The growing strength of the people and at the same time the increasing dependence of the optimates on religion for the control of politics are indicated by a law of 103 concerning the election of sacerdotes. More than a hundred years earlier[2424] was instituted the custom of electing the supreme pontiff and the chief curio in comitia of seventeen tribes designated by lot. Toward the end of the plutocratic régime C. Licinius Crassus in the interest of the people attempted in vain to pass a law for extending the principle to all the members of the more important sacerdotal colleges.[2425] The proposal was defeated by the eloquence of C. Laelius,[2426] but at length it was passed as the lex de sacerdotiis of Cn. Domitius, tribune of the plebs in 103. The statute affected the pontifical and augural colleges, the decemviri sacris faciundis, and the epulones.[2427] According to the new arrangement when a place became vacant in any one of these colleges, the members of the college drew up a list of eligible candidates from whom the comitia sacerdotum, composed as above described, made a choice.[2428] In spite of this law religion remained a political tool of the optimates.
Meantime the popular party succeeded in enacting economic laws. A Porcian statute concerning interest, which may well have aimed to benefit the poor, seems to be the work of M. Porcius Cato, consul in 118. The author had to defend the act against several attempts to repeal it.[2429] In 109 under the stress of the Cimbric war the consul M. Junius Silanus passed an act for repealing several earlier laws which had diminished the pay of soldiers. We may reasonably believe that it restored the Sempronian law on the subject.[2430] His immediate object was to encourage enlistments.[2431] An agrarian rogation was offered by L. Marcius Philipus, tribune of the plebs in 104. As the author was at heart a democrat, his measure was doubtless inspired with the spirit of the Gracchi. Perhaps it aimed to restore their law; but lacking determination, the proposer readily allowed it to be voted down.[2432] The monetary lex Clodia, which probably belongs to the same year, has no political significance.[2433]
III. The Appuleian Legislation and the Rule of the Moderate Optimates
103-88
Through the legislative acts above described we can trace the speedy restoration of the democracy and of comitial legislative power after the overthrow of C. Sempronius Gracchus. We are now approaching a second crisis in which the aristocracy had to struggle for existence. Against it was formed a combination of three powerful men, C. Marius, supported by the knights and the municipes,[2434] C. Servilius Glaucia, and L. Appuleius Saturninus. It is almost certain that this Servilius is to be identified with the author of the lex repetundarum of 111 or thereabout, probably a plebiscite, which repealed the Acilian law on the same subject.[2435] In important respects his statute was an improvement on earlier regulations of the crime. “Glaucia’s alteration in procedure was thorough and permanent. He introduced the system of the ‘second hearing’—an obligatory renewal of the trial, which rendered it possible for counsel to discuss evidence which had already been given, and for jurors to get a grasp of the mass of scattered data which had been presented to their notice[2436]—and he also made it possible to recover damages, not only from the chief malefactor, but from all who had dishonestly shared his spoils.”[2437] These principles were taken up into the Cornelian law which superseded it in 81.[2438] The circumstance that the man whom the optimates regarded as merely a vulgar demagogue was the author of so statesmanlike a measure ought to militate against their opinion, not only of him, but also of his associates. He, too, represented the knights,[2439] whereas Appuleius was a champion of the rural plebs against the senate and the populace. As tribune of the plebs in 103 the latter proposed a law for the assignment of lands in the province of Africa to the retiring veterans of Marius in lots of a hundred iugera each. When Baebius, a colleague, interceded, the people pelted him with stones and drove him from the assembly. Thus the law was violently carried, but we hear nothing more of it. Probably it was not enforced.[2440] This act marks an epoch in the history of Roman colonization; through it the government first expressed its intention to provide discharged soldiers with farms, a departure made necessary by the Marian policy of filling the army with capite censi.[2441] Either to this tribunate or more probably to his second belongs the lex de maiestate (minuta),[2442] the first of the kind in Roman history. It defined the crime and made general provisions for the prosecution of those who were accused of it.[2443] The same statute provided for the establishment of a court which seems to have been standing rather than special.[2444]
