rtant portions of Sulla's constitutional reforms.
One of Pompey's first acts was to redeem the pledge he had given to the
people, by bringing forward a law for the restoration of the Tribunitian
power. The law was passed with little opposition; for the Senate felt
that it was worse than useless to contend against Pompey, supported as
he was by the popular enthusiasm and by his troops, which were still in
the immediate neighborhood of the city. He also struck another blow at
the aristocracy. By one of Sulla's laws, the Judices, during the last
ten years, had been chosen from the Senate. The corruption and venality
of the latter in the administration of justice had excited such general
indignation that some change was clamorously demanded by the people.
Accordingly, the Praetor L. Aurelius Cotta, with the approbation of
Pompey, proposed a law by which the Judices were to be taken in future
from the Senate, Equites, and Tribuni AErarii, the latter probably
representing the wealthier members of the third order in the state. This
law was likewise carried; but it did not improve the purity of the
administration of justice, since corruption was not confined to the
Senators, but pervaded all classes of the community alike. Pompey had
thus broken with the aristocracy, and had become the great popular hero.
In carrying both these measures he was strongly supported by Caesar, who,
though he was rapidly rising in popular favor, could as yet only hope to
weaken the power of the aristocracy through Pompey's means.

[Illustration: Temple of Pudicitia Patricia at Rome.]

[Illustration: Coin of Mithridates.]

CHAPTER XXX.

THIRD OR GREAT MITHRIDATIC WAR. B.C. 74-61.

When Sulla returned to Italy after the First Mithridatic War, he left L.
Murena, with two legions, to hold the command in Asia. Murena, who was
eager for some opportunity of earning the honor of a triumph, pretending
that Mithridates had not yet evacuated the whole of Cappadocia, not only
marched into that country, but even crossed the Halys, and laid waste
the plains of Pontus itself (B.C. 83). To this flagrant breach of the
treaty so lately concluded the Roman general was in great measure
instigated by Archelaus, who, finding himself regarded with suspicion by
Mithridates, had consulted his safety by flight, and was received with
the utmost honors by the Romans. Mithridates, who was wholly unprepared
to renew the contest with Rome, offered no opposition to the