Revolutions - SBTS Epilogue- The Failure of the Sullan Constitution

Episode Date: October 16, 2018

Sulla died believing he had saved the Roman Republic. Boy was he ever wrong.  Can you do any better? Can You Save The Roman Republic? Check out the book: thestormbeforethestorm.com  

Today is Tuesday, October the 16th, 2018. It is the day the storm before the storm, the beginning of the end of the Roman Republic, comes out in paperback. To celebrate, I want to share with you a little bit of bonus content that I produced last year as part of our promotional efforts for the hardback. It is an epilogue to the book called The Failure of the Sullen Constitution, which goes into more detail about the decade or so after the death of Sulla, how his former partisans turned on each other and his former enemies worked their way back into public life. By the time Pompey and Crassus were sharing their infamous consulship in 70 BC, the Roman Republic Selah believed he had saved was well on its way to ruin. So first, go by the storm before the storm, either in hardback or now in paperback. Second, read the storm before the storm, and then third, listen to this epilogue, and please enjoy it with my compliments. Hello, and welcome to the storm before the storm. Epilogue, the failure of the sullen constitution.

So hello, friends, I would like to thank you very much for your support and for spreading the gospel of the storm before the storm. before the storm the beginning of the end of the Roman Republic. And since you bought two copies, this here is your reward. I want to talk to you now about how specifically the Sullen Constitution broke down in the years after Sulla's death in 78 BC. Recall from the book that I spent the first half of Chapter 13 walking through the reforms that Sulla implemented when he became the dictator for the settling of the laws and the Constitution. These reforms were supposed to put the Republic back on firm footing. But we know that it didn't really work out. Not quite 30 years later, Julius Caesar was crossing the Rubicon. So what happened? Well, three interrelated things.

First, Sulla fundamentally misdiagnosed the problem. And so he put into place measures that exacerbated the situation, rather than make it better. Second, during the 70s BC, many of Sulla's reforms were challenged, abrogated, or outright rescinded. This all climaxed in the infamous consulship of Pompey and Crassus, where most of the really big reforms were just abandoned. And finally, and in my view, most importantly, no constitution was going to be able to contain men like Pompey and Crassus and Caesar. Even if a majority of the leaders in Rome wanted to return to the old ways,

to return to the old standards of most Majorum, they were never again going to have the ability to check ambition. and powerful men who boldly asserted that the rules did not apply to them. This was the lesson Sulla had taught the next generation, and this is the reason his constitution failed. So as you know, Sulla died in 78, and his death marked the end of one epoch and the beginning of another. This is when the storm before the storm became the storm. It's why I ended the book there. His dictatorship and death closes the books on a lot of what had gone on over the past 50 years. But we must also keep in mind that real life doesn't work that way. History is not actually demarcated by invisible brackets

drawn on invisible timelines. And for everybody but Sulla, life went on in an unbroken continuum. They didn't just hit a reset button, and the world was not suddenly born anew. Old grudges and rivalries remained among the political elite. Long-term social and economic trends continued unchanged. All the men who now ruled Rome had just lived through all of these years of civil strife. Their memories had not been wiped clean. So the triumph, dictatorship and death of Sulla, yes, marks a critical pivot between the beginning of the end of the Roman Republic and the middle of the end of the Roman Republic, but also the sun rose the next day, just like any other. So let's talk first a bit about what Sulla was trying to do. Because I have been, going back to the old days of the history of Rome,

pretty relentlessly critical of the senatorial elite's inability to make necessary reforms to keep the republic on solid ground as they transitioned from a regional to a global power. But I ought not just gloss over that what else is Sulla trying to do here but make necessary reforms to keep the republic on solid ground. He'd been around the block. He had seen things, studied things. He was a bright guy surrounded by intelligent and experience advisors, and they had all the power in the world to do whatever they wanted to do. Sulla entered his dictatorship with a slate of reforms that he planned to implement in rapid succession that would synergistically combine to make the whole even stronger than the sum of

