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interest of the aristocracy, were intrinsically a great improvement on the existing administration of justice. Sulla gave Rome the first criminal code she had possessed; for in this section the Twelve Tables were very imperfect. He greatly extended the system of permanent jury-courts, under the presidence of a prætor (Quæstiones Perpetua) each court having allotted to it the trial of a particular class of offences. Six prætors were available for the business of these courts, the civil jurisdiction being left, as before, to the two ancient prætors of the City and of Foreigners. Sulla first established clearly the distinction of the trial of civil cases by a single judge, and of criminal cases by a large body of jurymen. The principle of the old constitution, that death or imprisonment could only be inflicted by the sentence of the people, was left intact; and all cases of treason were transferred from the popular assembly to the courts of the Judices. Hence it followed that such offences could no longer be capitally punished; and that the weapon of impeachment was wrested from the hands of the popular leaders. From this fact, together with the jurisdiction of these courts in bribery, corruption, and the malversation of governors in the provinces, and the selection of the juries from the Senate, it is manifest how vast an increase of power was gained by the nobility at the expense both of the people and of the equestrian order. It seems that the first clear distinction between the internal municipal administration of Rome and her sovereign government belongs to the time of Sulla. Finally, he was the author of some sumptuary and other social laws, which require no particular description.

The Cornelian Laws for this is the title by which the whole body of Sulla's legislation is described-formed altogether a constitution adapted-if anything could do it-to save the Roman aristocracy. With none of that stamp of genius which marks the productions of a Gracchus or a Cæsar, they had the merit of reviving the institutions of former days, adapted to the spirit of the present, and in many points to the claims of justice. But two things were necessary for the permanence of the fabric :—that the popular party should acquiesce in the loss of that power which the Optimates had been able for the moment to wrest from them; and that the nobles should prove themselves worthy of the ascendancy they had regained. The speedy failure of the latter condition hastened the inevitable reversal of the former, and

* These Cornelia Leges were properly so called; for they were all carried by Sulla, as a matter of form, through the Comitia of the Centuries.

the selfishness of the nobles undid all that Sulla had done for them.

Meanwhile the author of the work retired into private life as soon as it was done. There is no reason to suppose that Sulla ever contemplated a permanent despotism. Even during his dictatorship he permitted the due observance of constitutional forms. The consular elections were regularly held; and it was only in one of the three years (B.C. 80) that Sulla united one of the consulships with his dictatorship. His voluntary resignation of his power was in perfect keeping with the character of the man. He was as unlike a Washington as a Cæsar or a Cromwell. Equally unwilling to hold his power as a possession he had won for himself, or as a trust for his country which he dared not or knew not how to let go, he assuredly retired from it in no spirit of patriotic self-sacrifice. With his personal safety secured by the bands of Cornelian freedmen and military colonists, who would have started up in the capital and over all Italy at the lifting of his finger,—and with his return to power kept open by the same means, should the necessity arise, he felt at liberty to gratify his easy and elegant self-indulgence. In the same temper in which he had passed from the sensual dissipation of his earlier years to the stirring scenes of the African war, and then retired again to the enjoyments of the capital, till events bore him on through the career of the Social, the Eastern, and the Civil Wars to the supreme power, he threw off that power, which he had always felt a burthen, with the simple object of enjoying the rest and refreshment of his Cumæan villa. We must not suppose that the hours which he spent in hunting and fishing, in the enjoyment of Greek letters and the composition of his memoirs, were much disturbed by remorse for the blood he had shed, or by anxiety for the fate of his country, or even of his party. His nature was neither cruel nor earnest. The evil he had inflicted and the work he had done he would doubtless regard alike as necessities of the past, which need not disturb his self-satisfied complacency.

How soon his repose might have been broken by the cry of revolution, there was no time to decide, for he lived little more than a year after his retirement. Worn out by his habitual sensuality, he died by the bursting of a blood-vessel in the sixtieth year of his age, B.C. 78. The Senate, which he had so lately created anew, resolved to honour him with a public funeral; and the opposition of the democratic consul Lepidus was overborne by an assemblage of the Cornelian veterans, under Pompey, Ca

tulus, and Lucullus, which added to the grandeur of the ceremony. It was an immemorial custom of the Cornelian house that its deceased members should be buried; but Sulla had shown foresight enough of coming events to provide against the chance of his remains suffering the indignity which he had himself inflicted on those of Marius. A grand procession of the Senate, the Equites, the magistrates, the priests, and the vestal virgins, with the troops of his veterans, bore the body of Sulla to the lofty funeral pyre in the Campus Martius. There his ashes were deposited beside the tombs of the kings, and the Roman women mourned for him a whole year. A splendid monument was erected over his remains, bearing an inscription composed by himself, and breathing the self-satisfaction of his nature. Instead of the long record of his military and civil achievements in Africa and Asia, Greece and Italy, it declared that no friend ever did him a kindness, and no enemy a wrong, without receiving full requital. The man who could sum up his own character in such an epitaph renounced the place among the world's heroes which history would assuredly never have awarded him. Wanting even the savage greatness of Marius, he was content to be the favourite of Fortune; and his death marked the term of those favours which were commemorated by his surname of Felix.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

THE AGE OF POMPEY, CÆSAR, AND CICERO-FROM THE
DEATH OF SULLA TO THE FIRST TRIUMVIRATE.
B.C. 78 TO B.C. 60.

