e region of Northern Italy from Italy proper. Hitherto they had
stood doubtless in a national antagonism, inasmuch as Northern Italy
was inhabited chiefly by Ligurians and Celts, Central and Southern
Italy by Italians; but, in a political and administrative point of
view, the whole continental territory of the Roman state from the
Straits to the Alps including the Illyrian possessions--burgess,
Latin, and non-Italian communities without exception--was in the
ordinary course of things under the administration of the supreme
magistrates who were acting in Rome, as in fact her colonial
foundations extended through all this territory. According to Sulla's
arrangement Italy proper, the northern boundary of which was at the
same time changed from the Aesis to the Rubico, was--as a region now
inhabited without exception by Roman citizens--made subject to the
ordinary Roman authorities; and it became one of the fundamental
principles of Roman state-law, that no troops and no commandant
should ordinarily be stationed in this district. The Celtic
country south of the Alps on the other hand, in which a military
command could not be dispensed with on account of the continued
incursions of the Alpine tribes, was constituted a distinct
governorship after the model of the older transmarine commands.(27)

Lastly, as the number of praetors to be nominated yearly was raised
from six to eight, the new arrangement of the duties was such, that
the ten chief magistrates to be nominated yearly devoted themselves,
during their first year of office, as consuls or praetors to
the business of the capital--the two consuls to government and
administration, two of the praetors to the administration of civil
law, the remaining six to the reorganized administration of criminal
justice--and, during their second year of office, were as proconsuls
or propraetors invested with the command in one of the ten
governorships: Sicily, Sardinia, the two Spains, Macedonia, Asia,
Africa, Narbo, Cilicia, and Italian Gaul. The already-mentioned
augmentation of the number of quaestors by Sulla to twenty was
likewise connected with this arrangement.(28)

Better Arrangement of Business
Increase of the Power of the Senate

By this plan, in the first instance, a clear and fixed rule was
substituted for the irregular mode of distributing offices hitherto
adopted, a mode which invited all manner of vile manoeuvres and
intrigues; and, secondly, the excesses of magis