aestors to be annually nominated was raised to
twenty.(15) The prerogative hitherto legally pertaining to the
censors, although practically no longer exercised in its original
serious sense--of deleting any senator from the roll, with a
statement of the reasons for doing so, at the revisals which
took place every five years (16)--likewise fell into abeyance for
the future; the irremoveable character which had hitherto de facto
belonged to the senators was thus finally fixed by Sulla.
The total number of senators, which hitherto had presumably not
much exceeded the old normal number of 300 and often perhaps had
not even reached it, was by these means considerably augmented,
perhaps on an average doubled(17)--an augmentation which was rendered
necessary by the great increase of the duties of the senate through
the transference to it of the functions of jurymen. As, moreover,
both the extraordinarily admitted senators and the quaestors were
nominated by the -comitia tributa-, the senate, hitherto resting
indirectly on the election of the people,(18) was now based throughout
on direct popular election; and thus made as close an approach to a
representative government as was compatible with the nature of the
oligarchy and the notions of antiquity generally. The senate had in
course of time been converted from a corporation intended merely to
advise the magistrates into a board commanding the magistrates and
self-governing; it was only a consistent advance in the same direction,
when the right of nominating and cancelling senators originally
belonging to the magistrates was withdrawn from them, and the senate
was placed on the same legal basis on which the magistrates' power
itself rested. The extravagant prerogative of the censors to revise
the list of the senate and to erase or add names at pleasure was
in reality incompatible with an organized oligarchic constitution.
As provision was now made for a sufficient regular recruiting of its
ranks by the election of the quaestors, the censorial revisions became
superfluous; and by their abeyance the essential principle at the
bottom of every oligarchy, the irremoveable character and life-tenure
of the members of the ruling order who obtained seat and vote,
was definitively consolidated.

Regulations As to the Burgesses

In respect to legislation Sulla contented himself with reviving the
regulations made in 666, and securing to the senate the legislative
initiative, which