ts
as to elections were repeated and enforced by a special law;
and by another against electioneering intrigues, which obtained
retrospective force for all offences of this sort committed
since 684, the penalties hitherto imposed were augmented.
Still more important was the enactment, that the governorships,
which were by far the more important and especially by far
the more lucrative half of official life, should be conferred
on the consuls and praetors not immediately on their retirement
from the consulate or praetorship, but only after the expiry
of other five years; an arrangement which of course could only
come into effect after four years, and therefore made the filling up
of the governorships for the next few years substantially dependent
on decrees of senate which were to be issued for the regulation
of this interval, and thus practically on the person or section
ruling the senate at the moment. The jury-commissions were left
in existence, but limits were put to the right of counter-plea,
and--what was perhaps still more important--the liberty of speech
in the courts was done away; for both the number of the advocates
and the time of speaking apportioned to each were restricted
by fixing a maximum, and the bad habit which had prevailed of adducing,
in addition to the witnesses as to facts, witnesses to character
or -laudatores-, as they were called, in favour of the accused
was prohibited. The obsequious senate further decreed on the suggestion
of Pompeius that the country had been placed in peril by the quarrel
on the Appian Way; accordingly a special commission was appointed
by an exceptional law for all crimes connected with it,
the members of which were directly nominated by Pompeius.
An attempt was also made to give once more a serious importance
to the office of the censors, and by that agency to purge
the deeply disordered burgess-body of the worst rabble.

All these measures were adopted under the pressure of the sword.
In consequence of the declaration of the senate that the country
was in danger, Pompeius called the men capable of service
throughout Italy to arms and made them swear allegiance
for all contingencies; an adequate and trustworthy corps
was temporarily stationed at the Capitol; at every stirring
of opposition Pompeius threatened armed intervention, and during
the proceedings at the trial respecting the murder of Clodius
stationed contrary to all precedent, a guard over the place
of t