The history of Rome

by Theodor Mommsen

  Lastly, as the number of praetors to be nominated yearly was raised from six to eight, the new arrangement of the duties was such, that the ten chief magistrates to be nominated yearly devoted themselves, during their first year of office, as consuls or praetors to the business of the capital - the two consuls to government and administration, two of the praetors to the administration of civil law, the remaining six to the reorganized administration of criminal justice - and, during their second year of office, were as proconsuls or propraetors invested with the command in one of the ten governorships: Sicily, Sardinia, the two Spains, Macedonia, Asia, Africa, Narbo, Cilicia, and Italian Gaul. The already-mentioned augmentation of the number of quaestors by Sulla to twenty was likewise connected with this arrangement[28].

  Better Arrangement of Business - Increase of the Power of the Senate

  By this plan, in the first instance, a clear and fixed rule was substituted for the irregular mode of distributing offices hitherto adopted, a mode which invited all manner of vile manoeuvres and intrigues; and, secondly, the excesses of magisterial authority were as far as possible obviated and the influence of the supreme governing board was materially increased. According to the previous arrangement the only legal distinction in the empire was that drawn between the city which was surrounded by the ring-wall, and the country beyond the pomerium; the new arrangement substituted for the city the new Italy henceforth, as in perpetual peace, withdrawn from the regular imperium[29], and placed in contrast to it the continental and transmarine territories, which were, on the other hand, necessarily placed under military commandants - the provinces as they were henceforth called. According to the former arrangement the same man had very frequently remained two, and often more years in the same office. The new arrangement restricted the magistracies of the capital as well as the governorships throughout to one year; and the special enactment that every governor should without fail leave his province within thirty days after his successor's arrival there, shows very clearly - particularly if we take along with it the formerly-mentioned prohibition of the immediate re-election of the late magistrate to the same or another public office - what the tendency of these arrangements was. It was the time-honoured maxim by which the senate had at one time made the monarchy subject to it, that the limitation of the magistracy in point of function was favourable to democracy, and its limitation in point of time favourable to oligarchy. According to the previous arrangement Gaius Marius had acted at once as head of the senate and as commander-in-chief of the state; if he had his own unskilfulness alone to blame for his failure to overthrow the oligarchy by means of this double official power, care seemed now taken to prevent some possibly wiser successor from making a better use of the same lever. According to the previous arrangement the magistrate immediately nominated by the people might have had a military position; the Sullan arrangement, on the other hand, reserved such a position exclusively for those magistrates whom the senate confirmed in their official authority by prolonging their term of office. No doubt this prolongation of office had now become a standing usage; but it still - so far as respects the auspices and the name, and constitutional form in general - continued to be treated as an extraordinary extension of their term. This was no matter of indifference. The burgesses alone could depose the consul or praetor from his office; the proconsul and propraetor were nominated and dismissed by the senate, so that by this enactment the whole military power, on which withal everything ultimately depended, became formally at least dependent on the senate.

  Shelving of the Censorship

  Lastly we have already observed that the highest of all magistracies, the censorship, though not formally abolished, was shelved in the same way as the dictatorship had previously been. Practically it might certainly be dispensed with. Provision was otherwise made for filling up the senate. From the time that Italy was practically tax-free and the army was substantially formed by enlistment, the register of those liable to taxation and service lost in the main its significance; and, if disorder prevailed in the equestrian roll or the list of those entitled to the suffrage, that disorder was probably not altogether unwelcome. There thus remained only the current financial functions which the consuls had hitherto discharged when, as frequently happened, no election of censors had taken place, and which they now took as a part of their ordinary official duties. Compared with the substantial gain that by the shelving of the censorship the magistracy lost its crowning dignity, it was a matter of little moment and was not at all prejudicial to the sole dominion of the supreme governing corporation, that - with a view to satisfy the ambition of the senators now so much more numerous - the number of the pontifices and that of the augurs was increased from nine[30], that of the custodiers of oracles from ten[31], to fifteen each, and that of the banquet-masters from three[32] to seven.

