Chapter XVII: Comitial Legislation From Sulla to the End of the Republic, 82 to About 30 (2)

Notwithstanding the fact that these consuls had been elected with the help of the clubs organized under the Clodian law of 58, they must have felt such associations to be a menace to themselves as well as to the public peace. Crassus accordingly carried through the assembly a lex de sodaliciis, which increased the penalty for ambitus committed through the agency of clubs.[2843] It also ordered that the jury in such cases be made up by the accuser from any four tribes he should choose, however unfavorable they might be to the accused,[2844] who had merely the right to reject one of the four tribal decuries thus presented,[2845] in so far as the court itself did not grant him the further privilege of rejecting individuals.[2846] It is difficult to understand how impartial justice could be administered under such a law. But no further legislation concerning ambitus was attempted till 52, when Pompey in his third consulship carried a statute which increased the penalty for the offence and made the procedure more strict.[2847] The attention of Pompey in his second consulship was directed rather to other classes of crimes. First he had a statute adopted concerning parricide (the murder of a near relative or patron), which hitherto had been provided for by the Cornelian lex de sicariis et veneficis.[2848] His project for displacing the lex Iulia repetundarum by a statute which should make the non-senatorial class specifically responsible failed to become a law.[2849] A sumptuary rogation for restricting personal expenditure he voluntarily withdrew on the advice of Hortensius, who persuaded him that luxury and delicacy of life were but the fitting adornments of empire.[2850] His lex iudiciaria ordered the urban praetor to begin the selection of jurors from the wealthiest of each of the three classes, and thence to descend gradually to the poorer members, the object being to make the composition of the courts as aristocratic as the terms of the Aurelian statute of 70 would allow.[2851] The lex de vi of his third consulship, 52, was merely for the appointment of a special commission to try those who were accused of having murdered Clodius, burned the Curia, and besieged the house of the interrex M. Aemilius Lepidus. It determined the composition of the court and the penalty to be inflicted.[2852] Of his statute de iure magistratuum, passed in the latter year, that article only is known which reiterated the law of 63 for prohibiting candidacies in absentia. But as a plebiscite had been passed earlier in the year to dispense Caesar from the law of 63,[2853] and as Pompey did not dare antagonize him by abolishing the plebiscite here mentioned, he secured the adoption of an additional law for excepting such candidates as had been or should be dispensed by comitial action.[2854] But Caesar’s prospect of passing immediately from his Gallic command to a second consulship was more effectually blocked by Pompey’s lex de provinciis, which, embodying a senatus consultum of the previous year,[2855] ordered that five years should intervene between the expiration of a magistracy and the beginning of the corresponding promagistracy.[2856] The general purpose was to dampen the ardor of the ambitious, who sought praetorships and consulships merely as a stepping-stone to lucrative and influential commands in the provinces. Its immediate effect, however, was to precipitate the conflict between Caesar and Pompey which brought the republic to ruin. The relation of the law to this event requires explanation. In the Pompeian-Licinian act of 55 for prolonging Caesar’s command measures were taken that the senate should not discuss the question of succession to him before March 1, 50. According to the Sempronian law,[2857] therefore, the senate could assign his provinces to no consuls earlier than those of 49; hence Caesar would continue in command during that year while suing for the consulship for 48. But by the Pompeian law of 52 the Sempronian was abolished, and the senate was given an opportunity to appoint a successor to him on or after March 1, 50.[2858]

From the close of the second consulship of Pompey to the beginning of Caesar’s dictatorship there was no important legislation.[2859]

