s of the gods in the streets at night--re-introduced and carried
the Appuleian agrarian law in 655, the senate was able to annul the new
law on a religious pretext without any one even attempting to defend it;
the author of it was punished, as we have already mentioned, by the
equites in their tribunals. Next year (656) a law brought in by the
two consuls made the usual four-and-twenty days' interval between the
introduction and the passing of a project of law obligatory, and forbade
the combination of several enactments different in their nature in one
proposal; by which means the unreasonable extension of the initiative
in legislation was at least somewhat restricted, and the government was
prevented from being openly taken by surprise with new laws. It became
daily more evident that the Gracchan constitution, which had survived
the fall of its author, was now, since the multitude and the moneyed
aristocracy no longer went together, tottering to its foundations.
As that constitution had been based on division in the ranks of
the aristocracy, so it seemed that dissensions in the ranks of the
opposition could not but bring about its fall. Now, if ever, the
time had come for completing the unfinished work of restoration of 633,
for making the Gracchan constitution share the fate of the tyrant,
and for replacing the governing oligarchy in the sole possession
of political power.

Collision between the Senate and Equites in the Administration of
the Provinces

Everything depended on recovering the nomination of the jurymen.
The administration of the provinces--the chief foundation of the
senatorial government--had become dependent on the jury courts, more
particularly on the commission regarding exactions, to such a degree
that the governor of a province seemed to administer it no longer for
the senate, but for the order of capitalists and merchants. Ready as
the moneyed aristocracy always was to meet the views of the government
when measures against the democrats were in question, it sternly
resented every attempt to restrict it in this its well-acquired right
of unlimited sway in the provinces. Several such attempts were now
made; the governing aristocracy began again to come to itself, and
its very best men reckoned themselves bound, at least for their
own part, to oppose the dreadful maladministration in the provinces.
The most resolute in this respect was Quintus Mucius Scaevola, like
his father Publius -pontife