  Regulation of the Finances

  In financial matters even under the former constitution the decisive voice lay with the senate; the only point to be dealt with, accordingly, was the re-establishment of an orderly administration. Sulla had found himself at first in no small difficulty as to money; the sums brought with him from Asia Minor were soon expended for the pay of his numerous and constantly swelling army. Even after thevictory at the Colline gate the senate, seeing that the state-chest had been carried off to Praeneste, had been obliged to resort to urgent measures. Various building-sites in the capital and several portions of the Campanian domains were exposed to sale, the client kings, the freed and allied communities, were laid under extraordinary contribution, their landed property and their customs-revenues were in some cases confiscated, and in others new privileges were granted to them for money. But the residue of nearly 600,000 pounds found in the public chest on the surrender of Praeneste, the public auctions which soon began, and other extraordinary resources, relieved the embarrassment of the moment. Provision was made for the future not so much by the reform in the Asiatic revenues, under which the tax-payers were the principal gainers, and the state chest was perhaps at most no loser, as by the resumption of the Campanian domains, to which Aenaria was now added[33], and above all by the abolition of the largesses of grain, which since the time of Gaius Gracchus had eaten like a canker into the Roman finances.

  Reorganization of the Judicial System - Previous Arrangements - Ordinary Procedure - Permanent and Special Quaestiones - Centumviral Court

  The judicial system on the other hand was essentially revolutionized, partly from political considerations, partly with a view to introduce greater unity and usefulness into the previous very insufficient and unconnected legislation on the subject. According to the arrangements hitherto subsisting, processes fell to be decided partly by the burgesses, partly by jurymen. The judicial cases in which the whole burgesses decided on appeal from the judgment of the magistrate were, down to the time of Sulla, placed in the hands primarily of the tribunes of the people, secondarily of the aediles, inasmuch as all the processes, through which a person entrusted with an office or commission by the community was brought to answer for his conduct of its affairs, whether they involved life and limb or money-fines, had to be in the first instance dealt with by the tribunes of the people, and all the other processes in which ultimately the people decided, were in the first instance adjudicated on, in the second presided over, by the curule or plebeian aediles. Sulla, if he did not directly abolish the tribunician process of calling to account, yet made it dependent, just like the initiative of the tribunes in legislation, on the previous consent of the senate, and presumably also limited in like manner the aedilician penal procedure. On the other hand he enlarged the jurisdiction of the jury courts. There existed at that time two sorts of procedure before jurymen. The ordinary procedure, which was applicable in all cases adapted according to our view for a criminal or civil process with the exception of crimes immediately directed against the state, consisted in this, that one of the two praetors of the capital technically adjusted the cause and a juryman (-iudex-) nominated by him decided
it on the basis of this adjustment.

  The extraordinary jury-procedure again was applicable in particular civil or criminal cases of importance, for which, instead of the single juryman, a special jury-court had been appointed by special laws. Of this sort were the special tribunals constituted for individual cases[34]; the standing commissional tribunals, such as had been appointed for exactions[35], for poisoning and murder[36], perhaps also for bribery at elections and other crimes, in the course of the seventh century; and lastly, the two courts of the "Ten-men" for processes affecting freedom, and the "Hundred and five", or more briefly, the "Hundred-men", for processes affecting inheritance, also called, from the shaft of a spear employed in all disputes as to property, the "spear-court" (hasta). The court of Ten-men (decemviri litibus iudicandis) was a very ancient institution for the protection of the plebeians against their masters[37]. The period and circumstances in which the spear-court originated are involved in obscurity; but they must, it may be presumed, have been nearly the same as in the case of the essentially similar criminal commissions mentioned above. As to the presidency of these different tribunals there were different regulations in the respective ordinances appointing them: thus there presided over the tribunal as to exactions a praetor, over the court for murder a president specially nominated from those who had been aediles, over the spear-court several directors taken from the former quaestors. The jurymen at least for the ordinary as for the extraordinary procedure were, in accordance with the Gracchan arrangement, taken from the non-senatorial men of equestrian census; the selection belonged in general to the magistrates who had the conducting of the courts, yet on such a footing that they, in entering upon their office, had to set forth once for all the list of jurymen, and then the jury for an individual case was formed from these, not by free choice of the magistrate, but by drawing lots, and by rejection on behalf of the parties. From the choice of the people there came only the "Ten-men" for procedure affecting freedom.