III. _The Decline of the Republican Comitia_

FROM 49 TO ABOUT 30

With the dictatorship of Caesar begins the last stage in the life of the republican comitia. For them it was from the beginning of his supremacy essentially a time of decline. Although Caesar continued to submit his plans to the assemblies for legalization, he rapidly concentrated in his own person powers and functions hitherto exercised by the people; and the triumviri, his successors, after a sham-republican interregnum, constituted in law as well as in fact a three-headed despot. Mention will first be made of the comitial acts which conferred powers and honors on Caesar during his life. In 49 when news of his success in Spain reached Rome, M. Aemilius Lepidus, a partisan who was then urban praetor, persuaded the tribes to adopt a resolution empowering the author to name Caesar dictator.[2860] Entering upon this office after his return to Rome, about the end of November, Caesar used it to secure the ratification of laws—to be considered hereafter—and to hold the electoral comitia. After eleven days he resigned. At this election he was chosen consul with P. Servilius Vatia as colleague.[2861] About the middle of October, 48, when the senate and people heard of the death of Pompey, they conferred on him by law (1) absolute judicial authority over the partisans of Pompey,[2862] (2) the right to make peace and war at his own pleasure, the pretext being the development of opposition to him in Africa, (3) the right to be candidate for the consulship five years in succession,[2863] (4) the dictatorship for an indefinite period, to which he was appointed by his colleague in the consulship,[2864] (5) the tribunician authority for life, with the privilege of sitting with the tribunes, (6) the right to preside at the election of all patrician magistrates, for which reason the comitia were postponed till his return to the city, (7) the right to assign the pretorian provinces according to his own judgment, (8) the right to triumph over Juba, king of Mauretania, though at that time he did not know there was to be a war with that state.[2865] Near the end of April, 46, when news came of the victory at Thapsus, the Romans granted him (1) the censoria potestas with the title of praefectus morum for three years, (2) the annual dictatorship for ten years, (3) the right to nominate candidates for both ordinary and extraordinary offices. These powers were doubtless conferred by comitial action. At the same time great honors were heaped upon him, probably through senatus consulta.[2866] Again in April, 45, after the battle of Munda honors were showered on him in still greater profusion.[2867] Politically the most important were the lifelong, hereditary title of imperator, which he bore as a second cognomen,[2868] the sole right to command soldiers and to manage the public funds, the privilege of being consul ten years in succession (which he did not use), the prefecture of morals and the dictatorship for life, and finally deification under the title of the “Invincible God.”[2869] In fact for the remainder of his life there was no cessation in the bestowal of divine and human honors. Among those of his last year were the tribunician sanctity[2870] and the right to have as many wives as he pleased—the latter granted by a plebiscite of C. Helvius Cinna.[2871] The theocratic monarchy which the Romans were erecting for him on the ruins of the republic left no independence to the senate or the assemblies. The functions of the latter were especially abridged by the large power of nominating and appointing officials possessed by the monarch.[2872] His important legislative plans, however, he brought before the people, preferably in their tribal comitia.

In December, 49, after returning from Spain, Caesar sought to relieve somewhat the distress of debtors and at the same time to quiet the general fear that he might decree a cancellation of all debts.[2873] This object he accomplished through a law, (1) that interest already paid should be deducted from the principal, (2) that the property of the debtor should be taken in payment of the balance—not at the low values then existing, but on the basis of ante-bellum prices, (3) that no one should hoard more than fifteen thousand denarii in cash.[2874] The third article was a renewal of an old law.[2875] Another statute,[2876] 47, released from a year’s rent tenants of houses in Rome which brought the owner more than 2000 sesterces or of houses outside the city which earned more than 500.[2877] These houses were private property, and the law was therefore a partial abolition of private debts.[2878] Such prosperity came that in another year, 46, Caesar found it possible to cut down the number who received free grain from 320,000 to 150,000.[2879] He provided for the surplus population as well as for his veterans by colonies in Gaul, Spain, Africa, Macedonia, Greece, and Asia.[2880] Eighty thousand citizens found homes in these provincial settlements.[2881]

