terial authority were
as far as possible obviated and the influence of the supreme governing
board was materially increased. According to the previous
arrangement the only legal distinction in the empire was that drawn
between the city which was surrounded by the ring-wall, and the
country beyond the -pomerium-; the new arrangement substituted for
the city the new Italy henceforth, as in perpetual peace, withdrawn
from the regular -imperium-,(29) and placed in contrast to it the
continental and transmarine territories, which were, on the other hand,
necessarily placed under military commandants--the provinces as they
were henceforth called. According to the former arrangement the
same man had very frequently remained two, and often more years in
the same office. The new arrangement restricted the magistracies
of the capital as well as the governorships throughout to one year;
and the special enactment that every governor should without fail
leave his province within thirty days after his successor's arrival
there, shows very clearly--particularly if we take along with it the
formerly-mentioned prohibition of the immediate re-election of the
late magistrate to the same or another public office--what the
tendency of these arrangements was. It was the time-honoured maxim
by which the senate had at one time made the monarchy subject to
it, that the limitation of the magistracy in point of function
was favourable to democracy, and its limitation in point of time
favourable to oligarchy. According to the previous arrangement
Gaius Marius had acted at once as head of the senate and as
commander-in-chief of the state; if he had his own unskilfulness
alone to blame for his failure to overthrow the oligarchy by means
of this double official power, care seemed now taken to prevent
some possibly wiser successor from making a better use of the
same lever. According to the previous arrangement the magistrate
immediately nominated by the people might have had a military
position; the Sullan arrangement, on the other hand, reserved
such a position exclusively for those magistrates whom the senate
confirmed in their official authority by prolonging their term
of office. No doubt this prolongation of office had now become
a standing usage; but it still--so far as respects the auspices
and the name, and constitutional form in general--continued to be
treated as an extraordinary extension of their term. This was no
matter of indif