city — Rome — should in practice remain legally competent to enact the laws of the Italian state. In general his constitution was a superficial modification, while the circumstances demanded a thorough revision.

Means of Maintaining the Constitution. — During the last half century violence had repeatedly run riot in the capital, and some of the constitutional limitations had been ignored by democrats and aristocrats alike. The lawless character of the politicians and the urban multitude was manifest. The spirit of the soldiery was sufficiently indicated by the fact that several Roman generals had been murdered by their soldiers within a few years, and that Sulla had without difficulty led his army against Rome and Italy. Moreover, three of his chief officers were insubordinate or disobedient even during his dictatorship. Of these, Gnaeus Pompeius and L. Licinius Murena were rewarded, and Q. Lucretius Ofella was butchered. Under such conditions of lawlessness, treachery, and insubordination, Sulla established the oligarchic government and based it on bloodshed and confiscations. Nevertheless, it was expected to maintain itself by means of various constitutional provisions, without even a police force except a rabble of freedmen (the