of them
survive in their original form. They are known as Leges Corneliae, a
term which, though applicable to some other laws, is usually applied
to those of his making.

The Senate had originally been an advising council. Then it had
acquired superior authority, and issued commands to the magistrates.
It was placed by Sulla in a still higher position. [Sidenote: He
reconstitutes the Senate;] To fill up its exhausted ranks he admitted
to it 300 of the equestrian order; and, though it is not certain what
its numbers were to be, it is probable that they were fixed at about
500. Then he provided for keeping the list full for the future.
[Sidenote: fills it up from the quaestors;] Hitherto a man had become
a senator either at the censor's summons (of which he was practically
certain if he had been tribune or quaestor), or, if he had been
consul, praetor or aedile. [Sidenote: increases the number of the
quaestors;] Sulla made the quaestorship instead of the aedileship the
regular stepping-stone, and increased the number of the quaestors
to twenty. [Sidenote: degrades the censorship.] He also, in all
probability, though it is not certain, took away from the censors
their right of conferring or taking away senatorial rank. 'Once a
senator, always a senator,' was therefore now the rule; and as the
quaestors, who were the main source of supply, were nominated by the
Comitia Tributa, the Senate became a more representative as well as a
more permanent body than before, and independent of the magistrates.

[Sidenote: Legislative initiative given to the Senate.] Secondly, we
have seen that Sulla had given to the Senate by law the power which it
had previously exercised only by custom, of deliberating on a measure
before it was submitted to the vote of the Comitia. This was one
security against any measure being carried against its interests.
Before this the practice had been either for the Senate through the
tribunes to submit a measure to the vote, or for the tribunes to
submit a measure of their own after obtaining the Senate's authority
to do so. Saturninus, as we have seen, had overridden this custom, and
the only way in which the Senate could maintain its old privileges
would have been either by proclaiming a justitium, as it did on that
occasion, or by picking out some technical informality in the passing
of the plebiscitum, had not Sulla thus made its previous authorisation
absolutely indispensable. [Sidenote: Curtailment