at which it outgrows and bursts its assigned
dimensions, and this was the case especially with Rome, which in
every respect stands on the line of separation and connection between
the old and the new intellectual worlds. In the Sullan constitution
the primary assembly and the urban character of the commonwealth
of Rome, on the one hand, vanished almost into a meaningless form;
the community subsisting within the state on the other hand was
already completely developed in the Italian -municipium-. Down
to the name, which in such cases no doubt is the half of the matter,
this last constitution of the free republic carried out the
representative system and the idea of the state built upon the
basis of the municipalities.

The municipal system in the provinces was not altered by this
movement; the municipal authorities of the non-free towns continued--
special exceptions apart--to be confined to administration and
police, and to such jurisdiction as the Roman authorities did
not prefer to take into their own hands.

Impression Produced by the Sullan Reorganization
Opposition of the Officers

Such was the constitution which Lucius Cornelius Sulla gave to
the commonwealth of Rome. The senate and equestrian order, the
burgesses and proletariate, Italians and provincials, accepted it
as it was dictated to them by the regent, if not without grumbling,
at any rate without rebelling: not so the Sullan officers. The Roman
army had totally changed its character. It had certainly been
rendered by the Marian reform more ready for action and more
militarily useful than when it did not fight before the walls of
Numantia; but it had at the same time been converted from a burgess-
force into a set of mercenaries who showed no fidelity to the state
at all, and proved faithful to the officer only if he had the skill
personally to gain their attachment. The civil war had given fearful
evidence of this total revolution in the spirit of the army: six
generals in command, Albinus,(45) Cato,(46) Rufus,(47) Flaccus,(48)
Cinna,(49) and Gaius Carbo,(50) had fallen during its course by the
hands of their soldiers: Sulla alone had hitherto been able to
retain the mastery of the dangerous crew, and that only, in fact,
by giving the rein to all their wild desires as no Roman general
before him had ever done. If the blame of destroying the old
military discipline is on this account attached to him, the
censure is not exactly without ground,