SULLA'S REACTIONARY MEASURES.
It is difficult to say about part of the legislation of this period
whether it was directly due to Sulla or not, just as some of the
changes in the army may or may not have been due to Marius, but were
certainly made about his time. The method of gathering together all
the changes made within certain dates, attributing them to one man,
and basing an estimate of his character on them, has a simplicity
about it which enables the writer to be graphic and spares the reader
trouble, but is an unsatisfactory way of presenting history. Enough,
however, is known of Sulla's own measures to make their general
tendency perfectly plain. [Sidenote: Main object of Sulla's laws.] His
main object was to restore the authority of the Senate, and to do more
than restore it, to give it such power as might, if it was true to
itself, secure it from mob-rule on the one hand and tyranny on the
other. Though he foresaw that his efforts would be futile, he was none
the less energetic in making them, and may reasonably have hoped that
they would at all events last his time, and enable him to enjoy
himself in Campania, undisturbed by another revolution. Our
acquaintance with his laws is only second-hand, for none of them
survive in their original form. They are known as Leges Corneliae, a
term which, though applicable to some other laws, is usually applied
to those of his making.
The Senate had originally been an advising council. Then it had
acquired superior authority, and issued commands to the magistrates.
It was placed by Sulla in a still higher position. [Sidenote: He
reconstitutes the Senate;] To fill up its exhausted ranks he admitted
to it 300 of the equestrian order; and, though it is not certain what
its numbers were to be, it is probable that they were fixed at about
500. Then he provided for keeping the list full for the future.
[Sidenote: fills it up from the quaestors;] Hitherto a man had become
a senator either at the censor's summons (of which he was practically
certain if he had been tribune or quaestor), or, if he had been
consul, praetor or aedile. [Sidenote: increases the number of the
quaestors;] Sulla made the quaestorship instead of the aedileship the
regular stepping-stone, and increased the number of the quaestors
to twenty. [Sidenote: degrades the censorship.] He also, in all
probability, though it is not certain, took away from the censors
their right of conferring or taking away senatorial rank. 'Once a
senator, always a senator,' was therefore now the rule; and as the
quaestors, who were the main source of supply, were nominated by the
Comitia Tributa, the Senate became a more representative as well as a
more permanent body than before, and independent of the magistrates.
[Sidenote: Legislative initiative given to the Senate.] Secondly, we
have seen that Sulla had given to the Senate by law the power which it
had previously exercised only by custom, of deliberating on a measure
before it was submitted to the vote of the Comitia. This was one
security against any measure being carried against its interests.
Before this the practice had been either for the Senate through the
tribunes to submit a measure to the vote, or for the tribunes to
submit a measure of their own after obtaining the Senate's authority
to do so. Saturninus, as we have seen, had overridden this custom, and
the only way in which the Senate could maintain its old privileges
would have been either by proclaiming a justitium, as it did on that
occasion, or by picking out some technical informality in the passing
of the plebiscitum, had not Sulla thus made its previous authorisation
absolutely indispensable. [Sidenote: Curtailment of the tribunes'
prerogative.] The tribunes, being deprived of the power of proposing a
measure at will to the Comitia Tributa, would also lose the power of
prosecuting anyone before it, and probably lost the right of convening
meetings in order to address the people. Sulla, too, provided that
those who had been tribunes should be ineligible to other offices,
and, though the right of veto seems to have been left to them, it is
not clear that it was left without restrictions, while the abuse of it
was made a heavily punishable offence. It is likely also that he made
senators the only persons eligible to the tribunate. Positively,
therefore, by making the Senate's previous consent to a law necessary,
and negatively by these limitations of the prerogative of the
tribunes, legislative power was placed wholly in the Senate's hands.
[Sidenote: Changes in the Comitia.] Thirdly, the balance in the
Comitia themselves was so adjusted that the voting would be mostly in
the Senate's interests. Something has already been said of Sulla's
changes on this head, in reverting to the Servian mode of voting (p.
