der made him uneasy at every deviation from it, and prompted him to use
his utmost endeavours to restore it; he had the courage to attempt the
reformation of this double abuse, which drew after it a numberless
multitude of others, without dreading, either the animosity of the old
faction that opposed him, or the new enmity which his zeal for the
republic must necessarily draw upon him.

The judges exercised the most flagrant extortion with impunity.(813) They
were so many petty tyrants, who disposed, in an arbitrary manner, of the
lives and fortunes of the citizens; without there being the least
possibility of putting a stop to their injustice, because they held their
commissions for life, and mutually supported one another. Hannibal, as
praetor, summoned before his tribunal an officer belonging to the bench of
judges, who openly abused his power. Livy tells us that he was a questor.
This officer, who was of the opposite faction to Hannibal, and had already
assumed all the pride and haughtiness of the judges, among whom he was to
be admitted at the expiration of his present office, insolently refused to
obey the summons. Hannibal was not of a disposition to suffer an affront
of this nature tamely. Accordingly, he caused him to be seized by a
lictor, and brought him before an assembly of the people. There, not
satisfied with directing his resentment against this single officer, he
impeached the whole bench of judges; whose insupportable and tyrannical
pride was not restrained, either by the fear of the laws, or a reverence
for the magistrates. And, as Hannibal perceived that he was heard with
pleasure, and that the lowest and most inconsiderable of the people
discovered, on this occasion, that they were no longer able to bear the
insolent pride of these judges, who seemed to have a design upon their
liberties; he proposed a law, (which accordingly passed,) by which it was
enacted, that new judges should be chosen annually; with a clause, that
none should continue in office beyond that term. This law, at the same
time that it acquired him the friendship and esteem of the people, drew
upon him, proportionably, the hatred of the greatest part of the grandees
and nobility.

He attempted another reformation, which created him new enemies, but
gained him great honour.(814) The public revenues were either squandered
away by the negligence of those who had the management of them, or were
plundered by the chief men of the city an