In his second tribunate, 100, supported by Marius, consul a sixth time, and by Servilius, Appuleius proposed and carried a law for the founding of settlements of the Marian veterans in Sicily, Corsica, Achaia, and Macedonia.[2445] Marius was to be a commissioner for conducting these colonies, and was to have the right to enroll as citizens in each settlement a specified number of aliens.[2446] The object of the latter clause was doubtless to provide for the Italian veterans in his army. He proposed further that certain Transpadane lands which the Cimbri had taken from the Gauls and which Marius had recovered should be distributed among the citizens and the Italians.[2447] Another proposal was for the monthly sale of a specified number of modii of grain to every citizen resident of Rome who desired it at five-sixths of an as to the modius—a merely nominal price.[2448] It is not known whether the colonial, agrarian, and frumentarian measures were separate enactments or articles of one statute; or the colonial and agrarian provisions may alone have been combined. However that may be, we are informed by Appian[2449] that attached to the agrarian measure—whether to the others also is nowhere stated—was an article which provided that if the bill should become a law, the senators within five days should swear to uphold it, or if any senator refused to take the oath, he should be expelled from the senate and should be liable to a fine of twenty talents, the Greek equivalent of about five hundred thousand sesterces.[2450] The rural plebs, including many discharged soldiers of Marius, swarmed into the comitia at the call of the tribune and violently passed the law. Marius, who as a consul and a knight disapproved of such illegality, set for the senators the example of swearing to the law, “in so far as it was a law,” which left them a loophole of escape from its provisions should they afterward so determine. Metellus, who alone of the senators refused the oath, was forced into exile and an interdict from fire and water was passed against him by the tribes on the motion of Saturninus.[2451] Soon afterward an election riot gave the senate a pretext for martial law. Placed under custody, Saturninus and some fellow officials were stoned to death by a mob. His measures were then annulled by the senate on the ground that they had been violently passed;[2452] nevertheless Mariana was founded by Marius in Corsica, apparently under the colonial provision.[2453] The import of the agrarian law of Sex. Titius, tribune of the plebs in 99, is unknown.[2454] It may have been merely a reënactment of the Appuleian measure. At all events before it could be put into force it was annulled by the senate on the ground that it had been passed by violence and against the intercession of colleagues.[2455]
The optimates, having again triumphed over the democracy, adopted a policy of moderation. Their consuls of 98, Q. Caecilius Metellus and T. Didius, attempted by a mild statute to check the most flagrant abuses of tribunician legislation, (1) the combination of various dissimilar provisions in one bill (lex satura) for the purpose of drawing the votes of all parties, (2) the passing of bills through the assembly by surprise. Their law accordingly, reviving usages once in force but recently neglected, forbade such combinations[2456] and ordered that the promulgation should precede the voting by at least a trinum nundinum—an interval which included three market days.[2457] Similarly in 95 their consuls, L. Licinius Crassus and Q. Mucius Scaevola, aimed by an equally moderate law to check the usurpation of the citizenship on the part of aliens. It forbade peregrini to perform the functions of citizens, though it did not order the innocent among them to leave Rome.[2458] It provided for the appointment of a special commission to discover and punish usurpers of the citizenship.[2459] Those found guilty were sent back to their communities.[2460] Though the authors were eminent in justice and cherished the best intentions, their law proved to be not merely useless but most pernicious to the state,[2461] as it helped drive the Italians to revolt.[2462]
The next attempt at reform proceeded from the inmost circle of the aristocracy.[2463] M. Livius Drusus, tribune of the plebs in 91, was a man of the highest nobility, wealthy, eloquent, and upright at heart, the son of that Livius who had opposed C. Gracchus.[2464] Regarding his aims and the quality of his statesmanship conflicting opinions have been expressed by modern scholars. The sources intimate that he wished primarily to strengthen the senate by breaking away from its hide-bound conservatism and undertaking various pressing reforms. His agrarian measure was conceived in the Gracchan spirit but was more radical.[2465] Appian[2466] states that it proposed the founding of colonies voted long ago but not yet established. Reference must be to the twelve colonies planned by his father.[2467] It probably abolished the statute of 111 and ordered the division not only of the Campanian lands,[2468] but also of those public domains which were held by the allied communities—in brief, of all the public land remaining in Italy and Sicily;[2469] and it established a board of ten for making the assignments.[2470] Livy[2471] attributes to the author a frumentarian proposal, though we are not informed of its character. The aim must have been to win the support of the populace for his other measures.[2472]