its parts. He would strengthen what needed strengthening. He would weaken what needed weakening. But Sala was aiming at the opposite of the Grockin program. where Gaius's slate was meant to weaken the Senate and make it just one constitutional part among many, Sulla was meant to strengthen the Senate and make it the center of the Constitution. In Sulla's mind, it was perfectly clear that every problem of the last 50 years had been caused by an assault on the power and prestige of the Senate by ambitious elites and reckless populare demagogues. So, what did he do? Well, first and foremost, he reduced the Tribuneit to a whole. hollow shell. Remember, from now on, being elected Tribune disbarred you from seeking any further

office. He also limited the power of the Tribune's famous veto and curtailed a Tribune's ability to propose legislation. He also returned control of the courts to the Senate by once again making the Senate the sole pool of jurors. The past 50 years had seen numerous examples of courts being used to prosecute and exile senators, of Publaucani equestrians protecting their interests, by blackmailing senators and holding the threat of prosecution over their heads. There would be no more of that. The Senate was back to judging its own. At the same time, Sulla enlarged the Senate from 300 to 600 members

and elevated the richest and most prestigious equestrians into the Senate, co-opting them and turning them from men who might challenge the new system into those who would fiercely defend it. He also ensured that the Senate stayed in control of legislation by making it a law that before any bill could be presented to an assembly, it must be approved by the Senate. Now, Sella did all this because he believed that the fallen state of society was attributable to the loss of power and prestige by the Senate. And so he wanted to reinforce the senatorial nobility and draw up firm rules that made it next to impossible for the other branches of the old Constitution to challenge it, especially those meddlesome democratic assemblies.

but Sulla fundamentally misdiagnosed the problem. Polybius was not wrong when he described the harmony and stability that the Romans had achieved by balancing the monarchical, aristocratic, and democratic elements of the Constitution. The Democratic assemblies and the Tribune had been introduced early into the Republic and been a real and permanent part of political life. They were necessary not just in terms of the everyday working of the state, but also because they imbued the state with broad legitimacy. The conflict of the orders had been settled centuries ago,

and the verdict was that the patrician senatorial nobility would not, in fact, be all-powerful. In fact, it was the increasing power of the Senate during the Second Punic War, the undoing of the balanced constitution, that ultimately led to all the strife that got going in the middle of the second century. Far from resolving that imbalance, Sulla took steps to make sure, that it stayed in place. And so restoring the old constitutional balance, the true balance between the democratic, monarchical, and aristocratic elements became a potent promise that the next generation of

leaders would be able to make. But still, Sulla believed that he was now leaving the Republic in the hands of loyal men whose personal interests would be tied to the perpetuation of his new system. But the coalition that had formed around him in the 80s, B.C., was one massive marriage. marriage of convenience. The men who now led the Senate, and thus the Republic, might be dubbed the Sullen aristocracy, but there was very little personal bond between them, let alone ideological bond. The political elite that took over Rome when Sulla laid down the dictatorship was a motley array of men with their own agendas and rivalries. They were a mix of Sulla's

strongest supporters and allies, including Luchos Lachalus. Then there were those who had been mostly neutral in the conflict between Marius and Sulla, but ultimately decided to side with Sulla when he returned to Italy. Metalus Pius was the best example of that group. Then there were those who had at some point run afoul of Marius, Orsinna and Carbo, and thus joined with Sulla based on the old maxim that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Marcus Crassus definitely deserves to go into this category, his father and brother having been killed during the so-called Marian terror. There are also those, as I noted in the book, who were just naked opportunists, guys who had opposed Sulla in the past or been active participants in the Sennon regime, but who decided Sulla had a better chance of winning

the Civil War. Marquisus philippus is the poster boy for this group. And then finally, off on his own in a class by himself was young Pompey the Great, who I will talk more about here in a second. Now, to his credit, Sulla knew full well that his lieutenants were not one big happy family. He just hoped that the inevitable cut and thrust of high Roman politics would be kept inside the restored gentlemanly senatorial system, rather than devolving into actual cuts and thrust, as they had so unfortunately done during his own lifetime. So to this existing class of noble leaders who had joined Selah during the Civil War, we must also add the rest of the expanded Senate, all those equestrians who had been elevated

in rank, 300 or more, all of whom could be expected to protect their recent. promotion by staying loyal to the system. And while the expansion of the Senate might have created men loyal to the system, these guys discovered that their new statuses senators did little for their prospects when it came to the upper reaches of the cursus anorum, which were still held by the old nobility same as always. Over most of the second century, novice homo had been kept out of the consulship. The number I quoted in the book was that there had been three in the hundred years prior to Marius. But with the arrival of Maris, there had been perhaps a dozen or more over a 20-year span. Well, that is all now over.

