It does
not seem exactly certain what Sulla did. Appianus (_Civil Wars_, i.
100) says 'that he weakened it very much and carried a law by which no
man after being tribune could hold any other office.' Cicero (_De
Legibus_, iii. 9) considers the extension of the tribunitian power as
unavoidable, and as effected with the least mischief by being the work
of Pompeius.]
[Footnote 230: A Cornelia Lex, passed in the time of Sulla, made the
Judices in the Judicia Publica eligible only out of the body of
Senators. That the Senators had acted corruptly in the administration
of justice, we have the authority of Cicero in one of his Verrine
orations (_In Verr._ A 1, 13 and 16). The measure for restoring the
Equites to a share in the judicial functions was proposed by the
praetor L. Aurelius Cotta, the uncle of C. Julius Caesar, with the
approbation of Pompeius and Caesar, who were now acting in concert. The
charges of corruption which Cotta made against the Senate are recorded
by Cicero (_In Verr._ iii. 96). The proposed law (rogatio), which was
carried, made the Judices eligible out of the Senators, Equites, and
Tribuni AErarii, which three classes are mentioned by Cicero (_Ad
Atticum_, i. 16) as represented by the Judices who sat on the trial of
Clodius. The purity of the administration of justice was not hereby
improved. Cicero, on the occasion of the trial of Clodius, speaks of
all these classes having their dishonest representatives among the
judices.
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