Among Caesar’s most admirable traits was his liberality in restoring to their civil rights those who were under disfranchisement and in granting the citizenship to aliens. At his suggestion M. Antonius, tribune of the plebs in 49, secured the enactment of a plebiscite for restoring the ius honorum to the children of those whom Sulla had proscribed.[2882] Near the end of the same year, also at his request, the praetors and tribunes brought before the people and carried proposals for the recall of certain persons who had been exiled, unjustly as he believed, under the Pompeian law on ambitus.[2883] It was further at his suggestion that L. Roscius, probably praetor, enacted a comitial law for granting the citizenship to the Transpadani who at this time possessed simply the ius Latii.[2884] Another law of unknown authorship confirmed the grant of the franchise already made on his own responsibility to the people of Gades.[2885]

Among his administrative improvements was the increase in the number of praetors from eight to ten[2886] in 47, for which a comitial statute may be assumed.[2887] The people surrendered to him a large part of their electoral right through the plebiscite of L. Antonius,[2888] December, 45, which granted him the privilege of nominating and presenting to the comitia a half of the candidates below the consulship.[2889] The degradation into which the ordinary magistracies had been brought by the supremacy of Caesar is indicated by the deposition of two tribunes of the plebs, C. Epidius Marullus and L. Caesetius Flavus, because of their opposition to monarchy, 44, through a plebiscite of their colleague, C. Helvius Cinna.[2890]

To the year 46 belongs Caesar’s legislation on judicial matters. First disqualifying the tribuni aerarii for jury service,[2891] he ordered through the comitia that the courts be composed exclusively of the senators and knights.[2892] The man who had been carried to supreme power on the shoulders of the common people now spurned even the most respectable of their number from association with himself in the administration.[2893] It is known that he enacted laws on individual crimes.[2894] A lex de vi and a lex de maiestate are mentioned,[2895] but it is not known in what they differed from those of earlier or later date.[2896] His sumptuary statute of the same year[2897] restricted the expense of the table,[2898] sepulchral monuments, dwellings,[2899] furniture, clothing, jewels, and other luxuries, covering the ground in great detail.[2900] A Cassian plebiscite empowered him to recruit the patrician rank[2901]—a means of creating a nobility devoted to himself, while supplying a religious need. A law proposed by himself (de provinciis) limited proconsuls to two years of command and propraetors to one,[2902] that in future they might not acquire such strength as to overthrow the civil authority, after the pattern set by the author of the regulation. It was by a vote of the people, too, that the famous lex Iulia municipalis was adopted, probably in the autumn of 46.[2903] Although there has been much controversy regarding the nature of the document,[2904] it is most probably a general municipal statute. Far from exhaustive, it had to be supplemented by special laws for the several cities.[2905] The extant fragment, which seems to begin with the second table, regulates (1) applications of citizens resident at Rome for free grain,[2906] (2) the aedilician supervision of the streets, buildings, and games of the capital,[2907] (3) the qualifications for the magistracies and the decurionate in the municipia,[2908] (4) the introduction of the Roman census in the municipia,[2909] and (5) of individual Roman statutes in those municipia which enjoyed the laws of Rome.[2910] The inclusion of the capital with the cities of Roman rights throughout the empire in one general law marks the first step in the monarchical process of reducing Rome to the level of the municipia.[2911]

In comparison with the amount of reform work undertaken by Caesar the legislative activity of the people was remarkably slight. The growth of the monarchy wrought the decline of the comitia as well as of the senate; and the assassination of the monarch brought equally to the republic and to the assemblies but a short interval of pretended liberty.[2912] A lex proposed by the consul M. Antonius confirmed the acts of Caesar and established as law the plans which he left in writing at his death.[2913] It was arbitrarily used by the consul for legalizing every whim of his own. His colonial law, passed shortly after Caesar’s assassination,[2914] seems to have been used by him for establishing in Italy a permanent support for himself.[2915] The last known agrarian law of the republic is that of his brother, L. Antonius, tribune of the plebs in the same year, 44. It ordered the distribution of the Pomptine marshes—which the author asserted were then ready for cultivation[2916]—and other extensive tracts.[2917] The execution of the measure was in the hands of septemviri,[2918] including the author[2919] and his two brothers.[2920] It was annulled in the following year by the senate on the ground that it had been violently passed.[2921]