129). Some explanation of what this means may be given here. Sulla did
not abolish the Comitia Tributa; but the measures just mentioned, as
they left the practical power of legislation with the Senate, left the
formal power with the Comitia Centuriata. [Sidenote: History of the
Comitia Tributa and Centuriata.] We know the origin of the Comitia
Centuriata. We do not know the origin of the Comitia Tributa. But
we do know that by degrees the latter obtained legislative power
co-ordinate with that of the former, and that the Plebiscitum became
as binding on the nation as the Lex. There were in short two parallel
bodies in which the people could make laws--ranged in the one by
tribes, and voting on measures submitted to them by their tribunes;
ranged in the other by centuries, and voting on measures submitted to
them by the consul. But as the State became more and more democratic,
the Comitia Tributa was more used than the Comitia Centuriata, in
which legislation was gradually confined to special matters assigned
to them by law or custom. Besides these functions the Comitia Tributa
decided on war or peace, elected the tribunes, aediles, and lesser
magistrates, and also usurped judicial power, arraigning magistrates
for their conduct in office, &c. The functions of the Comitia
Centuriata were, as we have, seen, also legislative. They elected to
the higher magistracies and exercised jurisdiction in capital cases, a
function which grew out of the Roman citizen's right to appeal. Each
century had one vote; and as by the Servian arrangement the first
class, though containing fewest voters, had nevertheless, owing to its
highest assessment, most votes, it could by itself outvote the other
classes. At some time or other this classification was altered; and a
new system, based partly on centuries and partly on tribes, came into
use. Each tribe was divided into ten centuries, five of seniors and
five of juniors. The first class consisted of one of each of these
from each tribe, so that, as there were thirty-five tribes, each class
would consist of seventy centuries. It is said by some that the first
class included also thirty-five centuries, or eighteen centuries of
equites. If this be true, the first class would still have retained
the preponderance of votes. In any case it had the best of the voting,
for even if it was decided by lot which century of all the centuries
should vote first, still the first class voted second, and the moral
effect of the wealthier and weightier citizens voting one way or other
would naturally influence the votes of the other centuries. Moreover
some say that the lot was confined to the centuries of the first
class. Such then was the original and such the modified constitution
of the Comitia Centuriata. [Sidenote: Sulla's legislation about the
Comitia.] Appian expressly states that Sulla reverted to the original
mode of voting. But he may be confusing things, and only mean that
Sulla took the voting power from the Comitia Tributa and vested it in
the Comitia Centuriata. And this probably is what Sulla did.
[Sidenote: Curtailment of the power of the consuls and praetors.]
Fourthly, as Sulla weakened the censorship in order to exalt the
Senate's authority at its expense, so, to prevent any individual again
obtaining undue influence, he ordained that no man should be consul
till he had been first quaestor and then praetor, and that no man
should be re-eligible to a curule office till after an interval of ten
years. This, however, was not enough. It was his object to curtail the
powers of every magistrate. And therefore, though the consulate was
not dangerous to the Senate in the sense that the tribunate was, he
laid hands both on it and on the praetorship. [Sidenote: Previous
powers of the two offices.] The functions of the consuls and praetors
had hitherto been these. The consuls had the general superintendence
of all except judicial matters at home, and the military
superintendence in all the provinces except Sicily, Sardinia, and the
two Spains, in which they only occasionally exercised their imperium.
One praetor, the Praetor Urbanus, presided over civil suits between
Roman citizens. Another, the Praetor Peregrinus, superintended such
suits between a citizen and an alien or between two aliens. The other
four were over the four above-mentioned provinces. In case of need
one man could do the work both of the Praetor Urbanus and the Praetor
Peregrinus, leaving his colleague free for a military command. Or the
consul or praetor might have his term of office extended, being bound
to continue in his command till a successor arrived. Or one consul
might manage the ordinary functions of both, and the other be
similarly left free for some special employment. The Senate could in
any given year assign, as business to be superintended by a consul or
a praetor, some military command or judicial commission, and then the
consuls or praetors had to settle by lot or by agreement who should
undertake it. As the State grew greater these special assignations had
to be made oftener. [Sidenote: The new scheme.] There had been eight
officials for eight offices; now five new superintendents had to be
provided for Asia, Africa, Macedonia, Narbo, and Cilicia, as well as
one for the Quaestio de Repetundis. To enable eight men to do the work
of fourteen the Senate made prolongation of office for a second year
the rule, and the officials confined by the nature of these duties to
the city during these years of office were generally sent at the end
of it to the transmarine provinces where most money was to be made.
