ons the question arose, whether it was
politically right to give fresh offence to communities so important in
a military point of view and already so greatly estranged from Rome by
numerous disabilities de jure and de facto(3) through this keenly-felt
injury to their material interests. The decision lay in the hands
of the middle party; it was that party which after the fall of
Gracchus had, in league with his adherents, protected reform against
the oligarchy, and it alone was now able in concert with the oligarchy
to set a limit to reform. The Latins resorted personally to the
most prominent man of this party, Scipio Aemilianus, with a request
that he would protect their rights. He promised to do so; and
mainly through his influence,(4) in 625, a decree of the people
withdrew from the commission its jurisdiction, and remitted the
decision respecting what were domanial and what private possessions
to the censors and, as proxies for them, the consuls, to whom according
to the general principles of law it pertained. This was simply a
suspension of further domain-distribution under a mild form. The consul
Tuditanus, by no means Gracchan in his views and little inclined to
occupy himself with the difficult task of agrarian definition,
embraced the opportunity of going off to the Illyrian army and leaving
the duty entrusted to him unfulfilled. The allotment-commission no
doubt continued to subsist, but, as the judicial regulation of the
domain-land was at a standstill, it was compelled to remain inactive.

Assassination of Aemilianus

The reform-party was deeply indignant. Even men like Publius Mucius
and Quintus Metellus disapproved of the intervention of Scipio. Other
circles were not content with expressing disapproval. Scipio had
announced for one of the following days an address respecting the
relations of the Latins; on the morning of that day he was found dead
in his bed. He was but fifty-six years of age, and in full health
and vigour; he had spoken in public the day before, and then in the
evening had retired earlier than usual to his bedchamber with a view
to prepare the outline of his speech for the following day. That he
had been the victim of a political assassination, cannot be doubted;
he himself shortly before had publicly mentioned the plots formed
to murder him. What assassin's hand had during the night slain
the first statesman and the first general of his age, was never
discovered; and it do