that the voter should vote as he pleases, a proposition which cannot be disputed directly, though it is attacked indirectly; for the having of a vote either means the giving of it as a man pleases, or it means nothing. Whether any particular class of people should have votes is a different question. The mischief that happened at Rome came neither from secret nor from open voting. It came from the character and condition of the people who voted, and the dishonesty of those who were candidates for offices; and so it will be always.

Two years later in B.c. 137 another Lex Tabellaria was carried by the tribune L. Cassius Longinus. This Lex allowed the people to vote by ballot in all the Judicia Populi, in all the cases in which the popular assembly voted on the guilt or innocence of a man who was tried before them, except in trials for Perduellio, and even this exception was removed by a Lex Caelia B.C. 107. Cicero in his oration for P. Sestius says that the people thought the question of their freedom was involved in the passing of this law. The chief men in the state had a different opinion: in cases where the Optimates should be on their trial, they feared the rash judgment of the multitude and the abuse of the power which the ballot would give. In another passage he calls the Cassia the foundation of liberty, for by this law the force and power of the popular vote got its full strength. Yet Cicero in his treatise on laws speaks of Cassius as a man who was opposed to the 'good,' which is one of Cicero's names for the aristocratical party, and who tried to gain favour by popular measures. The consul M. Aemilius Lepidus opposed the Lex. But Scipio, who was certainly no friend to popular power and a great enemy to revolutionary movements, supported the Cassia; and it was said that he persuaded the tribune M. Antius Briso to withdraw his opposition to it. As Scipio was a man of good sense, we may conclude that he thought that the law was wanted: that if the people were called to vote on the guilt or innocence of a man, they should give their vote without being moved by fear or hope of reward. Scipio's judgment was right, for if a popular assembly must decide on a man's guilt or innocence by a vote, secret voting is better adapted to secure the true expression of the popular opinion

than open voting; and it is implied in the very constitution of such a judicial assembly that every man's opinion should have its effect. But it was a miserable choice between open and secret voting in a judicial matter, which ought to have been settled by a well-constituted court. Rome preserved up to this late period of her history forms of trial, which must have originated in a very small community, and may have served their purpose once, but were now mischievous to the State. It is not difficult to see why the nobility were opposed to the constitution of regular courts for the trial of certain offences. The nobles were the men whose acts came under the judicial cognizance of the people, and they had a better chance of escaping with a popular assembly, if they were guilty, than they would have had if they were tried by a court. But the change from open to secret voting would make it more difficult for a powerful man to bribe or to intimidate the people; and if he should happen to be innocent, he would not escape, if he was unpopular.

There is extant a denarius of the Cassia Gens which commemorates the Cassius who proposed and carried this Lex. On one side there is a figure of a man, who holds in his left hand a tablet or ballot marked with the letter A, which he is going to drop into an upright basket or pannier, named Cista by the Romans.

A great case was heard about this time before the consuls P. Scipio Nasica and D. Brutus (B.c. 138). A company of Publicani or a society, as the Romans termed it, had taken on lease from the censors of B.c. 142, P. Scipio Africanus and L. Mummius, the pitcheries of the Silva Sila. This was the name of the most southern part of the Apennines, which then, as it is now, was covered with forests, from which the Romans derived supplies of pitch and timber for ships. In this remote region some men had been killed, and not only the slaves, but some of the freemen also, who were members of the company, were charged with the crime. The Senate empowered the consuls to inquire into the case, in fact to hold a court by special commission, and to give judgment. C. Laelius appeared for the company, and defended them with great ability. The consuls adjourned the inquiry, and after

a few days Laelius again spoke for the company, and he spoke even better than the first time; but the case was adjourned again. The members of the company attended Laelius to his house, a mode of showing respect which was usual at Rome. They thanked him for his pains, and begged that he would continue them. Laelius told the company that he had done his best, but he recommended them to apply to Servius Galba, who was a much more powerful speaker than himself. Galba with some hesitation undertook to follow so distinguished a man. He had a very short time allowed for preparation, but he employed it in examining the case and putting his matter in order. On the day when the cause was to be heard again, the company sent a man to Galba to remind him and keep him punctual, but up to the moment when the consuls had taken their seats, Galba was busy in his room working at his case with some of his slaves who were versed in letters, and to whom he was used to dictate, to more than one at a time. When he was told that the court was sitting, he came out with all the appearance of a man who had just gone through the exertion of pleading a cause, not of one who had been preparing to plead. It was said too that the slaves showed some signs of their master's vehemence in his oratorical preparation, as if he had been so much excited as to deal out blows to them. However, the great expectation of the audience was not disappointed. Galba managed the case so well that continual applause accompanied his speech, and he moved the court so much by exciting the feelings that, with the approbation of all the bystanders, the company and members implicated in the charge were acquitted.

In the year B.C. 136 there was a census. The citizens entered on the registers were 323,000.

The Illyricum or part of the eastern coast of the Hadriatic was at this time disturbed by the Ardiaei or Vardaei, as they are also named, one of the Dalmatian tribes. There is repeated the usual story of wondrous things at Rome, which frightened the people, and of religious ceremonies which were used to quiet men's minds. In the year B.c. 135 there was a great eruption of Aetna.

The mountain vomited fiery

streams which ran down the sides and destroyed every thing in their way. Such phaenomena were supposed to portend danger to the state, and in this instance the danger did follow the sign, for all Sicily was soon blazing with the flames of a servile war.

The consul Ser. Fulvius Flaccus (B.c. 135) was sent against the Ardiaei, whose position on the coast is marked by the island Pharus nearly opposite to the mouth of the river Naro (Narenta). The Epitome of Livy (56) records the defeat of the Ardiaei by Flaccus. Some modern writers refer to this time the entire subjugation of this people, and their removal from the coast to the interior, a fact which Strabo mentions: but this event may belong to a later date than the time of Flaccus.

CHAPTER IX.

THE SLAVE WAR IN SICILY.

B.C. 142-132.

THE Romans had been in possession of the west part of Sicily since the end of the first Punic war B.C. 241; and this was their first Province. The eastern and smaller part, which formed the kingdom of Syracuse, was added to the Roman possessions after the conquest of Syracuse by Marcellus B.C. 212. In B.C. 210 all Sicily was reduced to a tranquil condition by M. Valerius Laevinus and formed into one Province. After the end of the second Punic war, in which the power of Carthage was broken, Sicily was quiet for sixty years, from B.C. 201 to B.c. 142 according to the reckoning of Diodorus, who therefore supposed that the disturbances in the island existed some time before the Romans sent their armies to stop them.

This fertile island contained a large Greek population which had long been settled in the flourishing towns on the coast. The Greeks of Sicily had always possessed slaves, both native Sicilians and imported captives. During the long struggle for supremacy between Rome and Carthage, the island was wasted and agriculture neglected. When tranquillity was restored by the establishment of the Roman dominion, Sicily was a field in which the Italian capitalists employed their wealth in trade, agriculture and the pasturing of sheep and cattle. Rome and Italy were a market for Sicilian produce, and could consume all the corn and wool that Sicily did not want. As slave labour was the chief agricultural labour used in the island, the return of quiet

I