Book contents
- Frontmatter
- PREFATORY NOTE
- Contents
- BOOK FIFTH THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE MILITARY MONARCHY
- CHAPTER I MARCUS LEPIDUS AND QUINTUS SERTORIUS
- CHAPTER II RULE OF THE SULLAN RESTORATION
- CHAPTER III THE FALL OF THE OLIGARCHY AND THE RULE OF POMPEIUS
- CHAPTER IV POMPEIUS AND THE EAST
- CHAPTER V THE STRUGGLE OF PARTIES DURING THE ABSENCE OF POMPEIUS
- CHAPTER VI RETIREMENT OF POMPEIUS AND COALITION OF THE PRETENDERS
CHAPTER III - THE FALL OF THE OLIGARCHY AND THE RULE OF POMPEIUS
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 November 2010
- Frontmatter
- PREFATORY NOTE
- Contents
- BOOK FIFTH THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE MILITARY MONARCHY
- CHAPTER I MARCUS LEPIDUS AND QUINTUS SERTORIUS
- CHAPTER II RULE OF THE SULLAN RESTORATION
- CHAPTER III THE FALL OF THE OLIGARCHY AND THE RULE OF POMPEIUS
- CHAPTER IV POMPEIUS AND THE EAST
- CHAPTER V THE STRUGGLE OF PARTIES DURING THE ABSENCE OF POMPEIUS
- CHAPTER VI RETIREMENT OF POMPEIUS AND COALITION OF THE PRETENDERS
Summary
The Sullan constitution still stood unshaken. The assault, which Lepidus and Sertoriua had ventured to make on it, had been repulsed with little loss. The government had neglected, it is true, to finish the half-completed building in the energetic spirit of its author. It is characteristic of the government, that it neither distributed the lands which Sulla had destined for allotment but had not yet parcelled out, nor directly abandoned the claim to them, but tolerated the former owners in provisional possession without regulating their title, and indeed even allowed various still undistributed tracts of Sullan domain-land to be arbitrarily taken possession of by individuals according to the old system of occupation which was de jure and de facto set aside by the Gracchan reforms (iii. 357). Whatever in the Sullan enactments was indifferent or inconvenient for the Optimates, was without scruple ignored or cancelled; such as, the sentences by which whole communities were deprived of the state-franchise, the prohibition against conjoining the new farms, and several of the charters conferred by Sulla on particular communities—naturally, however, without giving back to the communities the sums paid for these exemptions. But though these violations of the ordinances of Sulla by the government itself contributed to shake the foundations of his structure, the Sempronian laws were and remained substantially abolished.
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- Information
- The History of Rome , pp. 88 - 112Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010First published in: 1866