Page:Roman Constitutional History, 753-44 B.C..djvu/227

 THE DEMOCRATS AND THE NEW OPPOSITION. 218 of the opposition. He had defied Sulla and proven himself courageous and energetic in Asia, too; but the dissolute young man was not as yet an influential politician. Marcus Toliius Cicero. — Marcus Tnllius Cicero, one of the noblest men of his time, was of about the same age as Pom- peius. During the lifetime of Sulla he had displayed skill and intrepidity as an advocate, and had established a repu- tation as a rising orator. By nature peaceful, moderate, and humane, he was essentially an opportunist; but he possessed neither the political sagacity nor the unscrupu- lousness of Philippus, and was destined to become, not an associate, but a subordinate, of the great political leaders. The Democrats and the New Opposition. — Of the former moderate party. Gains Aurelius Cotta, who had been re- called by Sulla, was the only man of note still remaining. He and his associates were inclined to modify the oli- garchic constitution in favor of the democrats. The chief democratic leader now surviving was Q. Ser- torius, perhaps one of the ablest men that Bome produced, but he was an outlaw and was engaged in a hopeless rebel- lion in Spain. The democratic party in Italy comprised those who were democrats by conviction, and in particular young men who, by professing popular aims, either wished to gain the empty honors and distinctions which were so much coveted, or real power and influence. Under proper leadership it might hope to obtain aid from all the discon- tented and bankrupt classes : the inhabitants of the regions beyond the Po, who had only Latin rights ; the freedmen, whose suffrage had been restricted ; the knights, who had lost the privilege of being jurors; the urban multitude, who had been deprived of their cheap grain ; those who had lost their property by the confiscations; the friends and relatives of the proscribed and of those fallen in conflict