With equal rays immortal Tully shone,

The Roman Rostra decked the Consul's throne:
Gathering his flowing robe, he seemed to stand
In act to speak, and graceful stretched his hand.
Behind, Rome's Genius waits with civic crowns,
And the great Father of his Country owns."-Pope.

INSTABILITY OF

THE SULLAN RESTORATION-THE OPPOSITION LEADERS-REVOLUTIONARY

PARTY-ITS WANT OF

ATTEMPT OF THE CONSUL LEPIDUS-HIS DEFEAT AND DEATH-QUINTUS SERTORIUS HOLDS OUT IN SPAIN-METELLUS PIUS OPPOSED TO HIM -POMPEY ASSOCIATED WITH METELLUS-HIS DEFEATS-DECLINE OF THE INFLUENCE OF SERTORIUS-HIS MURDER BY PERPERNA-DEFEAT AND EXECUTION OF PERPERNA --OUTBREAK OF SPARTACUS AND THE GLADIATORS-THEY OVERRUN ITALY-CRASSUS DEFEATS AND KILLS SPARTACUS-POMPEY CLAIMS A SHARE IN THE VICTORY-CONSULSHIP OF POMPEY AND CRASSUS-REVERSAL OF SULLA'S ACTS-RESTORATION OF THE TRIBUNESHIP AND REFORM OF THE JURY LISTS-RISE OF CAIUS JULIUS CESAR -HIS RESISTANCE TO SULLA-HE SERVES IN ASIA-PROSECUTION OF DOLABELLACESAR AGAIN LEAVES ROME-ADVENTURE WITH THE PIRATES HE STUDIES RHETORIC AT RHODES-SUPPORTS POMPEY-RESTORES THE IMAGES OF MARIUS-RISE OF MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO HIS FAMILY AND EDUCATION-HIS ONE CAMPAIGNSPEECHES FOR QUINTIUS AND ROSCIUS-HE WITHDRAWS TO ATHENS-HIS FRIEND SHIP WITH ATTICUS--HE STUDIES IN ASIA AND AT RHODES-RETURNS TO ROME AND DEVOTES HIMSELF TO PLEADING CAUSES-HIS QUESTORSHIP IN SICILY-PROSECUTION OF VERRES-RIVALRY WITH HORTENSIUS AND TRIUMPH OF CICERO-DEDICATION OF THE CAPITOL--THE EQUESTRIAN ORDER-THE WAR WITH THE PIRATES-COMMAND CONFERRED ON POMPEY BY THE GABINIAN LAW-HIS BRILLIANT SUCCESS-SECOND MITHRIDATIC WAR AND RESTORATION OF PEACE-VAST PREPARATIONS OF MITHRI• DATES THE DEATH OF NICOMEDES III. BRINGS ON THE THIRD MITHRIDATIC WARMITHRIDATES DEFEATS COTTA AND BESIEGES CYZICUS-LUCULLUS RAISES THE SIEGE, AND DEFEATS MITHRIDATES IN PONTUS-MITHRIDATES FLIES TO ARMENIA-HISTORY OF THE COUNTRY-THE KINGDOM OF TIGRANES LUCULLUS SETTLES THE AFFAIRS OF ASIA-HE DEFEATS TIGRANES, TAKES TIGRANOCERTA, AND BESIEGES NISIBIS-IRRUP TION OF MITHRIDATES INTO PONTUS-ROMAN DISASTERS-MUTINY IN THE ARMY OF LUCULLUS-GLABRIO SENT TO SUPERSEDE HIM-POMPEY MADE GENERALISSIMO IN THE EAST-CICERO PRÆTOR-HIS SPEECH FOR THE MANILIAN LAW RETIREMENT OF LUCULLUS-POMPEY ADVANCES INTO PONTUS-FLIGHT OF MITHRIDATES TO BOSPORUS -POMPEY IN ARMENIA-SUBMISSION OF TIGRANES-POMPEY IN THE CAUCASIAN LANDS -HE MARCHES INTO SYRIA-DEATH OF MITHRIDATES- REVIEW OF SYRIAN HISTORY -SYRIA MADE A ROMAN PROVINCE THE KINGDOMS OF COMMAGENE AND EDESSADAMASCUS AND ARABIA-PHOENICIA AND CELE SYRIA-PALESTINE-REVIEW OF JEWISH HISTORY-RELIGIOUS AND MORAL STATE OF THE RESTORED PEOPLE-HOSTILITY OF THE SAMARITANS-THEIR ORIGIN-SCHISMATIC TEMPLE ON MOUNT GERIZIM-HATRED OF THE JEWS AND SAMARITANS-BLOODSHED IN THE JEWISH TEMPLE-JADDUA AND ALEXANDER THE GREAT- JUDEA UNDER THE PTOLEMIES-SIMON THE JUST AND ELEAZAR-THE SEPTUAGINT VERSION-ONIAS II. AND JOSEPH THE SON OF TOBIASPTOLEMY PHILOPATOR AT JERUSALEM-HYRCANUS THE SON OF JOSEPH-PALESTINE UNDER ANTIOCHUS THE GREAT-STORY OF HELIODORUS-REIGN OF ANTIOCHUS EPIPHANES HELLENISM IN JUDEA-JASON AND MENELAUS-MURDER OF ONIAS IILSACK OF JERUSALEM BY ANTIOCHUS-MASSACRE BY APOLLONIUS-GREAT PERSECUTION UNDER ATHENEUS-MARTYRDOM OF ELEAZAR-REVOLT OF MATTATHIAS-JUDAS MACCABÆUS HIS VICTORIES, DEDICATION OF THE TEMPLE, TREATY WITH ROME, AND DEATH-JONATHAN APPHUS SECURES PEACE-HIS MURDER BY TRYPHON-PROSPEROUS