After Sulla's death, there was just a single Novis Homo consul elected in the next 30 years. And that man was Cicero, who was both remarkable as a candidate, and who happened to be running for office at a very particular moment when the Senate needed to clamp down on Cataline. So, though they were made senators, they were still shut out of high office. from real places of power and prestige, and the Selwyn Constitution had no answer for their resentment. But that only covers Sulla's misdiagnosis of the problem. There was also the fallout from the absolutely ruthless nature of his prescriptions, the murder and banishment of his enemies,

the confiscation of their estates and property. Now, to be fair, many of these guys were now dead. They had either been killed during the war, assassinated during the prescriptions, or they had committed suicide. Sina, Carbo, Norbanus, Marius, the younger, all dead. But many more were still in the land, very often making their way over to Spain, where the last anti-Sullin general, Sertorius, had set up shop, and we'll talk about him here in a minute. But outside of his named enemies, Asala had gone one step further, passing a law barring the sons and grandsons of the prescribed from participating in public life. These young men came from the most ancient and powerful families in Rome,

And they were not just going to go away. So Sulla's attempt to purge all opposition to his rule, in fact, created a rather large population of very ticked-off families. And then outside the upper rung of the disgruntled political elite, there was also a large population living out in the parts of Italy that had borne the brunt of Sulla's harsh settlements, namely Etruria and Samnium. Etruria had been Marian country for a generation. It's where Marius had come back to and raised his last armies, and where he always found tons of friends and allies.

It was a region that had held out to the bitter end during the Civil War. Landowners there had lost their property as punishment, and it was doled out to Sulla's veterans. And then the same thing it happened in Samnium, and that was on top of what you might recall, was Sulla rather gruesomely murdering all the Samnite prisoners he could find. So if there was a long-term threat posed by the renewed imbalance of the Roman Constitution by reputing the Senate at the center of everything, there was also an immediate threat that the defeated side in the recent Civil War would come erupting back to life. And that's pretty much what happened. Because for one thing, the Civil War hasn't ended yet. Remember, as the wall was closing in on the anti-Sullin forces in Italy, Sertorius'er.

had concluded that the cause was lost on the peninsula and headed out to Spain, bearing a praetorship won in the last elections of the Sinan regime. Earning the loyalty of many of the native tribes in Hispania, Sertorius became a beacon for those fleeing the sullen prescriptions. And so, despite the insistent sullen propaganda that Sulla had won the Civil War outright at the Battle of the Coaline Gate, the Civil War had not yet ended. Yes, one side had retreated to the furthest reaches of Spain, but they had not yet been defeated. And Sertorius was a better general than anyone inside the Sullen aristocracy, including Pompey the Great. So Sertorius carrying on in the fight was far from just a nuisance.

It was a real threat to the Sullen regime, and was a source of acute embarrassment for the men who now ruled Rome. While this original Spanish ulcer continued to bleed, there was a real threat. in Italy an immediate re-emergence of hostilities, practically the minute Sulla died, because it was not going to take much to clue an ambitious leader into the fact that those forces supposedly eliminated by Sulla during the prescriptions had in fact merely been pruned. The roots and branches were all still there. It might not take much for an ambitious and enterprising fellow to restore the tree to full bloom. And by full bloom, I mean, an armed uprising. And that man turned out to be Marcus Emilius Lepidus.

Lepidus was one of those opportunists who had hopped across the lines to Sala. Long counted among the ranks of the populare, Lepidus had married his way into the circle surrounding Saturninus back around the turn of the century, and then during the 80s had stayed in Rome and collaborated with Sina's regime. But after the death of Sina, Lepidus concluded Sulla was the most likely victor in the coming civil war, and astutely joined the winning side.

