The History of Rome, Book IV

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IV. VII. The Bestowal of the Franchise and Its Limitations. That there was no confirmation by the comitia, is clear from Cic. Phil. xii. 11, 27. The senate seems to have made use of the form of simply prolonging the term of the Plautio- Papirian law (IV. VII. Bestowal of Latin Rights on the Italian Celts), a course which by use and wont (i. 409) was open to it and practically amounted to conferring the franchise on all Italians.

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"-Ad flatus sidere-," as Livy (according to Obsequens, 56) expresses it, means "seized by the pestilence" (Petron. Sat. 2; Plin. H. N. ii. 41, 108; Liv. viii. 9, 12), not "struck by lightning," as later writers have misunderstood it.

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IV. VII. Combats with the Marsians

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IV. VII. Sulpicius Rufus

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IV. VII. Bestowal of Latin Rights on the Italian Celts

216

IV. V. In Illyria

217

IV. VI. Discussions on the Livian Laws

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IV. VII. Energetic Decrees

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Lucius Valerius Flaccus, whom the Fasti name as consul in 668, was not the consul of 654, but a younger man of the same name, perhaps son of the preceding. For, first, the law which prohibited re-election to the consulship remained legally in full force from c. 603 (IV. II. Attempts at Reform) to 673, and it is not probable that what was done in the case of Scipio Aemilianus and Marius was done also for Flaccus. Secondly, there is no mention anywhere, when either Flaccus is named, of a double consulship, not even where it was necessary as in Cic. pro Flacc. 32, 77. Thirdly, the Lucius Valerius Flaccus who was active in Rome in 669 as -princeps senatus- and consequently of consular rank (Liv. 83), cannot have been the consul of 668, for the latter had already at that time departed for Asia and was probably already dead. The consul of 654, censor in 657, is the person whom Cicero (ad Att. viii. 3, 6) mentions among the consulars present in Rome in 667; he was in 669 beyond doubt the oldest of the old censors living and thus fitted to be -princeps senatus-; he was also the -interrex- and the -magister equitum- of 672. On the other hand, the consul of 668, who Perished at Nicomedia (p. 47), was the father of the Lucius Flaccus defended by Cicero (pro Flacc. 25, 61, comp. 23, 55. 32, 77).

220

IV. VI. The Equestrian Party

221

IV. VII. Sulla Embarks for Asia

222

We can only suppose this to be the Brutus referred to, since Marcus Brutus the father of the so-called Liberator was tribune of the people in 671, and therefore could not command in the field.

223

IV. IV. Prosecutions of the Democrats

224

It is stated, that Sulla occupied the defile by which alone Praeneste was accessible (App. i. 90); and the further events showed that the road to Rome was open to him as well as to the relieving army. Beyond doubt Sulla posted himself on the cross road which turns off from the Via Latina, along which the Samnites advanced, at Valmontone towards Palestrina; in this case Sulla communicated with the capital by the Praenestine, and the enemy by the Latin or Labican, road.

225

Hardly any other name can well be concealed under the corrupt reading in Liv. 89 -miam in Samnio-; comp. Strabo, v. 3, 10.

226

IV. IX. Pompeius

227

IV. VIII. New Difficulties

228

III. XI. Abolition of the Dictatorship

229

-Satius est uti regibus quam uti malis legibus- (Ad Herenn. ii. 36).

230

II. I. The Dictator, II. II. The Valerio-Horatian Laws, II. III. Limitation of the Dictatorship

231

IV. VII. Legislation of Sulla

232

This total number is given by Valerius Maximus, ix. 2. 1. According to Appian (B. C. i. 95), there were proscribed by Sulla nearly 40 senators, which number subsequently received some additions, and about 1600 equites; according to Florus (ii. 9, whence Augustine de Civ. Dei, iii. 28), 2000 senators and equites. According to Plutarch (Sull. 31), 520 names were placed on the list in the first three days; according to Orosius (v. 21), 580 names during the first days. there is no material contradiction between these various reports, for it was not senators and equites alone that were put to death, and the list remained open for months. When Appian, at another passage (i. 103), mentions as put to death or banished by Sulla, 15 consulars, 90 senators, 2600 equites, he there confounds, as the connection shows, the victims of the civil war throughout with the victims of Sulla. The 15 consulars were— Quintus Catulus, consul in 652; Marcus Antonius, 655; Publius Crassus, 657; Quintus Scaevola, 659; Lucius Domitius, 660; Lucius Caesar, 664; Quintus Rufus, 666; Lucius Cinna, 667-670; Gnaeus Octavius, 667; Lucius Merula, 667; Lucius Flaccus, 668; Gnaeus Carbo, 669, 670, 672; Gaius Norbanus, 671; Lucius Scipio, 671; Gaius Marius, 672; of whom fourteen were killed, and one, Lucius Scipio, was banished. When, on the other hand, the Livian account in Eutropius (v. 9) and Orosius (v. 22) specifies as swept away (-consumpti-) in the Social and Civil wars, 24 consulars, 7 praetorians, 60 aedilicians, 200 senators, the calculation includes partly the men who fell in the Italian war, such as the consulars Aulus Albinus, consul in 655; Titus Didius, 656; Publius Lupus, 664; Lucius Cato, 665; partly perhaps Quintus Metellus Numidicus (IV. VI. Violent Proceedings in The Voting), Manius Aquillius, Gaius Marius the father, Gnaeus Strabo, whom we may certainly regard as also victims of that period, or other men whose fate is unknown to us. Of the fourteen consulars killed, three—Rufus, Cinna, and Flaccus— fell through military revolts, while eight Sullan and three Marian consulars fell as victims to the opposite party. On a comparison of the figures given above, 50 senators and 1000 equites were regarded as victims of Marius, 40 senators and 1600 equites as victims of Sulla; this furnishes a standard—at least not altogether arbitrary—for estimating the extent of the crimes on both sides.

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The Sextus Alfenus, frequently mentioned in Cicero's oration on behalf of Publius Quinctius, was one of these.

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II. VII. Latins. To this was added the peculiar aggravation that, while in other instances the right of the Latins, like that of the -peregrini-, implied membership in a definite Latin or foreign community, in this case—just as with the later freedmen of Latin and deditician rights (comp. IV. VII. The Bestowal of the Franchise and Its Limitations. n.)—it was without any such right of urban membership. The consequence was, that these Latins were destitute of the privileges attaching to an urban constitution, and, strictly speaking, could not even make a testament, since no one could execute a testament otherwise than according to the law of his town; they could doubtless, however, acquire under Roman testaments, and among the living could hold dealings with each other and with Romans or Latins in the forms of Roman law.

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IV. IV. The Domain Question under the Restoration