Sulla increased the six praetors to eight, and made the two years'
term of office the legal term. But if this added to their power in
appearance, he diminished it in reality by separating the civil from
the military functions altogether. The consuls and praetors were to
manage the civil business of Rome. The proconsuls and propraetors were
to command the army. In the first year of office the two consuls
had the general administration of Rome, and two of the praetors its
judicial administration. The other six presided over the various
courts. In the second the ten exercised the imperium in Sicily,
Sardinia, the two Spains, Asia, Africa, Macedonia, Cilicia, and the
two Gauls, and none of them might stay in his province beyond thirty
days after his successor's arrival; or, under penalties for treason,
might leave his province during his term; or attack a foreign power
without express leave from home. [Sidenote: Effect of the new scheme.]
The effect of all this is plain. Whereas formerly the magistrates,
directly elected in the Comitia, might combine civil and military
authority, now the military authority could only be held by those
whose term of office was prolonged by the Senate's pleasure; for,
though the practice became invariable, it remained at the Senate's
discretion to break through it when it chose.
[Sidenote: Co-optation restored to the colleges.] Fifthly, having thus
lessened the power of the censors, consuls, praetors, and tribunes, he
by way of compensation--a serio-comic compensation it must have
seemed to his shrewd yet superstitious mind--restored the right
of co-optation to the sacred colleges of augurs and pontiffs, and
increased their numbers, thus multiplying harmless objects of rivalry
analogous to the ribands and garters of modern courts.
Sixthly, he took away from the equites and restored to the Senate the
judicia.
[Sidenote: Restoration of the Judicia to the Senate.] The judicia have
been often mentioned, and something maybe said about them here. In
civil suits the praetor, as we have seen, had the superintendence.
Sometimes he decided a case at once. Sometimes, if he thought the case
should be tried, he appointed a judex, giving him certain instructions
by which after the investigation he must decide the case. His action
here would be something like one of our judge's charges, but given
before hearing the evidence. There is nothing to prove that a judex of
this kind was at this time taken from any special class, or that
Sulla interfered with the established mode of procedure. [Sidenote:
Organisation of criminal courts.] It was about the constitution of the
criminal courts that the long struggle had raged between the Senate
and equites and here he made great changes. He found some permanent
criminal courts (e.g. the Quaestio de Repetundis, or court for
investigating cases of extortion in the provinces) already in
existence. He instituted or settled others; but it cannot be
ascertained how many of the following, which were in existence after
his time, were due to him. There were at least nine of these permanent
courts (Quaestiones Perpetuae): the Quaestio Majestatis; de vi; de
sicariis &c; de veneficiis; de parricidio; de falso; de repetundis;
peculatus; ambitus; or courts for trying cases of treason, violence,
assassination, poisoning, parricide, forgery, extortion, embezzlement,
and bribery. And there may have been more, e.g. de adulteriis and de
plagiis, for trying cases of adultery and the enslavement of freemen.
[Sidenote: Procedure in the courts.] His object in consolidating them
was to take from the Comitia the settlement of criminal cases, and to
obviate the necessity for appointing special commissions. For there
was no appeal from the quaestio, and a special commission was seldom
requisite when so many courts were available.
To preside in these courts there were six praetors; but, as there were
more courts than praetors, a senator, called judex quaestionis, was
appointed annually for each court where a president was wanting,
something after the fashion by which one of our judges sometimes in
press of business appoints a barrister as his deputy to clear off the
cases. The praetor, or judex quaestionis, presided over the judices in
each court, and the judices returned a verdict by a majority of votes,
sometimes given by ballot, sometimes openly. In choosing these judices
this was the process. The whole number available was, it is said, 300,
divided into three decuriae. In any given case the praetor named the
decuria from which the jurymen were to be taken, and then drew from an
urn containing their names the number assigned by law for the case to
be decided. Each side could then challenge a certain number, and fresh
names were drawn from the urn in place of those challenged. What Sulla
did was to supply these decuriae from the senators instead of the
equites.