As a reward, he made a fortune in the prescriptions, and then got both a praetorship and an overseas command. After Sulla stepped down from the consulship and refused to run again, Lepidus fancied himself a candidate. And though Sulla was opposed to the idea, young Pompey supported Lepidus, and he won one of the two consulships for 78. Now, Pompey rejoiced, but Sulla warned him,

be wide awake and watchful of your interests. You have made your adversary stronger than yourself. When Sulla died, Lepidus' old loyalties, and dare I say true feelings, emerged. Remember when I said in Chapter 13 that some in Rome sought to damn Sulla's memory and deny him a public funeral? Well, Lepidus was the one leading that campaign. But Pompey, who had so recently supported Lepidus, now rebuked the consul and said, of course we're going to give Sulla a public funeral, and Pompey's voice, plus that of the other sullen loyalists, put an end to any talk of condemning their late leader. But Lepidus was not done.

He made a lot of noise now about recalling those exiled by the prescriptions and restoring their property. The old tyrant is dead, so why should we keep punishing his personal enemies, who are in many cases our old friends and relatives? But while Lepidus himself may not have been thinking of launching a revolt to back up his rhetoric, that he was trying to play inbounds, as it were. His rhetoric touched a nerve in Etruria, where the population was seething over the loss of their property, and the arrival of colonies of veteran soldiers now occupying stolen land. So these people heard what Lepidus was saying, and felt like, with a consul of Rome championing their cause, that it was safe to give him a little armed backing. So agitation turned violent,

and they started organizing themselves into volunteer legions. The Senate reacted quickly to this crisis and sent both consuls for the year to contain the rebellion, both Lepidus and his colleague Cotullus, who was, by the way, the son of the Cotullus, who had been Marius's colleague slash rival during that final campaign against the Kimbray, the guy Marius had shared a triumph with, and then who later killed himself during the Marian terror when his pleas for clemency were met with a cold, you must die. By sending Lepidus, it's clear that the Senate had not made the connection yet between the consul and the insurrection, and it may be that there was not yet any connection at all.

But when Lepidus arrived, the leaders of the rebellion demanded that he stand at their head, and Lepidus agreed, telling Rome that this was just so that he could maintain order. But at the same time, old Marians and Sin and. flock to Lepidus with the understanding that the Civil War, which had only been over for a couple of years, was now restarting because Sulla was dead. And then a second front of the rebellion was opened up in Sissalpine Gaul by Marcus Junius Brutus, who was, I feel like I have to mention, the father of that Brutus. Now, like his father, Catullus was a scholar and a statesman by disposition, a prototypical Optimate Noble, rather than a military man.

And so the Senate doubted his ability. So he was recalled to Rome, and Pompey was deputized with an extra-legal military command to raise troops and suppress the uprising. Pompey's recruitment network was as strong as ever, and he was soon marching north to confront the army raised by Brutus at Mutina. With Pompey on the move, Lepidus made a bold gambit to follow in Sella's footsteps.

When the Senate declared him a public enemy and recalled him to Rome to account for himself, Lepidus came to Rome, but he came at the head of his troops, and when he arrived, he demanded a second consecutive consulship. But this demand was undercut when Pompey reached Mutina and induced Brutus to surrender, leaving Lepidus isolated and alone. When Pompey's report to Brutus's surrender arrived in Rome, the momentum of the rebellion failed, and Lepidus fled to Sicily, where he managed to die of some undisclosed

diseased. He was also, I should probably mention, the father of Lepidus the Triumvir, who joined Antony Un-Octavian. I mean, this really is a pretty small clique of families we're always dealing with here. But long story short, the rebellion is crushed. Okay, so it feels like that even though the rebellion has failed, this population of disgruntled enemies of Sala are going to be the persistent threat to the Constitution, right? And the answer is, well, Yes, they will be, but the real threat came from the other side of the lines, from the sullen side of the lines. The call was coming from inside the house. Because if we want to talk about the real reason the sullen constitution failed, we need to talk about Pompey the great,

and not just Pompey specifically, but what he represented, which is a powerful and ambitious leader who just does not think that the rules apply to him. Now, Pompey was only in his late 20s when Sulla died, but he was already one of the preeminent forces in Roman politics and war. And he owed his position not really to the patronage of Sulla, but rather to the inheritance of his father. Remember, when he had died, Pompey Strabo, Pompey's father, had been positioning himself as a third pole separate from the old Marius Sulla polarity. Pompey Strabo was a novice homo who the old aristocracy did not like, and who Pompey Strabo did not like right back. He had set up his own base of recruitment and power in Pekanum.

