The Roman assemblies from their origin to the end of the Republic

by George Willis Botsford

II. Democracy in Alliance with Caesarism
70-49

The first tribunician law under the restored constitution may have been the sumptuary statute of C. Antius Restio, which Lange[2686] assigns to the year 70. It limited the amount to be expended on festive meals; it designated some delicacies as allowable and others as forbidden; and it regulated the participation of candidates and of magistrates in dinners away from home, doubtless with a view to curtailing ambitus practiced by such means.[2687] Far however from being a partisan measure, this statute seems to have been suggested by the censors of the year, to reënforce their function of supervising the morals of the citizens.

Three years passed before the tribunes of the plebs were ready to make independent use of their recovered power. The reason is to be found in the harmony—concordia ordinum[2688]—reëstablished between senators and knights, when representatives of the two classes found themselves sitting together on the jury benches. Although the object of the combination was idealized by contemporaries, it was in fact a governing “trust,” which in practice operated for the maintenance of plutocracy and for the ruthless exploitation of the provincials.[2689] The nobles were willing to concede something to the equites to make permanent the alliance with this powerful order.[2690] L. Roscius Otho, tribune of the plebs in 67, as spokesman of the optimates[2691] “railroaded”[2692] through the assembly a statute which ordered that there should be reserved in the theatre for those in possession of the equestrian census[2693] fourteen rows of seats just back of the orchestra, in which sat the senators.[2694] It was more than a restoration of the concession made to the knights in 146, which evidently Sulla had withdrawn.[2695]

There were in this year (67), however, two popular tribunes, A. Gabinius and C. Cornelius, both of whom proposed and carried laws in the interest of the people. Early in the year Gabinius persuaded the tribes to adopt a statute which ordered the senate to sit daily during February to consider embassies.[2696] It was in this month that delegations from other states generally came. Often to obtain a hearing they had to bribe the senators and magistrates.[2697] For that month the Gabinian law reversed the Pupian[2698] by making senatorial sessions compulsory and forbidding the concurrence of comitia.[2699] The object was to limit the stay of foreign embassies at Rome not only for their own convenience but also for lessening both the need and the opportunity for bribery. Closely related was the purpose of his statute which forbade lending money to provincials at Rome.[2700] Representatives of subject and allied states, finding it necessary to bribe more extensively than their resources in hand allowed, were tempted to borrow of the capitalists at exorbitant interest. Private individuals from the provinces must often have similarly borrowed to the ruin of their fortunes. The double aim of the statute, accordingly, was to help the provincials and to check bribery. How it passed against senatorial opposition is unknown. A supplementary measure on the same subject was proposed to the senate by C. Cornelius, a colleague of Gabinius, for prohibiting the lending of money to the legati of other states, the idea being identical with that of the two Gabinian laws. The good intention of Cornelius is vouched for by the well-known uprightness[2701] of his character, which contrasts with the reputed vileness of Gabinius. But the senate rejected the proposal on the ground that it had already made sufficient provision for checking the abuse. Although Cornelius thereupon complained in a contio that the provinces were being exhausted by usury, he does not seem to have urged his measure further.[2702] He promulgated, however, against the interests of the senate a rogation for ordering that no one should receive a dispensation from a law excepting through a vote of the comitia. This right had been acquired by the people in the period between the Publilian and the Hortensian legislation (339-287).[2703] It had come to be regarded as inseparable from the sovereignty of the people to such an extent that all senatus consulta for dispensing from the laws contained a provision for bringing the matter before the comitia. Gradually the custom of referring to the people ceased, and at last the provision to that effect was dropped from senatorial decrees. The result was that often a few senators, meeting in the Curia, voted away to acquaintances and relatives the valuable privilege of exemption from a law. The optimates induced a tribune of the plebs, P. Servilius Globulus, to intercede against the bill while it was being read to the assembly prior to the vote. When the dissenting tribune forbade the crier to proceed with the reading, Cornelius himself read it.[2704] A disturbance in the assembly, started by the interference of Piso the consul, caused Cornelius to dismiss the concilium. Afterward he so compromised with the optimates as to secure the passage of a law that no dispensations should be granted by the senate unless two hundred members were present, and that when a resolution of the kind was brought down from the senate to the people, no one should intercede against the act.[2705] The victory was with the senate; it gained a legal right to a function which it had usurped, provision being merely made against abuse. But it exercised this function by the sufferance of the tribunes, any one of whom could insist on bringing the dispensing resolution before the people, in which case his colleagues were forbidden to intercede.[2706]

