[1457] Lex Acilia l. 77; Cic. pro Balbo 24, 54. The probable dates of these laws are 122 and 111 B.C. respectively.
[1458] The allies before the social war reckon as their chief grievance “per omnes annos atque omnia bella duplici numero se militum equitumque fungi” (Vell. ii. 15).
[1459] Liv. xlii. 1 “(L. Postumius Albinus) ... literas Praeneste misit, ut sibi magistratus obviam exiret, locum publice pararet, ubi deverteretur, jumentaque, cum exiret inde, praesto essent. Ante hunc consulem nemo unquam sociis in ulla re oneri aut sumptui fuit ... Injuria consulis ... et silentium ... Praenestinorum jus, velut probato exemplo, magistratibus fecit graviorum in dies talis generis imperiorum.”
[1460] C. Gracchus ap. Gell. x. 3, 3.
[1461] App. B.C. i. 21 and 34. According to Valerius Maximus (ix. 5, 1) Flaccus proposed to give the provocatio to those “qui civitatem mutare noluissent.”
[1462] App. B.C. i. 23. Plutarch makes it a simple proposal of citizenship for the allies (C. Gracch. 5). The geographical limits of these proposed extensions are unknown. Velleius (ii. 6) remarks vaguely, with respect to the Gracchan law, “dabat civitatem omnibus Italicis, extendebat eam paene usque Alpis.”
[1463] App. B.C. i. 35; he promised to reintroduce the law περὶ τῆς πολιτείας. Liv. Ep. lxxi. “socios et Italicos populos spe civitatis Romanae sollicitavit”; Vell. ii. 14 “Tum conversus Drusi animus ... ad dandam civitatem Italiae.”
[1464] Diod. xxxvii. 2.
[1465] Cf. the words of Pontius Telesinus, the Samnite leader in the later struggle at the Colline gate (Vell. ii. 27), “eruendam delendamque urbem ... nunquam de futuros raptores Italicae libertatis lupos, nisi silva, in quam refugere solerent, esset excisa.” This, however, is an expression of Samnite rather than of Italian feeling.
[1466] App. B.C. i. 49; Cic. pro Balbo 8, 21.