He had enfranchised those beyond the official borders in Sao-Pine Gaul, so they were all now his clients. He had murdered Sulla's original consular colleague Octavius. Strabo had been raised in military tents, and then he had raised his son in military tents, and when he died, he passed his great ambitious, ambiguous, and independent legacy to his son. young Pompey had held himself aloof from all sides until he decided that Sulla offered the best chance of success, and for Pompey to benefit from that success. But as the son of the butcher of Asculum, and himself notorious for his participation in the prescriptions and the murder of Carbo, and for saying cease quoting laws to those of us with swords, Pompey the Great represented a very real danger to the republic. A very real danger. So the rebellion of Lepidus had exposed the real threat to the Republic, because it showed that

Pompey was going to be able to do whatever he damn well pleased. He was not magnanimous in his victory up there. And the day after Brutus surrendered, Pompey ordered his execution, without really the legal authority to do so. The execution of Brutus, combined with his execution of Carbo, gave Pompey a very well-earned reputation for a murderous disregard for the rules of fair play. And the Senate then ordered Pompey to disband his armies and retire, and Pompey refused. He kept coming up with excuses to keep them mobilized, and there was little the Senate could do about it, without launching a war against a man who was quite a bit more powerful than Leppetus. Now, luckily for the Senate, what Pompey wanted was simply to be given a special command

to go fight the war in Spain against Sertorius, and unable to convince him to stand down, and with the war in Spain not going very well at all, Pompey got his way. So Pompey is exposing the fundamental impotence of the sullen constitution, because even a reinforced Senate was unable to cope with a powerful and audacious leader who just decided to ignore the rules. That is what is going to kill the sullen constitution, and that is what is going to kill the republic.

So the situation in Spain only continued this dynamic. Now, the point here today is not to do a play-by-report. play of the events of the war against Sertorius, but rather discuss what this all meant for the sullen constitution. But just know that the situation in Spain was embarrassing. Sertorius had fled the civil war in Italy, and he had gone to Spain, and there set himself up as an independent warlord, and then as more and more Romans flock to his banner, he set up a quasi-government in exile with a Senate and standard Roman magistrates. The Senate dispatched medal as pious with pro-consular authority to go bring Sertorius down, but Pius was not half the commander Sertorius was.

So Pompey, still not yet 30 years old and having held no magistracy ever in his life, decided he wanted the chance to go win the war. So the Senate caved in their demand that Pompey disband his legions and instead sent them off to Spain. And there, Pompey would spend the next five years on a frustrating campaign. Never really working with medalist pious, and at one point getting himself defeated because he refused to wait for Pius to come join him, just because Pompey didn't want to share the credit for the victory. Now eventually, Pompey, quote, unquote, won the war, but only after Sertorius was assassinated by one of his own men. All Pompey had to do was mop up the last remnants of Sertorius's army, now being led by a very inferior commander,

who, I should also note, Pompey executed without compunction when he was captured. So Pompey is now both the savior, and the biggest threat to the sullen constitution. And even though he is inside the sullen aristocracy, and ostensibly working for its preservation against challengers like Lepidus and Sertorius, Pompey is basically demanding special treatment, extraordinary commands, exemption from the rules that bind everyone else. Moss myorum for thee, but not for me. And unlike previous rule breakers who had used the tribunate or the assembly, while those were now dead ends, So Sulla bent the Senate to his will, the reformed Senate. So it turns out, the tribunes weren't really the problem at all.