One of the permanent courts found by Sulla already existing was that
of the Centumviri, who had jurisdiction over disputed inheritances.
The members of it were elected by the tribes, three by each tribe,
105 in all. Though it was directly elected by the people, Sulla could
apprehend no danger from such a court, and did not meddle with it.
[Sidenote: Other measures attributed to Sulla.] Other measures are
attributed to Sulla on evidence more or less probable, such as the
suppression of gratuitous distributions of corn; the abolition of the
right of freedmen to vote, and of the reserved seats appropriated to
the equites at public festivals; the re-establishment in Asia of fixed
taxes instead of the farming system; the extension of Italy proper
from the Aesis to the Rubicon, and the conversion of Cisalpine Gaul
into a province. It may be considered certain that he did all that
he could to humiliate the equites; but the settlement of Italy was
probably not due to him.
[Sidenote: His minor measures.] Other minor laws of which he was the
author dealt with specific criminal offences or social matters. One,
as we have seen (p. 196) specified the penalties for all sorts of
assassination and poisoning. Another dealt with forgery, another with
violence to the person or property, another with marriage and probably
adultery. Another was a sumptuary law, which is said to have limited
the price of certain luxuries. If this was the case it was even
sillier than other sumptuary laws, for it would have encouraged
instead of checking gluttony. Lastly, there was a law for the
settlement of his colonies through Italy, and at Aleria in Corsica.
[Sidenote: Effects of Sulla's legislation.] Sulla had for the moment
undone by his legislation the work of ages. He gagged free speech by
the disabilities attached to the tribunate. He kept the government
within a close circle by his process of recruiting the Senate. He made
the magistrates subordinate to the Senate. He filled Italy and Rome
with his own partisans, and therefore with those of the Senate, and
he gave back to the Senate that coveted possession of the judicia for
which it had struggled so long with the equites. But a system which
could endure only by the repression not only of hostile interests but
of the ambition of its own adherents carried in itself the seeds
of early dissolution. Almost before the reaction was complete a
counter-reaction had begun. Abdication only revealed monarchy, and the
broad road which Sulla had laid over the breakers and quicksands of
revolution in reality paved the way to a throne.
[Sidenote: Sulla's abdication a farce.] When be abdicated, he offered
to render account to anyone for his acts, and there is a story that
one young man thereupon followed him to his home loading him with
abuse, which Sulla listened to with meekness. If the story be true,
the incident was probably a pre-arranged part of the ceremony of
abdication, which in everything, except the fact that Sulla slipped
off the cares of government, was of course a farce. His funeral showed
what his real power continued to be, and, if another anecdote be true,
just before his death he had a magistrate of Puteoli strangled
because he had not collected in time his town's subscription to the
restoration of the Capitol. He had in fact done mischievously what the
Gracchi would have done beneficently; and greedy swordsmen occupied
the soil which the tribunes would have divided peaceably among
peaceable men. [Sidenote: The policy of the Gracchi justified by after
events.] The civil wars and the triumvirates are the best vindication
of the policy of the Gracchi, unless we can bring ourselves to fancy
that the Gracchi created, instead of attempting wisely to satisfy,
the demands of the age. By an orderly intermixture of Italians and
foreigners with the corrupt body of Roman citizens new life might have
been infused into the old system, and something foreshadowing modern
representative government have been established, without proscription
or praetorian rule. As it was, the vices of society only became
aggravated at an era of violence, and the sharpest remedies failed to
stay the creeping paralysis by which it was assailed.
