he had made at a season of less power than he now possessed, were but trifles, compared with his demands. He chose to be named Dictator; and the obsequious Senate appointed an Interrex, Valerius Flaccus, who, not content with nominating his master to the dictatorship, proposed an especial law by which the most absolute authority that mortal could exercise was tendered to the new sovereign. Flaccus received his reward in being appointed to the mastership of Knights; but neither he nor any other magistrate in Rome could have mistaken his position in presence of the lictors and guards 65 around the Dictator, the first successor of the Dictators against Hannibal, a century and a quarter before. 64 66 The uses of this unbounded power during the months immediately subsequent to its seizure were such as have been sufficiently described. But the dictatorship lasted beyond these months for nearly three years, the greater part of which time was more carefully and less sanguinarily employed by Sulla in adapting the constitution of the Commonwealth, as it was still called, to his own standard, with the intent of securing the government to himself through his life-time, and of leaving a proper system in control of succeeding generations. Public 67 as well as private confiscations not only supplied 64"The power," says Plutarch (Sull., 33), "over life and death, confiscations, colonizations, building and destroying cities, taking away and giving kingdoms." 65 App., Bell. Civ., I. 100. ards the close of A. C. 82, continued through 81 and 80 to the commencement of 79. 67 Of these there are but scattered indications. Cic., De Leg. Agr., II. 14, 15. App., Bell. Civ., I. 100. Plut., Sull., 33. him with wealth, but fortified his authority by the devotion of all he enriched and the submissive dread of those whom he spared; whilst reaction against him, on the part of the proscribed, was prevented by their exclusion from offices and from any chances of repairing their ruined fortunes. With the same view of corroborating his own dominion, he sent his veterans in troops 69 to displace the Italian citizens in those regions or towns which had opposed his march to Rome. The reforms of the Dictator began, apparently, with the criminal law. The alterations he introduced into this branch of the Roman code were of great importance in themselves,70 as well as of signal influence, as might be supposed, in promoting the order which he wisely conceived to be indispensable to himself, as well as to those he governed. It was equally necessary that the political forms of the code should be remoulded in order to coexist with the mighty substance of his authority. No one, according to his laws, was to be elected Prætor without having passed the quæstorship, or Consul without having held the prætorship;" and as it was easy 68 Liv., Epit. LXXXIX. Vell. witness, household expenses, etc., Pat., II. 28. were all made the subjects of new enactments. See any full Index Legum to Cicero; or Drumann, Geschichte Roms, Vol. II. pp. 486 et seq. to oversee the inferior offices, the superior magistracies were of course subordinate to the same control. In order, moreover, to prevent his creatures from becoming too powerful, Sulla, by another law, forbade the reëlection of any person to the same magistracy within ten years of his first term.72 Some of the great offices, like the censorship,73 were left unfilled; while the tribunate was completely metamorphosed into a post occupied by members chosen from the Senate,74 with much restricted limits to its rights of intercession,75 and with total loss of its former legislative powers,76 its tenure being, besides, a bar upon pretension to any other place thereafter." The Tribes were next degraded by the admission of ten thousand freedmen, to whom the Cornelian name 78 was given as to so many clients of the Dictator; and the privileges of legislation and trials, once belonging to the assembly, were transferred to the Centuries.79 The Senate and the priesthood were more favorably treated. The number of Augurs, Pontiffs, and probably Decemvirs of the Sibylline books, was increas 72 App., Bell. Civ., I. 100. Also an ancient law. 73 Apparently, at least, if we take Cicero's complaint (In Cæc. Divin., 3) as literal. 74 App., Bell. Civ., I. 100. See Sueton., August., 10, 45; and Dion Cass., LIV. 30. 75 Cic., De Legg., III. 9. Compare Cæsar's Commentaries on the Civil War, I. 5. 76 Cic., loc. cit., and Pro Cluent., 40. Liv., Epit., LXXXIX. 77 Ascon. in Cic., Pro C. Corn., I. 78 App., Bell. Civ., I. 100. "OлшS éтoíμois ÈK Tŵv дŋμотŵν проs тà Tαpayyeλλóμeva μvpíois xporo, "That he might have ten thousand Tribesmen to fulfil his commands." 79 See note 76. The Tribes, however, did not lose their elective powers, except in part. Cf. App., Bell. Civ., I. 59, and Cic., Pro Dom., 30. The Centuries, on the other hand, could not act without the previous consent of the Senate. 82 ed to fifteen in each college, to all of which the right of choosing their own members was restored.0 To the Senate was granted an accession of legislative powers,1 at the same time that its ancient judicial authority was recovered from the Knights, who, as a faction, were wellnigh overwhelmed. All the principal magistracies were to be held by Senators; and from those offices filled by other ranks led the only way of admission to the Senate. It was natural that a body, spared or created 83 by the Dictator, should be clothed with sufficient authority, not so much to sustain as to obey him. In the same continued determination to maintain his own power, Sulla framed his laws respecting the provinces and the armies, of which the command, as he knew well, was the great step to dominion at Rome. On the arrival of a new chief magistrate in his province, his predecessor was enjoined to depart within a limited period, although his commission was to last him on his journey home. During office, the governor was prohibited from leading his army out of his province, and from making use of his nearly absolute authority to declare war against the people he governed or to injure the superiority of the Commonwealth.85 The provincial cities were like 80 Liv., Epit. LXXXIX. Serv. ad En., VI. 73. Dion Cass., XXXVII. 37. 81 App., Bell. Civ., I. 59. 82 Vell. Pat., II. 32. Tac., Ann., XI. 22. 83 Three hundred were raised from his followers 84 Cic., Ad Div., I. 9, III. 6. 86 wise restrained in the long-prevailing custom of sending sumptuous embassies to the Senate, charged with merited or unmerited praises of their retiring governors. There may have been other precautions of the same nature, not now, however, of any importance, except as they seem to prove that the government of all the Roman world was then appointed by one man, upon the principles he had learned through his own extortion and ambition. The part of Sulla in Roman history has been commonly represented as that of a conqueror and a legislator whose resolution was confined to the purification of the constitution and the elevation of the aristocracy of his country. It would rather appear, and without a single extravagant rendering of our authorities, that his aim, from first to last, was to secure his individual sway and his personal safety. For mere title or form, either in his own possession or in that of other men, he cared nothing, so long as they were really submissive, and he was really powerful. Their love or hatred was the same to him, if it did not interfere with their obedience; and the friend or the enemy who had escaped his wrath was still obliged to bend before a whisper of his will. He allowed two of his adherents to be chosen Consuls, soon after he became Dictator; 87 but when another of his train, Lucretius Ofella, who had deserted the faction of Marius and had since done great service to Sulla, presented himself as a candidate for 86 Cic., Ad Div., III. 10. 87 App., Bell. Civ., I. 100. |