I mean, they've been successfully neutered, and this new all-powerful Senate still did not have the ability to contain one of their own. At least, not without plunging Rome back into civil war. So Pompey was a controversial figure in Rome. He had his enemies, but he got his way all the time, and that's the problem. The sullen constitution was simply not able to exert any authority on its most powerful members. So this example of Pompey then pushed other ambitious men to demand the same kind of treatment. And this is where Marcus Crassus comes into play. Because with Pompey getting special treatment,

Crassus decided that two could play at that game. His chance came as Spartacus's revolt spiraled into a massive rebellion in 73 BC. The Senate responded to this third and greatest of the great slave. of uprisings the same way they had responded to the first two. They underestimated their rebellion. They dispatched some troops and a junior officer, and then when that guy got beat, they sent another, and when that guy got beat, and everything is now completely out of hand, they sent out consular armies, who themselves got beat. With Italy and Flames and Spartacus nowhere near defeated, Crasses stepped forward and offered his services. A lot like

Scipio Emilianus had done in Chapter 2 of the Storm Before the Storm. Krasis offered to raise his own legions at his own expense and go to war. And given the nature of the crisis, he was given the authority of a pro-prater. And this is important because probably Krasis did not hold any office at all at the time. Now, he had probably been a praetor in 73, but by the time he was getting his command, he was a private citizen again. So the point is that Kras is taking personal responsibility for a war. war against an enemy of Rome, and getting this extraordinary command well outside the bound of the Cursus anorum, shows again that the supposedly rigid system of office holding and

senatorial authority could always be bypassed by powerful men who insisted upon it. Now, we all know from the history of Rome how Spartacus's war turned out. Krasis defeated Spartacus, just as Pompey was returning from Spain. As Pompey came down through the Alps, he ran into the last few thousand slaves, running from Crassus' victory, defeated them, and then claimed credit for really ending the war. And this added fuel to the rivalry between Crassus and Pompey, and there was a degree to which it started to look a lot like less than ten years after Sulla's dictatorship that the restored Republic was going to be destroyed by a new version of Marius and Sulla, Crassus and Pompey.

Because in 71 BC, both Crassus and Pompey led their army slowly back towards Rome and then refused to disband them. This created a crisis, as the Senate begged both men to stand down, but neither would. Pompi said he was simply waiting for the return of medalist Pius' troops from Spain, so they could share a joint triumph. Crassus said, well, I'm not disbanding my troops until Pompey does. But finally, Crassus was persuaded to take the first step. Offering a hand of friendship, he disbanded his legions and the crisis passed. Pompy, meanwhile, went on to receive the second triumph of his short career. So that brings us to the climax of this period, which is the shared consulship of Pompey and Crassus. Now, for his part, Crassus was right in line on the

Cursus anorum. He had served all the right offices. He was the right age. But Pompey, oh boy, was Pompey not qualified for the consulship. Check this out. He was 35 years old, so he was too young. He had never yet been elected to any magistracy at all. Not one. And then, get this, because of that, Pompey was not even yet a member of the Senate. He wasn't a senator. The number of special dispensations the Senate needed to give Pompey to allow him to run for consul was a mile long, but they issued every single one. How could they not?

What were they going to do? Say no, say no to Pompey, and they did not. And so Pompey was elected consul. I mean, what good is a written constitution if it doesn't apply to people who just really don't want it to apply to them. The consulship of Pompey and Crassus is often described as being plagued by mutual enmity, so nothing got done. But in point of fact, the year 70 saw two major changes to the Salon Constitution.

And I'll deal with the less important one first. And you know it's the less important one, because Crassus and Pompey let a prioritor take for it rather than themselves. And that was the issue of jury reform. The proprietor Lucius Aurelius Cata carried a law that merged the jury, into a full mix of equestrians and senators. Now, this is described as a necessary antidote to the continued corruption of the senatorial jurors who refused to prosecute their own members.

And while it did, yes, blunt their monopoly on justice, I'm personally persuaded that the Senate positively welcomed this reform. Was such a small number of men to fill up all the juries, their burden was immense. So bringing in the equestrians to share the burden was a necessary compromise to the blanket preeminence of the Senate. And this finally ended the seesaw battle between the equestrians and the Senate for control of the courts, a battle that traced its way all the way back to the era of the Grakai. They would now share it, and they would always share it from here on out. So that was one pretty big pillar of the Salon Constitution, knocked right down. But by far the more important was the

