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Updated: May 10, 2025
Rabirius probably had not killed Saturninus, nor did any one now care whether he had done so or not. The trial had been brought about notoriously by the agency of Cæsar, who caused himself to be selected by the Prætor as one of the two judges for the occasion; and Cæsar's object as notoriously was to lessen the authority of the Senate, and to support the democratic interest.
These ideas the three confederates revived in the colonial laws, which Saturninus as tribune of the people had partly introduced already , partly now introduced . As early as the former year the interrupted distribution of the Carthaginian territory had been resumed primarily for the benefit of the soldiers of Marius not the burgesses only but, as it would seem, also the Italian allies and each of these veterans had been promised an allotment of 100 -jugera-, or about five times the size of an ordinary Italian farm, in the province of Africa.
Upon this Saturninus put it to the vote that the consuls should proclaim Metellus to be excluded from fire, water, and house; and the most worthless part of the populace was ready to put him to death.
Saturninus Isolated Saturninus Assailed and Overpowered But the two demagogues were so compromised that they could not recede; they had no alternative save to resign their offices in the usual way and thereby to deliver themselves with their hands bound to their exasperated opponents, or now to grasp the sceptre for themselves, although they felt that they could not bear its weight.
He could not be expected to support a system which had brought the country so near to ruin. He had no belief in the visions of the demagogues, but the time was not ripe to make an end of it all. Had he tried, the army would not have gone with him; so he sat still, till faction had done its work. The popular heroes of the hour were the tribune Saturninus and the prætor Glaucia.
Accordingly, when he understood that there was a man that was a Jew come out of Babylon, with five hundred horsemen, all of whom could shoot their arrows as they rode on horde-back, and, with a hundred of his relations, had passed over Euphrates, and now abode at Antioch by Daphne of Syria, where Saturninus, who was then president, had given them a place for habitation, called Valatha, he sent for this man, with the multitude that followed him, and promised to give him land in the toparchy called Batanea, which country is bounded with Trachonitis, as desirous to make that his habitation a guard to himself.
He had supported two rogations, called the Appuleian laws, from the demagogue who moved them, Lucius Appuleius Saturninus, and they were carried by violence and treachery.
The equites were not only left in possession of the tribunals, but their power as jurymen was considerably increased, partly by a stricter ordinance regarding the standing commission especially important to the merchants as to extortions on the part of the public magistrates in the provinces, which Glaucia carried probably in this year, partly by the special tribunal, appointed doubtless as early as 651 on the proposal of Saturninus, respecting the embezzlements and other official malversations that had occurred during the Cimbrian movement in Gaul.
If this is kept in view, we shall no longer consider with some modern historians that no event perhaps in Roman history is so sudden, so unconnected, and accordingly so obscure in its original causes as this revolt or conspiracy of Saturninus. Like Caius Gracchus, Saturninus represented rural as opposed to urban interests, and the interests of the provinces as opposed to those of the capital.
It was agreed between them that for 654 Marius should become a candidate for a sixth consulship, Saturninus for a second tribunate, Glaucia for the praetorship, in order that, possessed of these offices, they might carry out the intended revolution in the state.
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