  Sullan Quaestiones

  Sulla's leading reforms were of a threefold character. First, he very considerably increased the number of the jury-courts. There were henceforth separate judicial commissions for exactions; for murder, including arson and perjury; for bribery at elections; for high treason and any dishonour done to the Roman name; for the most heinous cases of fraud - the forging of wills and of money; for adultery; for the most heinous violations of honour, particularly for injuries to the person and disturbance of the domestic peace; perhaps also for embezzlement of public moneys, for usury and other crimes; and at least the greater number of these courts were either found in existence or called into life by Sulla, and were provided by him with special ordinances setting forth the crime and form of criminal procedure. The government, moreover, was not deprived of the right to appoint in case of emergency special courts for particular groups of crimes. As a result of these arrangements, the popular tribunals were in substance done away with, processes of high treason in particular were consigned to the new high treason commission, and the ordinary jury procedure was considerably restricted, for the more serious falsifications and injuries were withdrawn from it. Secondly, as respects the presidency of the courts, six praetors, as we have already mentioned, were now available for the superintendence of the different jury-courts, and to these were added a number of other directors in the care of the commission which was most frequently called into action - that for dealing with murder. Thirdly, the senators were once more installed in the office of jurymen in room of the Gracchan equites.

  The political aim of these enactments - to put an end to the share which the equites had hitherto had in the government - is clear as day; but it as little admits of doubt, that these were not mere measures of a political tendency, but that they formed the first attempt to amend the Roman criminal procedure and criminal law, which had since the struggle between the orders fallen more and more into confusion. From this Sullan legislation dates the distinction - substantially unknown to the earlier law - between civil and criminal causes, in the sense which we now attach to these expressions; henceforth a criminal cause appears as that which comes before the bench of jurymen under the presidency of the praetor, a civil cause as the procedure, in which the juryman or jurymen do not discharge their duties under praetorian presidency. The whole body of the Sullan ordinances as to the quaestiones may be characterized at once as the first Roman code after the Twelve Tables, and as the first criminal code ever specially issued at all. But in the details also there appears a laudable and liberal spirit.

  Singular as it may sound regarding the author of the proscriptions, it remains nevertheless true that he abolished the punishment of death for political offences; for, as according to the Roman custom which even Sulla retained unchanged the people only, and not the jury-commission, could sentence to forfeiture of life or to imprisonment[38], the transference of processes of high treason from the burgesses to a standing commission amounted to the abolition of capital punishment for such offences. On the other hand, the restriction of the pernicious special commissions for particular cases of high treason, of which the Varian commission[39] in the Social war had been a specimen, likewise involved an improvement. The whole reform was of singular and lasting benefit, and a permanent monument of the practical, moderate, statesmanly spirit, which made its author well worthy, like the old decemvirs, to step forward between the parties as sovereign mediator with his code of law.

  Police Laws

  We may regard as an appendix to these criminal laws the police ordinances, by which Sulla, putting the law in place of the censor, again enforced good discipline and strict manners, and, by establishing new maximum rates instead of the old ones which had long been antiquated, attempted to restrain luxury at banquets, funerals, and otherwise.

  The Roman Municipal System

  Lastly, the development of an independent Roman municipal system was the work, if not of Sulla, at any rate of the Sullan epoch. The idea of organically incorporating the community as a subordinate political unit in the higher unity of the state was originally foreign to antiquity; the despotism of the east knew nothing of urban commonwealths in the strict sense of the word, and city and state were throughout the Helleno-Italic world necessarily coincident. In so far there was no proper municipal system from the outset either in Greece or in Italy. The Roman polity especially adhered to this view with its peculiar tenacious consistency; even in the sixth century the dependent communities of Italy were either, in order to their keeping their municipal constitution, constituted as formally sovereign states of non-burgesses, or, if they obtained the Roman franchise, were - although not prevented from organizing themselves as collective bodies - deprived of properly municipal rights, so that in all burgess-colonies and burgess municipia even the administration of justice and the charge of buildings devolved on the Roman praetors and censors. The utmost to which Rome consented was to allow at least the most urgent lawsuits to be settled on the spot by a deputy (praefectus) of the praetor nominated from Rome[40].

  The provinces were similarly dealt with, except that the governor there came in place of the authorities of the capital. In the free, that is, formally sovereign towns the civil and criminal jurisdiction was administered by the municipal magistrates according to the local statutes; only, unless altogether special privileges stood in the way, every Roman might either as defendant or as plaintiff request to have his cause decided before Italian judges according to Italian law For the ordinary provincial communities the Roman governor was the only regular judicial authority, on whom devolved the direction of all processes. It was a great matter when, as in Sicily, in the event of the defendant being a Sicilian, the governor was bound by the provincial statute to give a native juryman and to allow him to decide according to local usage; in most of the provinces this seems to have depended on the pleasure of the directing magistrate.