nt of public morals.
Their general object and design was to restore, as far as possible, the
ancient Roman Constitution, and to give again to the Senate and the
Nobility that power of which they had been gradually deprived by the
leaders of the popular party. His Constitution did not last, because the
aristocracy were thoroughly selfish and corrupt, and exercised the power
which Sulla had intrusted to them only for their own aggrandizement.
Their shameless conduct soon disgusted the provinces as well as the
capital; the people again regained their power, but the consequence was
an anarchy and not a government; and as neither class was fit to rule,
they were obliged to submit to the dominion of a single man. Thus the
empire became a necessity to the exhausted Roman world.

* * * * *

I. _Laws relating to the Constitution._--Sulla deprived the Comitia
Tributa of their legislative and judicial powers; but he allowed them to
elect the Tribunes, AEdiles, Quaestors, and other inferior magistrates.
This seems to have been the only purpose for which they were called
together. The Comitia Centuriata, on the other hand, were allowed to
retain their right of legislation unimpaired. He restored, however, the
ancient regulation, which had fallen into desuetude, that no matter
should be brought before them without the previous sanction of a senatus
consultum.

The Senate had been so much reduced in numbers by the proscriptions of
Sulla, that he was obliged to fill up the vacancies by the election of
three hundred new members. But he made no alteration in their duties and
functions, as the whole administration of the state was in their hands;
and he gave them the initiative in legislation by requiring a previous
senatus consultum respecting all measures that were to be submitted to
the Comitia, as already stated.

With respect to the magistrates, Sulla increased the number of Quaestors
from eight to twenty, and of Praetors from six to eight. He renewed the
old law that no one should hold the Praetorship before he had been
Quaestor, nor the Consulship before he had been Praetor. He also renewed
the law that no one should be elected to the same magistracy till after
the expiration of ten years.

One of the most important of Sulla's reforms related to the Tribunate,
which he deprived of all real power. He took away from the Tribunes the
right of proposing a rogation of any kind to the Tribes, or of
im