Another proposal of this tribune was the rogatio de ambitu, which threatened with severe penalties not only the candidates but also their agents, the divisores, whose duty was to distribute the corruption fund among the tribes.[2707] The senate, declaring the penalties so harsh that neither accuser nor jurors could be found to enforce it, put the bill in the hands of the two consuls, C. Calpurnius Piso and M’. Acilius Glabrio.[2708] Here was a comical situation; both consuls were liable to the existing law on the subject; but for the sake of appearances they had to revise the bill and present it to the comitia in the Forum.[2709] The lex Acilia Calpurnia, enacted in this way,[2710] inflicted on those found guilty of the crime a heavy fine, and forever disqualified them from holding office or sitting in the senate.[2711] Cornelius proposed other measures, all of which were vetoed by colleagues excepting his lex concerning the edict of the praetor, described as follows by Dio Cassius:[2712] “All the praetors themselves compiled and published the principles according to which they intended to try cases; for all the decrees regarding contracts had not yet been laid down. Now since they were not in the habit of doing this once for all and did not observe the rules as written, but often made changes in them and incidentally a number of clauses naturally appeared in some one’s favor or to some one’s hurt, he moved that they should at the very start announce the principles they would use and not swerve from them at all.” The object was to make the administration of the law more just and regular, and to cut off an opportunity for favoritism.[2713]

By far the most important measure of the year was the Gabinian law for the appointment of an especial commander against the pirates. The proposition was that from the consulares should be chosen a general for putting down the pirates; that his province should be the entire Mediterranean and a strip of its coasts extending fifty miles inland, including Italy and the islands; that the command should continue three years; that the holder of this imperium should have the right to fifteen legati and 200 ships, and the privilege of enlisting soldiers and oarsmen over all his province; that he should have credit with the aerarium at Rome and the publicans in the provinces for 6000 talents.[2714] The name of Pompey did not appear in the bill, but no one doubted who was to be the man. The optimates were all opposed, though in 74 they had given Antonius such a command,[2715] which now served Gabinius as a precedent. The senate was compelled by threats of the people to yield, but used its influence on the colleagues of Gabinius to have them oppose the measure. Two of them, L. Roscius Otho, author of the lex theatralis,[2716] and L. Trebellius, attempted to prevent comitial action. The tribes began to vote the deposition of Trebellius; but before the eighteenth was called he desisted.[2717] Thereafter both remained silent, and the law was passed. Pompey was then elected to the command by the tribes.[2718] They enacted further that he should have two quaestors, twenty-four legati pro praetore, 500 ships, 120,000 men, and 5000 cavalry. On one point only the senate refused its sanction; it would not permit Gabinius to be a legatus.[2719] An article of the statute gave as a province to the outgoing consul, M’. Acilius Glabrio, Bithynia and Pontus with the conduct of the war against Mithridates.[2720] The Gabinian law led to far-reaching consequences. It established temporarily, not precisely a monarchy, but a dyarchy, as the Roman world was thereby divided between the senate and a general with almost absolute power. The arrangement was a prototype of the Augustan system. At the outset the act seemed to be justified by the results, for immediately after its adoption the price of grain fell from the famine height to which the piratical control of the seas had forced it.[2721]

An addition to this vast power was made in the following year by the Manilian law. The author, C. Manilius, after entering upon his tribunate on December 10, 67, promulgated a rogation for giving libertini the right to vote in the tribes of their patrons.[2722] It was said by some, though probably without ground, that the real author was Cornelius.[2723] While in general the optimates disliked the measure, some favored it in the hope that they would gain political influence through the votes of their freedmen.[2724] In spite of the fact that constitutionally the comitia could not be held on a festive day, Manilius convoked the assembly on the last day of the year, which was the Compitalia, toward evening, gathering to the assembly a few men who he knew favored the proposal. On the following day the senate heard of the enactment and at once declared it invalid.[2725] The behavior of Manilius exposed him to certain prosecution unless he could win powerful support. This is the motive ascribed to him by Dio Cassius[2726] for his famous law which conferred extraordinary power on Pompey for the conduct of the war against Mithridates.[2727] It gave the Roman general, in addition to his existing command, the provinces of Asia, Bithynia, and Cilicia with the right to declare war and make treaties at his discretion.[2728] The province thus granted him included nearly all the eastern domain of Rome which had not already been conferred by the Gabinian law. No discussion of this measure in the senate is mentioned, though it is difficult to understand how such action could be avoided.[2729] The only optimates who opposed the bill in contiones were Q. Lutatius Catulus and Q. Hortensius, who had been the chief opponents of the Gabinian law. Their objection was the monarchical position in which these measures were placing Pompey.[2730] Its leading supporters were Caesar and Cicero.[2731] It was so enthusiastically favored by the knights and the populace that its adoption was from the beginning a foregone conclusion.

In 65 the conservatives found themselves strong enough to put through the assembly the plebiscite of C. Papius for expelling the peregrini from Rome, and for punishing those who had usurped the rights of the citizens. The object was to prevent Latin-speaking foreigners, especially the Transpadane Gauls, from packing the assemblies with a view to passing measures for the further extension of the franchise. The Papian law was modelled after the Claudian of 177,[2732] the Junian of 126,[2733] and in some respects after the Licinian-Mucian of 95.[2734] Probably to the same Papius belongs the lex Papia de Vestalium lectione, which limited the power of choice exercised by the supreme pontiff.[2735]

After the unusual comitial activity of 67-66 there was almost a pause in legislation till the year of Cicero’s consulship, 63. To that date belongs the plebiscite of T. Atius Labienus, which restored the form of election of sacerdotes introduced by Domitius in 103[2736] and abolished by Sulla.[2737]