The gradual depopulation of Italy has already been described. In spite
of Sulla's colonies the ruin of the country must have been vastly
accelerated by his civil wars and those which followed them. And,
while the honest country class was dying out, the town class was ever
plunging deeper into frivolity and voluptuousness. To defray the cost
of the sumptuous life of the capital the fashionable spendthrift was
forced to resort to extortion in the provinces, which, as we have
seen, became so crying an evil that a permanent court existed for
dealing with it before the time of Sulla. The greedy throve on usury,
or involved the State in war, to fill their own purses. The fortunes
amassed by an Aquillius, a Verres, a Lucullus, spoke as eloquently of
Rome's rapacity abroad as did those of Crassus or Sulla in Italy. Such
being the state of things under the government which Sulla strove
to perpetuate, his character as a statesman deserves as strong
reprobation as his conduct as a man. To lay down power from a sense of
duty is one thing. Cynically to shrink from responsibility is another.
The misery of the following half-century must be laid chiefly at
Sulla's door. The inevitable goal to which everything was tending was
as patent in his time as in the time of Augustus. Whatever may have
been for the interest of the Roman aristocracy, monarchy was by this
time for the interest of the Roman world.
LIST OF PHRASES
_It has been suggested that the following List of Phrases occurring in
the History may be useful. But the definitions are only approximately
precise._
_Aerarium_. The State treasury.
_Capite Censi_. Roman citizens rated by the head only, as having no
property.
_Cives Romani_. Citizens of Rome, a Roman colony, or a Municipium.
_Clientes_. Dependents of the Patres. Free, but not Cives Romani.
_Comitia Centuriata_. The subdivisions (193 or 194 in number) of the
six classes into which the Romans were divided, according to property,
were called Centuries, and the assembly of them Comitia Centuriata.
_Comitia Tributa_. The assembly in which the people voted according to
the tribes or territorial divisions.
_Dominium_. Ownership.
_Equites_. Originally the men rich enough to maintain war-horses;
afterwards the rich class corresponding to our city men.
_Flamen_. A priest of some particular god.
_Frumentaria_. Lex. A law for cheapening corn.
_Imperator_. The title given on the battle-field to a successful
general by his soldiers.
_Imperium_. The power given by the State to an individual who was to
command an army.
_Interrex_. An official appointed to hold an election of consuls when
the regular mode of election had not been followed.
_Judicia_. Bodies of jurymen (judices) who tried criminal cases.
_Jugerum_. A measure of surface 240 feet long, 120 broad.
_Justitium_. A suspension of public business for some religious
observance.
_Latifundia_. Large estates cultivated by slave-labour.
_Latini_. See p. 16.
_Legati_. Officers of the general's suite corresponding to our
generals of division.
_Libertini_. The class of freedmen known as Liberti, with reference to
freeborn men, Libertini with reference to each other.
_Municipia_. Conquered Italian towns having the right of acquiring
property in the Roman State (Commercium), and marrying the daughter of
a Roman citizen (Connubium), but unable to acquire the honours of the
State (Jus Honoris), or to vote at Rome (Jus Suffragii).
_Negotiatores_. Money-lenders.
_Nobiles_. The offspring of men who had held a curule office.
_Optimates_. The senatorial party at and after the era of the Gracchi.
_Patres_. 1. Originally Cives Romani, the governing body at Rome. 2.
Afterwards the Senate.
_Patronus_. A Pater with reference to a Client. A Dominus with
reference to a Libertus.
_Perduellio_. Abuse of official position injurious to the State.
_Pilum_. A wooden shaft 4 feet long, with an iron head 2 feet 3 inches
long. There was also a lighter kind.
_Plebiscitum_. 1. A resolution of the people. 2. Equivalent to lex.
_Plebs_. Originally the free citizens of Rome who had no political
privileges.
_Populares_. The anti-senatorial party at and after the time of the
Gracchi.
_Possessor_. An occupier of public land.
_Praefectura_. A Roman colony, or Municipium, in which a Roman
Praefectus administered justice.
_Proletarii_. Roman citizens rated at less than 1,500 asses.
_Publicani_. Farmers of the revenue.
_Rostra_. A name given to the stage in the Forum where speakers
addressed the people. So called because ornamented with beaks of ships
captured from the enemy.
