Page:Roman Constitutional History, 753-44 B.C..djvu/238

224 This project was defeated by Catulus, the colleague of Crassus; and then both censors resigned their office.

Caesar's Vindication of Marius and Cinna. — Caesar, who as aedile delighted the democracy by his magnificent games, desired for personal and party reasons to vindicate the democracy of the past. As early as the year 68 he had dared to eulogize Marius and Cinna in the funeral orations which he delivered in honor of his aunt Julia, the widow of Marius, and of his wife Cornelia, the daughter of Cinna. He now ventured to take the illegal, but very popular, step of restoring the trophies and the statue of Marius on the Capitol.

In 65, Marcus Porcius Cato, a great-grandson of the censor and a stanch oligarch, was a quaestor, and collected the money paid as rewards to executioners of the victims of Sulla. The next year Caesar, as an ex-aedile, presided in a section of the special court for cases of homicide (quaestio de sicariis et veneficis), and it was probably he who drew the logical conclusion from Cato's action and caused several of these executioners to be accused of murder. In spite of the laws of Sulla, he secured the condemnation of a notorious centurion and of Catiline's uncle.

The Prosecution of Catiline. — The vindication of the past was simply an episode in the struggles of the present. As might be expected, the reward of Piso did not deter Catiline from entering into new schemes, and apparently no precautionary measures were adopted by the government. In the course of 65 Catiline was tried on the charge of provincial extortion, but bribed his prosecutor P. Clodius Pulcher and a sufficient number of jurors, and was acquitted, though manifestly guilty. It is characteristic of the times that the consul Torquatus assisted him, and that Cicero undertook to defend him, though prevented from keeping his