The Beginnings of Rome

the last traces of civil distinctions of rank or wealth within the legion, admitted to its ranks all classes, and substituted volun tary enlistment under a popular general for the old-fashioned compulsory levy. The efficiency of the legion was increased at the cost of a complete severance of the ties which bound it to the civil community and to the civil authorities.

The Social War.

The next important crisis was due partly to the rivalry which had been growing more bitter each year between the senate and the commercial class, and partly to the long-impending question of the enfranchisement of the Italian allies. The publicani, negotiatores and others, who constituted what was now becoming known as the equestrian order (see EQUITES), had made unscrupulous use of their control of the courts and especially of the quaestio de repetundis against their natural rivals, the official class in the provinces. The threat of prosecution before a hostile jury was held over the head of every governor, legate and quaestor who ventured to interfere with their operations in the provinces. The average official preferred to connive at their exactions; the bolder ones paid with fines and even exile for their courage. In 92 the necessity for a reform was proved beyond a doubt by the scandalous condemnation of P. Rutilius Rufus, ostensibly on a charge of extortion, in reality as the reward of his efforts to check the extortions of the Roman equites in Asia. The difficulties of the Italian question were more serious. That the Italian allies were discontented was no torious. After nearly two centuries of close alliance, of corn mon dangers and victories, they now eagerly coveted as a boon that complete amalgamation with Rome which they had at first resented as a dishonour. But, unfortunately, Rome had grown more exclusive in proportion as the value set upon Roman citi zenship increased. During the last 4o years feelings of hope and disappointment had rapidly succeeded each other ; Marcus Ful vius Flaccus, Gaius Gracchus, Saturninus, had all held out prom ises of relief—and nothing had yet been done. On each occasion they had crowded to Rome, full of eager expectation, only to be harshly ejected from the city by the consul's orders. The justice of their claims could hardly be denied, the danger of continuing to ignore them was obvious—yet the difficulties in the way of granting them were formidable in the extreme, and from a higher than a merely selfish point ' of view there was much to be said against the revolution involved in so sudden and enormous an enlargement of the citizen body.

Marcus Livius Drusus (q.v.), who as tribune gallantly took up the task of reform, is claimed by Cicero as a member of that party of the centre to which he belonged himself. Noble, wealthy and popular, he seems to have hoped to be able by the weight of his position and character to rescue the burning questions of the day from the grasp of extreme partisans and to settle them peace fully and equitably. But he, like Cicero after him, had to find to his cost that there was no room in the fierce strife of Roman politics for moderate counsels. His proposal to reform the law courts excited the equestrian order and their friends in the senate to fury. The agrarian and corn laws which he coupled with it alienated many more in the senate, and roused the old anti popular party feeling ; finally, his known negotiations with the Italians were eagerly misrepresented to the jealous and excited people as evidence of complicity with a widespread conspiracy against Rome. His laws were carried, but the senate pronounced them null and void. Drusus was denounced in the senate house as a traitor, and on his way home was struck down by the hand of an unknown assassin. His assassination was the signal for an outbreak which had been secretly prepared for some time before. Throughout the highlands of central and southern Italy the flow er of the Italian peoples rose as one man. Etruria and Umbria held aloof ; the isolated Latin colonies stood firm; but the Sabel lian clans, north and south, the La tinized Marsi and Paeligni, as well as the Oscan-speaking Samnites and Lucanians, rushed to arms. No time was lost in proclaiming their plans for the future. A new Italian State was to be formed. The Paeligniaq town of Corfinium was selected as its capital and re-christened with the proud name of Italica. All Italians were to be citizens of this new metropolis, and here were to be the place of assembly and the senate house. A senate of Soo members and a magistracy re sembling that of Rome completed a constitution which adhered closely to the very political traditions which its authors had most reason to abjure.