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Chapter XXIV

THE SULLAN CONSTITUTION. 81-78 B. C.

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HE problem which lay before Sulla after his victories was vast beyond conception-it was the reconstruction of a whole state in ruins. About the time when the first pitched battle was fought between Romans and Romans, in the night of July 6, 83 B.C., the venerable temple which had been erected by the kings, dedicated by the youthful republic, and spared by the storms of five hundred years, the temple of the Roman Jupiter in the Capitol,-perished in the flames. It was no augury; but it was an image of the state of the Roman Constitution. That, too, lay in ruins, and needed reconstruction. The mass of the aristocratic party had no idea of the magnitude of the task. They imagined that now, when the revolution had been suppressed, it would be enough to return to the old lines, taking precautions against similar outbreaks in future. Hence it was that Sulla chose his instruments, with the exception of Quintus Metellus, from the moderate party, or from the deserters from the democratic campLucius Flaccus, Lucius Philippus, Quintus Ofella, Gnaeus Pompeius. Sulla was quite in earnest about restoring the old constitution; but he alone saw the enormous difficulties of restoration. He saw clearly that comprehensive concession and energetic repression were alike necessary. He also saw that the senate would mutilate every measure of either kind, and that it was necessary to accomplish the work by his own hand, without check or hindrance. At the same time, even Sulla was far from grasping the whole truth about the condition of the empire; otherwise he must have given up the work in despair. In fact, the constitution was past reconstruction; the ancient polity had broken down irretrievably; economic causes had corrupted or destroyed every class in the state-aristocracy, middle class, and lower class; and where no class in the state remained sound, absolute rule by the authority and intelligence of a single man alone remained possible. But not for another generation was this truth to be brought home in all its remorseless fatality.

81-78 B.C.

The authority with which Sulla was at present provided was the purely military proconsulship. It was necessary that he should be endowed with an office which should preserve as far as possible constitutional forms, and yet be powerful enough to coerce both friends and foes. Sulla accordingly requested the senate to place the regulation of the state in the hands of a single man with unlimited powers, and intimated that he considered himself qualified for the task. The senate directed the interrex Lucius Valerius Flaccus to propose a law to the people, conferring upon Sulla the "dictatorship for the making of laws and the regulation of the commonwealth," and approving, retrospectively, of all his acts as consul or proconsul. His office was unlimited in point of time, and included absolute power to dispose of the lives and property of the citizens and of the state lands. He might alter the boundaries of the city, of Italy, or of the empire; dissolve or establish communities in Italy; regulate the provinces and dependencies; confer the imperium on whom he pleased, and nominate proconsuls and propretors. Lastly he might regulate the state by new laws. The new office took its name from the old dictatorship, obsolete since the Hannibalian war. The boundlessness of its power recalled that of the old decemvirs, but in reality it was nothing but the monarchy. The protector of the oligarchic constitution had himself to come forward as a tyrant, in order to avert the ever-impending tyrannies. There was no little of defeat in this last victory of the oligarchy.

The work of punishment was first taken in hand. Sulla was not of a vindictive temperament,-even after his landing in Italy he had shown himself ready to forget and forgive,-but the democrats had used their last moments of power to set on foot fresh massacres, and henceforth Sulla showed no mercy. He immediately outlawed all civil and military officers who had taken part in favor of the revolution after the convention with Scipio, and any other citizens who had actively aided the cause. A reward of $2500 was offered to the murderer of any of these outlaws; sheltering them was forbidden under the severest penalties; their property was forfeited to the state, their children and grandchildren excluded from a political career; and this confiscation was also extended to the property of those who had fallen during the war. Sulla caused a list of the proscribed to be posted up, and fixed upon June 1, 81 B.C., as the day for closing it. It was said at last to have amounted to 4700

names.

81-78 B.C.

The fury of the persecution fell primarily upon the Marians. The tomb of Marius himself was broken open, and his ashes scattered. His nephew was executed with torments at the tomb of Catulus. Of the leaders of the first rank few remained; but other classes suffered severely. Sixteen hundred equites who had speculated in the Marian confiscations were upon the list, and the professional accusers were largely represented. The heads of the slain were publicly piled at the junction of the Vicus Jugarius with the Forum. Bands of soldiers ravaged all Italy to earn the rewards of murder, and many, even of the oligarchy, fell victims to private revenge.

In the disposal of the confiscated property the greatest abuses prevailed. Sulla himself, and his immediate dependents and connections, bought largely, and had the purchase-money wholly or partially remitted. If there was any difference between the Marian and the Sullan reign of terror, it was that Marius murdered to satisfy his personal vengeance, while Sulla showed no personal feeling, but regarded the work almost as a political necessity.

