gaze on the spectacle. The insignia of office and the axes, which used to accompany Sulla when he was dictator, were carried in the funeral pomp.

When the body reached the city, it was brought in with still greater solemnity. More than two thousand golden crowns made hastily for the occasion were carried in the procession, the gifts of cities, of the legions which had served under Sulla, and of his friends. There were other costly things also sent to decorate the ceremonial, and more than words can tell. All the sacred colleges were there, not through affection, but through fear of the great military force that was assembled: even the Vestals were present. All the Senate joined in the procession, and the magistrates, in their several costumes. The Roman Equites followed in their proper dress, and all the legions which had fought under Sulla, each in its place, carrying gilded standards, and wearing armour plated with silver. The number of those who blew wind instruments was almost past counting. The notes were by turns soft and plaintive. The immense multitude responded to the music, first the Senate, then the Equites, then the army, and the people last. Some really regretted Sulla; others feared his soldiers, and looked with terror even on the corpse. They had before their eyes a strange spectacle, and they could not forget what Sulla had done. The body was placed before the Rostra, and the funeral oration was pronounced by the best orator of the day, whose name however is not recorded. Faustus, Sulla's son, was too young to discharge this pious duty. Some of the senators, robust men, then took up the bier and carried it to the Campus Martius, where the ancient kings of Rome were interred. The day was cloudy and threatened rain; but a strong wind came down on the funeral pile and raised a great flame. Around the burning body the Equites and soldiers moved in solemn pomp. When the pile was sinking and the fire going out, there was just time to collect the ashes before the rain descended in torrents. "So Sulla's good fortune seemed to follow him to his funeral and to stay with him to the last. His monument is in the

DECLINE OF THE ROMAN REPUBLIC.

Campus Martius. The inscription, which they say that he wrote and left behind him, is in substance that none of his friends ever did him a kindness, and none of his enemies ever did him a wrong, without being fully repaid" (Plutarch). When the consuls were returning from the funeral, they fell to quarrelling and abusing one another.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

SULLA'S REFORMS.

WE find frequent mention of Leges Corneliae. These were laws enacted in the usual form during Sulla's consulship and dictatorship, but proposed and prepared by Sulla or his advisers. There are indeed some Leges named Corneliae, which were not the work of L. Cornelius Sulla; but in general when Leges Corneliae are mentioned, they are the Leges enacted under Sulla's administration. Not one of these laws is extant in the original form, and we only know them from the writings of Cicero and other authors, and from the Pandects or Digest of Justinian. Some of Sulla's laws related to constitutional forms, and others to the repression of Crimes or to Criminal Law.

If Sulla had any clear object in his legislation about Constitutional forms, it was to strengthen the aristocratical element, so far as he could, not by any positive enactments, but by weakening the power of the Tribunes of the people and of the Comitia Tributa. Accordingly the Lex Cornelia de Tribunicia Potestate was designed to put a muzzle on the demagogues. The tribunes at this time possessed a double power, the power of preventing the action of other magistrates, and the power of acting themselves without being checked. This Cornelian law deprived the tribunes of the power of proposing any measure (rogatio) to the assembly named the Comitia Tributa, which consequently lost all legislative functions. The tribunes would also as a matter

of course lose the power of prosecuting any man before this popular body. It seems a safe inference that they were also deprived of the power of holding meetings for the purpose of addressing the people, and this conclusion is fully confirmed by a passage of Cicero (Pro Cluentio, c. 40). In fact Sulla thus suppressed liberty of speech. He did the same kind of thing that is done now by checking the liberty of the press in those countries where freedom is in fetters. It is generally said that this Cornelian law left the tribunes their Intercessio or Veto (jus intercedendi). Zachariae, who adopts this opinion with some qualification, considers it evidence that Sulla was not in favour of despotism, and that he was a farseeing statesman. Sulla, he says, thought that a republican government, especially where the form is aristocratical, cannot exist without some securities for stability, and some means of preventing hasty measures. This end is effected in modern States, both constitutional monarchies, as they are called, and democracies, by establishing two deliberative bodies, whose consent is necessary for any enactment. But it is very unlikely that Sulla's law reserved to the tribunes that extravagant power which they formerly possessed of stopping every act of the administrative body, and throwing all things into confusion. Cicero says that he greatly approved of Sulla's law, which deprived the tribunes of the power of doing mischief, but left them the power of giving their aid and protection (auxilii ferendi). This not decide whether the tribunes retained the full the Veto, though it proves that they retained some power interposing in certain cases. The passages in the commencement of Caesar's history of the Civil War (i. 5. 7), if they are taken literally, would prove that under Sulla's law the tribunes retained the full power of their Veto; but it would be a very unsafe conclusion from the words of a man who wished to put the best colour on his own case. Sulla's law on the tribunate also declared that a man who had been tribune could not enjoy any other office; and consequently those who expected to attain the highest honours of the State would not consent to take the tribunate. Sulla thus left the

passage

will

power of of

office a mere form without a reality, as Velleius says. Perhaps he thought it more politic to make the office contemptible than to abolish it. As he did not abolish it, the Comitia Tributa must have been still held after the enactment of this law for the election of Tribunes annually, and the lower magistrates. Appian observes, "I cannot say whether Sulla transferred the tribunate, as is now the case (when Appian was writing), from the people (Snμov) to the senate;" which has been interpreted to mean that Sulla made none except senators eligible to the tribunate. Suetonius in the life of Augustus (c. 40, and c. 10) says that if there were no senatorian candidates at the Comitia for electing the tribunes, the people might elect them from the Equites. appears then that some rule had been established about the eligibility of Senators to the office of Tribune. But it is not easy to reconcile this statement of Appian, as it is explained, with the rule that a man who had been tribune should not be capable of holding any other office.

It

From this time the legislative power would be exercised solely by the Comitia Centuriata. A passage in Appian states that in Sulla's consulship after he had entered Rome as a conqueror it was established that the voting should be not by Tribus, but by Centuriae, according to the ordinance. of King Servius Tullius. This matter has been already explained (p. 227). In other ways too, Appian says, Sulla abridged the tribunitian power, which had become very tyrannical. These great changes were made, as Appian states, during Sulla's consulship, and they seem to be the same changes which are mentioned by other writers as part of Sulla's constitutional reforms. It is possible that Appian. has placed them in the wrong order of time, in Sulla's consulship instead of his dictatorship. If he has placed them right, we must suppose that these reforms were re-enacted when Sulla became dictator, for it is certain that after he left Rome for the war in Greece, his enemies would undo the work of his consulship.

It may be useful to explain how the Romans had two kinds of public assemblies for legislation and some other purposes, VOL. II. D d