GOVERNMENT OF SIMON THASSI-HIS MURDER-JOHN HYRCANUS I.-INDEPENDENCE AND EXTENSION OF JUDEA-DESTRUCTION OF THE TEMPLE ON GERIZIM AND OF SAMARIA QUARREL WITH THE PHARISEES-REIGN OF ARISTOBULUS I.-ALEXANDER JANNEUS-WAR WITH PTOLEMY LATHYRUS-REBELLION OF THE PHARISEES-THEIR ASCENDANCY UNDER ALEXANDRA-ARISTOBULUS II. AND HYRCANUS II.-RISE OF ANTIPATER CIVIL WAR-INTERFERENCE OF THE ROMANS-POMPEY TAKES JERUSALEM AND PROFANES THE TEMPLE-ITS SUBSEQUENT PLUNDER BY CRASSUS-HYRCANUS II. AND ANTIPATER-ESCAPE AND REBELLIONS OF ARISTOBULUS AND HIS SONS-DEATHS OF ARISTOBULUS AMD ALEXANDER-CESAR RESTORES HYRCANUS, WITH ANTIPATER AS PROCURATOR-RISE OF HEROD-MURDER OF ANTIPATER-HYRCANUS IN THE HANDS OF HEROD THE PARTHIANS RESTORE ANTIGONUS-HEROD AT ROME-RETURNS AS KING OF JUDEA-CAPTURE OF JERUSALEM-END OF THE ASMONEAN DYNASTY-ACCESSION OF HEROD THE GREAT-DEATHS OF ANTIGONUS, ARISTOBULUS, AND HYRCANUS -EVENTS AT ROME DURING POMPEY'S ABSENCE-CONSULSHIP OF CICERO AND CONSPIRACY OF CATILINE-POMPEY RETURNS ΤΟ ROME HIS POLITICAL ATTITUDE AND HIS TRIUMPH-STATE OF PARTIES-TRIAL OF CLODIUS OPPOSITION OF THE SENATE TO POMPEY CESAR IN SPAIN-HIS RETURN TO ROME-THE FIRST TRIUMVIRATE.

THE victory of Sulla had restored the government of the nobles; and the lists of consuls for several years show the position which the great families had recovered in the state. But his attempt to relay the secure foundations of a dominant oligarchy proved an utter failure, nor had his conquests abroad secured permanent repose. Within the ten years succeeding his legislation (B.c. 80 -70) the Republic was involved in dangerous wars by sea and land, with Sertorius in Spain, with Mithridates in the East, and with the gladiators in the heart of Italy. Sulla's own most favoured friend returned victorious from the West only to restore to the democracy its most cherished privilege. Sent by the favour of the popular party to reap new laurels in the East, he came back to close another decennial period by a coalition with Crassus and Cæsar for the sacrifice of the aristocracy to their own personal ambition (B.C. 60). A third such period saw him once more at the head of the aristocratic party, plunging the state into civil war in the vain endeavour to ward off the final blow by which despotism was to be established (B.c. 50). These successive stages in the career of Pompey mark the three last steps in the downfall of the Republic. The catastrophe, prepared for many years by the selfish policy of the nobles and the want of remedial powers in the constitution, was finally arranged by the vacillating and unprincipled course of Pompey, though the last stroke was given by the sword of Cæsar. Sulla had in fact left the defence of his work to successors, such as Pompey and Crassus, who had never heartily belonged to the aristocratic party, in the face of an opposition composed indeed of many different elements-the jurists, who resented his violation of the ancient laws the moderate aristocracy, who adopted the views of Drusus-the Transpadane Gauls, who had received only a maimed citizenship-the offended capitalists-the vengeful rela

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