With regard to the new citizens, the general rule was laid down that every citizen of an Italian community was ipso facto a citizen of Rome; all distinctions between citizens and allies-between citizens old and new-were abolished. But the freedmen were restricted, as before, to their old four tribes. There were, however, exceptions to the general rule; particular communities were punished, or, less frequently, rewarded. For instance, Brundisium obtained exemption from customs; but of the guilty communities many had to pay fines, to raze their walls, or to forfeit a part or the whole of their lands. Praeneste and Spoletium, Florentia, Faesulae, Arretium, Volaterrae, all fell under the last penalty. The dispossessed burgesses were placed in the position of Latins of the lowest class, with the additional hardship that they were attached to no particular community, but were without either home or city.

The lands thus confiscated were mainly utilized in settling the soldiers of the victorious army, mostly in Etruria, Latium, and Campania; and in many cases, as in the Gracchan colonies, the settlers were attached to existing communities. The number of allotments is stated at 120,000. This arrangement was made by Sulla with varied objects. Firstly, he redeemed the pledge given to his soldiers; secondly, he carried out the idea of the moderate

81-78 B.C.

conservative party of strengthening the class of small proprietors in Italy an idea which he had attempted to realize in 88 B.C. To accomplish this object the settlers were forbidden to sell their allotments. Lastly, and this was no doubt the strongest reason, the new colonists formed standing garrisons, as it were, for the support of the restored constitution; and for this reason, where they were attached to an old community, as at Pompeii, the new citizens were not amalgamated with the old, but formed a separate body within the same enclosing wall. Very similar in its aim was the object of another act of Sulla's-the manumission of a body of ten thousand of the slaves of the proscribed, who formed a bodyguard in support of the oligarchy and a garrison for the capital.

Sulla now destroyed at one blow the constitution so carefully built up by Caius Gracchus, and restored in all its plenitude the rule of the senate. Gracchus had bribed the mob of the capital into quiescence by introducing free distributions of corn; these were now completely abolished. Gracchus had organized the order of equestrians, and tried to give them a definite place in the constitution by introducing the system of farming the taxes of the provinces, by intrusting to them the functions of jurymen, and by assigning them a special place in the theater at popular festivals. Sulla abolished the farming system, and converted the former taxes into fixed tributes; the jurymen were now taken from the senatorial order alone, and the equites were deprived of their seats of honor in the theater and relegated to the ordinary benches. The senate was henceforth to be the only privileged order.

In order to fill up the fearfully reduced numbers of the senate, probably also with the intention of permanently increasing the number of its members, three hundred new senators were nominated by the tribes from men of equestrian census-chiefly from the younger men of the senatorial houses, and from Sullan officers whom the late events had brought into prominence. At the same time the mode of admission to the senate was changed. Hitherto men had entered the senate either by summons from the censors or by holding one of the curule magistracies-the consulship, the pretorship, or the edileship: the tribunate and questorship gave no right to a seat, but the choice of the censors was generally directed towards men who had held these offices. The censorial functions of appointing to the senate and of deleting from its roll were now set aside; the senatorial seat was taken from the ediles and given

81-78 B.C.

to the questors, who were now raised from eight to twenty in number. Several important results followed from these regulations. In the first place, the abolition of the censorial deletion made the senator irremovable. Secondly, the number of members was considerably increased: hitherto the average number had probably been something below 300; in Cicero's time a full meeting consisted of 417 members. Thirdly, as both the new extraordinarily nominated senators and the augmented body of questors were nominated by the comitia tributa, the senate was now thoroughly based on popular election.

The comitia tributa remained, as before, formally sovereign; but the initiative of the senate in all legislation was solemnly enacted. This was sufficient to exclude the people from interference in administration, or in criminal jurisdiction, and the voice of the people was confined practically to giving assent to alterations in the constitution.

The right of the people to elect magistrates in the comitia centuriata was not interfered with by Sulla, nor did he even attempt, as in 88 B.C., to restore the old Servian voting arrangements; but the election to the priestly offices was entirely taken from the tribes, and the right of coöptation restored to the sacerdotal colleges. At the same time various restrictions were imposed or confirmed afresh with regard to the qualifications for office. The limit of age for holding each office was strictly enforced; and the first step in the gradation of offices was in future to be the questorship instead of the edileship, so that the questorship was now the necessary step to the pretorship, and the pretorship to the consulship. Two years at least must elapse between the holding of any office and of the next above it; while a ten-years' interval was required before reëlection to the same office.

The senate was originally, and was still in theory, a council, from which the magistrates might seek advice; but it had gradually acquired the right, not merely of advising, but of controlling the magistrates. It was Sulla's aim to consolidate this power, and, accordingly, all magistracies emerged from his hands with diminished rights.

The heaviest blow fell upon the tribunate, an office naturally most independent of the senate. The original right of the tribunes to veto the official acts of magistrates, and the further right to fine and punish all who disregarded their veto, were still left

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