_Scriptura_. A tax paid to the State on cattle grazing on public land.
_Socii_. Free inhabitants of Italy. See p. 16.
_Vectigal_. 1. A tax of 1/10th of the year's crops. 2. The revenue
produced by the Scriptura.
INDEX
Adherbal.
Aedui, the.
Ager Publicus.
Agrarian law, the first.
Ahenobarbus, Domitius.
Albinus, Aulus.
Albinus, Sp.
Allobroges, the.
Ambrones, the.
Antyllus.
Aquae Sextiae.
Archelaus.
Aristion.
Aristonicus.
Army, the Roman.
Arverni, the.
Asculum.
Asia, taxation of.
Athenion.
Athens, siege of.
Attalus of Pergamus.
Baebius.
Bestia.
Blossius.
Bocchus.
Bomilcar.
Caepio, Q. Servilius.
Calvinus.
Capsa.
Carbo.
Cassius, Sp.
Catiline.
Catulus.
Centumviri, the.
Chaeroneia, battle of.
Cimbri.
Cinna, L. Cornelius.
Cirta.
Cives Romani, the.
Cleon.
Clientes.
Colline Gate, battle of the.
Colony, a Roman.
Comitia Centuriata.
Comitia Tribunata.
Commercium.
Connubium.
Cornelia.
Crassus, P. Licinius.
Damophilus.
Domitia, Via.
Drusus, M. Livius.
England, history of Rome compared to that of.
Equites, the.
Equitius.
Eunous.
Fimbria.
Flaccus, Fulvius.
Fregellae, revolt of.
Gauda.
Geminus.
Glaucia, C. Servilius.
Gordius.
Gracchus, C.
Gracchus, T.
Helvetii, the.
Hortensius.
Jugurtha.
Jus Honorum.
--Suffragii.
Laenas Popilius.
Lamponius.
Lex Baebia.
--Cassia.
--Flaminia.
--Frumentaria of C. Gracchus.
--Judiciaria of C. Gracchus.
--Julia.
--Junia de Peregrinis.
--Licinia.
--Maria.
--Papiria.
--Plautia Papiria.
--Servilia.
--Thoria.
Lucullus,(1); (2).
Lupus.
Luxury at Rome.
M. Antonius.
M'. Aquillius.
Mariani Muli.
Marius, C.(1); (2).
Massiva.
Megallis.
Memmius.
Merula, L.
Metellus, Q. Caecilius.
Mithridates.
Municipium.
Murena.
Mutilus, C. Papius.
Nobiles.
Norbanus.
Octavius.
Ofella.
Opimius.
Optimates.
Orchomenus.
Oxyntas.
Patres.
Perduellio.
Peregrini, the.
Philippus.
Piraeus, siege of.
Plebeians.
Pompeius, Cn.(1); (2).
Pontius, C.
Populares.
Praefectura.
Proscriptions of Marius and Cinna.
Provincials.
Quaestio.
Rhone, canal cut from, by Marius.
Roscius.
Rubrius.
Rufus Rutilius.
Rupillius.
Sacriportus, battle of.
Salvius.
Salyes, the
Saturninus,
Satyreius, P.
Satyrus.
Scaevola.
Scaurus, M. Aemilius.
Scipio Aemilianus.
Scipio Nasica.
Septimuleius.
Sertorius.
Silo, Pompaedius.
Slavery, Roman.
Slave War, the first.
-- -- the second.
Social War, The.
Society, deterioration of Roman.
Sulla, L. Cornelius.
Sulla's laws.
Sulpician laws, the.
Sulpicius.
Taxiles.
Teanum, story of Roman cruelty at.
Teutones, the.
Thala.
Tifata, battle of.
Tigranes.
Tiguroni, the.
Tolosa, the gold of.
Tribunate.
Tuditanus, Sempronius.
Tugeni, the.
Turpilius.
Vaga.
Venusia, story of a herdsman at.
Vercellae.
Verres.
Vettius.
Vettius Scato.
Volux.
End of Project Gutenberg's The Gracchi Marius and Sulla, by A.H. Beesley