Meantime the consul Antonius continued his legislation. An arbitrary act restored to the pontifical college its ancient right to appoint its chief in place of the long-used election by seventeen tribes.[2922] Next to colonization, however, his chief legislative interest was in the reform of the courts. He repealed the Julian statute concerning the qualifications of jurors;[2923] and instead of restoring the eligibility of the tribuni aerarii, he made up a third decury of retired centurions and other veterans.[2924] His law for granting an appeal to the people from the quaestiones de vi and de maiestate,[2925] had it remained in force, would as Cicero asserts have abolished these courts and have given free rein to mob violence, such as comitial trials for these crimes must necessarily be under conditions as they then existed.[2926] Popularity was the aim of this measure as well as of his lex which forever abolished the dictatorship. Along with all his other laws they were annulled by the senate in February 43.[2927]

The establishment of the triumviri rei publicae constituendae in 43 practically abolished the functions of the comitia, as these three potentates usurped the right of filling all offices by appointment and of managing affairs according to their pleasure without consulting either the senate or the people.[2928] The power they had seized was legalized for a period of five years by the plebiscite of P. Titius, November 43, passed without regard to the trinundinum.[2929] The reference of business to the people was thereafter a rare indulgence. It may have been through a comitial act that the triumviri resolved upon building a temple to Serapis and Isis in the first year of their rule.[2930] We are less certain that the measure of Octavianus in 41 for a partial remission of rents was offered to the people.[2931] To the year 40 belongs the lex Falcidia, of P. Falcidius, tribune of the plebs, which permitted a man to bequeath no more than three-fourths of his estate, leaving one-fourth to his natural heirs.[2932] We need not be surprised to find that the rulers gladly allowed the people to vote them honors. In their first year they were awarded civic crowns by a comitial act, doubtless of the tribes;[2933] and in 35 the honors bestowed upon Octavia and Livia probably came through a plebiscite, as did certainly the triumph voted to Octavianus.[2934] Last may be mentioned the law of L. Saenius, consul in 30, supported by a senatus consultum, which empowered Octavianus to create new patricians.[2935]

Schulze, C. F., _Volksversammlungen der Römer_, 124-39; Peter,
C., _Epochen der Verfassungsgeschichte der röm. Republik_,
165 ff.; _Gesch. Roms_, bk. VII. ch. v; bks. VIII-X; Ihne,
_Hist. of Rome_, bk. VII. chs. xxi-xxiii; Lange, _Röm.
Alt._ iii. 146-597; cf. ii, see index s. the various laws;
_Commentationes de legibus Antoniis a Cicerone Phil. v.
4. 10 commemoratis particula prior et posterior_, in _Kl.
Schr._ ii. 126-49; _Die lex Pupia_, etc., ibid. ii. 175-94;
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E., _Gesch. und System der röm. Staatsverf._ i. 509-65; ii.
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courts, etc.; _Ein zweites Bruchstück des rubrischen Gesetzes
vom Jahre 705 Roms_, in _Hermes_, xvi (1881). 24-41; _Lex
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(1875). 105-51; _Lex municipii Tarentini_, ibid. ix. (1903).
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in _Mélanges d’archéologie et d’histoire_ (1881). 297-311;
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_Dict._ iii. 2022-34; Pauly-Wissowa, _Real-Encycl._ i. 256 f.:
M’. Acilius Glabrio (Klebs); 554-6; M. Aemilius Lepidus (idem);
1800-3: Ambitus (Hartmann); ii. 191-4: Apparitores (Habel);
2482-4: C. Aurelius Cotta (Klebs); 2485-7: L. Aurelius Cotta
(idem); iii. 1376 f.: C. Calpurnius Piso (Münzer); iv. 82-8: P.
Clodius Pulcher (Fröhlich); 1252-5: C. Cornelius (Münzer); iv.
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1522-66: L. Cornelius Sulla Felix (Fröhlich); 2401-4: Deiotarus
(Niese).