restoration of the tribunate to its full ancient rights and authority. Salah's attack on the tribunate had been the one piece of his constitution that really stuck in everyone's craw. The expanded Senate, fine. The cursus anorum, just putting pen to paper the way it had always been. The jury pool, it's great, we'll all share it. But nobody was really beating their chests or rending garments about any of this. But they were about the tribunate. Now, Sella did not like the tribunes because of their propensity for mischief. Not that all tribunes were mischievous, but it kind of seems like it just took one. A charismatic tribune leading the assembly

had more than enough constitutional firepower to run roughshod over Sulla's beloved Senate. So he neutered the office. But here's the thing. Yes, the tribunate was a source of mischief or whatever. It was also one of the most sacred institutions in the Republic. I mean, it was almost as old as the consulship.

It was almost as old as the Republic itself. It was designed to protect the people from abuse by the powerful. They were able to convene, an assembly that the patricians were specifically excluded from. Now, I've been racking my brain to try to think of a good analogy here, and the best I can come up with is someone saying, look, the First Amendment has caused a lot of problems,

so it's just suspended. Even beyond its actual formal legal role, the First Amendment is also a symbol, and the Tribunit was a symbol. And in thinking he could just wave away 400 years of history with the stroke of a pen, Sulla was very much mistaken. Nearly every year after the death of Sulla saw some Tribune or another demanding the restoration of their ancient rights and vocally supported by the people.

The guys who took up the Tribunit to make these demands did so knowing that according to the new law, this was the only thing they would ever be allowed to do. So far as I've been able to track down, in 76, 75, 74, 73, and 71, there were documented campaigns to restore the Tribunate. More than a few of them were backed financially by Marcus Crassus. And though this was resisted out of a sort of defense of the sullen constitution, it's not like this was really a matter of class conflict. Many in the aristocracy had been put out by the disposal of the office. A few because they liked the power they might be able to wield in the plebeian assembly, but most because young nobles had always used a year as tribune to curry favor,

spread their name, and get popular with the masses. And now they couldn't do that anymore. So Pompey and Crassus both promised in their campaign for consul that they would restore the ancient rights of the Tribune. And then they did. One of the most controversial parts of Sulla's reform, and in Sulla's mind one of the most important, was chucked aside, and the Tribune was restored to all that it had once been. Also thrown in for measure during this year 70, the censors conducted a thorough purge of the Senate, removing 64 men, which is kind of hard to gauge, but I, I'm pretty sure a record. Usually a handful at most get removed in any given year, but this year it was 64. There was also a law passed authorizing the return of many of the men who had been

exiled for participating in Lepidus' revolt, beginning the process of rehabilitating those who had been ostracized in the sullen prescriptions. So 10 years after the implementation of the sullen constitution, it was pretty much dead, or at least it was on life support. The tribune it was back, the jury pool was now shared between equestrians and senators, the old enemies of Sulla were being rehabilitated. And to me, at least, it looks a lot like the leaders of Rome recognized that a lot of what Sulla had forced on the republic was unworkable, and that some kind of balance did need to be restored. That keeping former enemies outside the system would just make them a continued threat to the whole republic, rather than reconciling with them and bringing them back in so that their sons

and grandsons would be allies of the republic, not enemies. They were also correcting Selah's misdiagnosis of the problem. They were trying to knit back together the fractured nobility, but they were also trying to restore some of the old democratic promise. They were trying to make the system work on a more practical level. They were trying to solve the things that were most unpopular, all of which they should be commended for. And if the tribunate did in the future pose a source of dangerous mischief, that had a lot less to do with the nature of the office than with the nature of the men who now vied for power. So if we say that by the 60s BC, the Sullen Constitution was on its last legs, and the Republic was going back to looking quite a bit like it had looked in the 140s,

just with a few more offices to run for and a bit more structured Cursus anorum and a slightly larger Senate, there was yet one thing that could not be ignored, that no constitution of any kind would ever be able to stop men like Sulla and Crassus and then Julius Caesar, all of whom would continue to demand special treatment. They would have special demands. They would flout most myorum. They would bribe voters. They would conspire to undermine the system for their own advantage. And they would do all of these things because they had the money and the swords and the audacity to do so. Because Pompey had gotten it right. Sulla had shown them the way. Cease quoting laws to those of us with swords.