Page:Roman Constitutional History, 753-44 B.C..djvu/241

Rh prevented from becoming a commissioner by the requirement that the candidates should in person announce their candidacy. Under the cover of this law Caesar would, moreover, have an opportunity to execute his scheme respecting Egypt.

The aims of the bill were plain enough; hence it was supported by Antonius, and was opposed by Cicero, both in the senate and before the people. The urban multitude were not interested in such legislation and were unwilling to oppose Pompeius. As a consequence the democrats seem to have dropped the bill.

Prosecution of Rabirius. — Another political move of the democrats met with but scant success. The ancient criminal jurisdiction of the people had not been formally abolished, but had in the main been superseded by the special courts for cases of high treason (quaestio maiestatis) and homicide (de sicariis et veneficis). To revive it would have been an absurd, but truly democratic, measure. Through the tribune T. Atius Labienus, Caesar secured, as it seems, the passage of a law under which he and his cousin, the ex-consul L. Julius Caesar, were appointed a commission of two (duoviri perduellionis) for trying Gaius Rabirius on a charge of high treason. Rabirius was probably innocent, but had boasted of having killed the tribune Lucius Saturninus, some thirty-six years before (pp. 184-185). Caesar, to whom the function of prosecutor fell by lot, sentenced him to death by crucifixion. Rabirius appealed, but would probably have been condemned by the centuriate assembly, if the praetor Q. Metellus Celer had not, according to an agreement with Cicero, removed the red flag (vexillum) displayed on the Janiculum, and in accordance with ancient usage thereby caused the assembly to be dissolved.

Labienus then prosecuted Rabirius in a suit involving, if successful, the imposition of a fine. But Cicero defended him, and he escaped. Perhaps Caesar in this case intended to revive the right of appeal and the inviolability of the tribunes,