He further proposed to mix with the silver coinage an eighth part of copper,[2473] the proceeds of this gain to be applied perhaps to the execution of his frumentarian project.[2474] There is much controversy as to the intent of his judiciary reform. Appian[2475] supposes that he wished to add three hundred knights to the senate and to draw the jurors from that body thus enlarged. Velleius[2476] is of the opinion that his aim was to transfer the iudicia to the senate; whereas the epitomator of Livy[2477] directly states that he provided for making up the iudicia of senators and knights in equal numbers. We may partially reconcile these conflicting statements by supposing that he planned to compose the jurors’ album of six hundred senators and knights in equal numbers, by which expedient he hoped to bring these two hostile orders back to their former harmony,[2478] while serving the interests of the senate and ridding the state of the corrupt and tyrannical rule of the knights.[2479] By a special article of the rogation a quaestio, probably perpetua, was to be appointed to inquire into the cases of bribery of jurors and to punish the guilty.[2480] His most radical measure, introduced after opposition to his other reforms began to develop,[2481] was for extending the citizenship to the Latins[2482] and to all the Italians.[2483] This group of proposals, designed for the benefit of all parties, proved distasteful to all. The senators found a ground for complaint in the circumstance that the knights would have equal power with them in the courts; the knights were unwilling to surrender their judicial control or to grant the franchise to the Italians; the wealthy Italians feared they might lose the public lands which they still held. Only the poor among the Romans and allies supported the proposal in the hope of profiting by the distribution of lands.[2484] The agrarian, frumentarian, monetary, and judiciary measures were combined in one statute, and passed with violence[2485] and contrary to the omens.[2486] On these grounds and furthermore because they violated the article of the Caecilian-Didian statute forbidding the passing of a lex satura, they were annulled by the senate.[2487] Although Drusus might have interposed his veto against this decree, he preferred rather to disregard it, most probably on the theory that the senatorial authority did not avail against the sovereign will of the people.[2488] Aware that his intercession would but postpone the annulment to another year, he contented himself with informing his opponents that his measures were absolutely necessary for the security of the state, and that those who offended against them did it at their peril. He proceeded to carry his statute into immediate effect.[2489] A plebiscite of Saufeius, a colleague, established a commission of five in addition to the ten provided for by the Livian statute; and Livius was elected a member of both commissions.[2490] After his murder the Livian and Saufeian statutes were both considered null and void.[2491]
The lex Remmia de calumniatoribus, which was enacted before 80, may belong to the year of the Livian attempt at reform, 91;[2492] and in that case it would be most natural to regard it as a piece of counter legislation to offset the proposal for establishing a court for the trial of jurors accused of bribery. The complainant who was proved malicious it rendered liable to trial and punishment with the loss of citizenship and the branding of his forehead with the letter K (for Kalumniator).[2493] This we may believe was the defiance offered by the knights to those who were attempting to bring them to account for their conduct as judges. Exulting in their victory over Drusus, they expressed their antipathy to the Italian movement in a lex de maiestate of Q. Varius, tribune of the plebs in 90. They stood round the Rostra with drawn daggers and forced it through the comitia in spite of tribunician intercession. It supplanted the Appuleian law on the subject by a severe provision against those who encouraged the Italians to demand the citizenship or in any way to conspire or to revolt against the Roman people. It must have contained an article, too, concerning seditions.[2494] The court which it established was to sit on all ordinary dies fasti, undisturbed by iustitia,[2495] and was to be a quaestio perpetua.[2496] Now that two attempts, the Appuleian and the Livian, to substitute more popular measures for the Sempronian frumentarian law had failed, the optimates found themselves strong enough to supersede the Sempronian act by one less popular. This was the Octavian law,[2497] the contents of which are unknown, but which received the praise of Cicero for its moderation.[2498]
The Social War, following close upon the murder of Livius Drusus, compelled the Romans to grant the citizenship to the Italians. This result was brought about by a succession of statutes. A law of the consul L. Julius Caesar, 90, bestowed the citizenship upon the Latins[2499] and on all the Italians who had not taken arms against Rome[2500] and who were willing to accept the gift.[2501] The same statute probably regulated the assignment of these new citizens to the tribes.[2502] In the following year a law of L. Calpurnius Piso, probably a tribune, granted the commanding general power, apparently absolute, to bestow the right of the city upon the soldiers under his orders.[2503] Another statute of 89, carried by M. Plautius Silvanus and C. Papirius Carbo, tribunes of the plebs, granted the citizenship to all members of allied communities who were domiciled in Italy at the time the statute was passed and who within sixty days should signify to the praetor at Rome their willingness to accept the offer.[2504] The object of this measure was not only to expedite the reconciliation, but also to make the work of the next censors practicable. The citizenship thus granted involved the right of suffrage, though in new tribes which voted after the others. Many Italians, especially the Lucanians and the Samnites, took no notice of the offer.[2505] In the same year Cn. Pompeius Strabo, a consul, proposed and carried a law which seems to have empowered himself at his discretion to invest with full citizenship those Transpadani who already enjoyed the Latin rights, and to confer upon the rest the ius Latii.[2506]