rnment.] Just like Drusus,
too, he had to court the proletariate, and this he did by proposing to
enrol freedmen in the tribes. This, as they were generally dependent
on men of his own order, he could do without prejudice to the
new-modelled aristocracy which he was attempting to organize. He also
proposed to grant an amnesty to those who had been exiled by the Lex
Varia, hoping, no doubt, to gain more by the adherents who would
return to Rome than he would lose by the return of men like Varius
himself. He had opposed such an amnesty before; but on such a point he
might have easily changed his views, especially if a strong cry was
being raised by the friends of the exiles. He had a personal feud with
the Julian family, because he had opposed Caesar's illegal candidature
for the consulship; but, having fortified himself by such alliances,
he proceeded to carry out the main design of Drusus, namely, the
complete enfranchisement of the Italians. [Sidenote: Pro-Italian
measure of Sulpicius.] This, perhaps, would be especially distasteful
to the Julii, as superseding the Lex Julia and the Lex Plautia
Papiria, which to them, no doubt, seemed ample and more than ample
concessions. Sulpicius, on the other hand, and the minority of the
Senate which sided with him, saw that under the cover of clemency a
grievous wrong was being done. For not only were the Italians who had
submitted since the terms of the Lex Plautia took effect without the
franchise, but from the fact of their rebellion they had lost their
old privileges as allied States. Even those who had benefited by these
concessions had benefited only in name. As they voted in new tribes,
their votes were valueless, and often would not be recorded at all;
for a majority on most questions would be assured long before it came
to their turn to vote. To a statesman imbued with the views of Drusus
such a distribution of the franchise must have seemed impolitic
trickery; and, like Drusus, Sulpicius resorted to questionable means
in order to gain the end on which he had set his heart.

Rome was thus broken up into two camps, not as of yore broadly marked
off by palpable distinctions of rank, property, or privilege, but each
containing adherents of all sorts and conditions, though in the Senate
the opponents of Sulpicius had the majority. When Sulpicius proposed
to enrol the Italians in the old tribes, the consuls proclaimed a
justitium, or suspension of all public business for some