The history of Rome

Of greater moment was the participation of the burgesses in the elections - a participation, with which they seemed not to be able to dispense without disturbing more than Sulla's superficial restoration could or would disturb. The interferences of the movement party in the sacerdotal elections were set aside; not only the Domitian law of 650, which transferred the election of the supreme priesthoods generally to the people[19], but also the similar older enactments as to the Pontifex Maximus and the Curio Maximus[20] were cancelled by Sulla, and the colleges of priests received back the right of self-completion in its original absoluteness. In the case of elections to the offices of state, the mode hitherto pursued was on the whole retained; except in so far as the new regulation of the military command to be mentioned immediately certainly involved as its consequence a material restriction of the powers of the burgesses, and indeed in some measure transferred the right of bestowing the appointment of generals from the burgesses to the senate. It does not even appear that Sulla now resumed the previously attempted restoration of the Servian voting-arrangement[21]; whether it was that he regarded the particular composition of the voting-divisions as altogether a matter of indifference, or whether it was that this older arrangement seemed to him to augment the dangerous influence of the capitalists. Only the qualifications were restored and partially raised. The limit of age requisite for the holding of each office was enforced afresh; as was also the enactment that every candidate for the consulship should have previously held the praetorship, and every candidate for the praetorship should have previously held the quaestorship, whereas the aedileship was allowed to be passed over. The various attempts that had been recently made to establish a tyrannis under the form of a consulship continued for several successive years led to special rigour in dealing with this abuse; and it was enacted that at least two years should elapse between the holding of one magistracy and the holding of another, and at least ten years should elapse before the same office could be held a second time. In this latter enactment the earlier ordinance of 412[22] was revived, instead of the absolute prohibition of all re-election to the consulship, which had been the favourite idea of the most recent ultra-oligarchical epoch[23]. On the whole, however, Sulla left the elections to take their course, and sought merely to fetter the power of the magistrates in such a way that - let the incalculable caprice of the comitia call to office whomsoever it might - the person elected should not be in a position to rebel against the oligarchy.

Weakening of the Tribunate of the People

The supreme magistrates of the state were at this period practically the three colleges of the tribunes of the people, the consuls and praetors, and the censors. They all emerged from the Sullan restoration with materially diminished rights, more especially the tribunician office, which appeared to the regent an instrument indispensable doubtless for senatorial government, but yet - as generated by revolution and having a constant tendency to generate fresh revolutions in its turn - requiring to be rigorously and permanently shackled. The tribunician authority had arisen out of the right to annul the official acts of the magistrates by veto, and, eventually, to fine any one who should oppose that right and to take steps for his farther punishment; this was still left to the tribunes, excepting that a heavy fine, destroying as a rule a man's civil existence, was imposed on the abuse of the right of intercession.