The rescripts of the early emperors recognized too many popular rights to suit the despotic character of Justinian; and the older jurists, like the Scaevolas, Sulpicius, and Labeo, were distasteful from their sympathy with free institutions.

Of these debtors many doubtless would belong to the lower orders; but, from a proposal of Sulpicius made the next year, it appears probable that some were found in the ranks of the Senate.

[Sidenote: Sulpicius the successor of Drusus.]

Sulpicius inherited the policy of Drusus, which was to reconstruct the Senatorial Government on an Italian basis.

[Sidenote: Pro-Italian measure of Sulpicius.]

Sulpicius, on the other hand, and the minority of the Senate which sided with him, saw that under the cover of clemency a grievous wrong was being done.

To a statesman imbued with the views of Drusus such a distribution of the franchise must have seemed impolitic trickery; and, like Drusus, Sulpicius resorted to questionable means in order to gain the end on which he had set his heart.

Rome was thus broken up into two camps, not as of yore broadly marked off by palpable distinctions of rank, property, or privilege, but each containing adherents of all sorts and conditions, though in the Senate the opponents of Sulpicius had the majority.

When Sulpicius proposed to enrol the Italians in the old tribes, the consuls proclaimed a justitium, or suspension of all public business for some religious observances.

It is said by some modern writers that the object of Sulpicius in proposing to enrol the Italians in the old tribes was to secure the election of Marius to the command against Mithridates.

Sulpicius may have thought Marius quite fit for the command, and was warranted in thinking so by the events of the Social War; but there is no more ground for supposing that the election of Marius was his primary object than for considering Plutarch's diatribe a fair estimate of his character.

[Sidenote: Connection of Marius and Sulpicius explained.]

This consideration is essential to a true understanding of the politics of the time, and just makes the difference whether Sulpicius was a petty-minded adventurer or deliberately following in the lines laid down for him by a succession of statesmen.

Sulpicius had been intending to bring forward his laws in the regular fashion.

The laws of Sulpicius were carried.

Sulla fled to the army; and, perhaps, it was only now that Sulpicius, knowing or thinking that he knew that Sulla would march on Rome, carried a resolution in the popular assembly for making Marius commander in the east.

So that at last the embassy was ordered to be sent, and Servius Sulpicius, Lucius Piso, and Lucius Philippus, appointed as the ambassadors, but they were charged merely to order Antonius to abandon the siege of Mutina, and to desist from hostilities against the province of Gaul, and further, to proceed to Decimus Brutus in Mutina, and to give him and his army the thanks of the senate and people.

THE ARGUMENT After the senate had decided on sending them, the ambassadors immediately set out, though Servius Sulpicius was in a very bad state of health.

But if deserved honours have been paid to any ambassador after death, there is no one by whom they can be found to have been ever more fully deserved than by Servius Sulpicius.

But if, O conscript fathers, you would only recollect the excuses alleged by Servius Sulpicius why he should not be appointed to this embassy, then no doubt will be left on your minds that we ought to repair by the honour paid to the dead the injury which we did to him while living.

But when there was added the exhortation of Pansa, the consul, delivered with more weight than the ears of Servius Sulpicius had learnt to resist, then at last he led me and his own son aside, and said that he was bound to prefer your authority to his own life.

If all the men of all ages, who have ever had any acquaintance with the law in this city, were got together into one place, they would not deserve to be compared to Servius Sulpicius.

Indeed, I think that it concerns also the fame of Servius Sulpicius the son, that he should appear to have paid all due respect to his father.

But when I recollect the many conversations which in the days of our intimacy on earth I have had with Servius Sulpicius, it appears to me, that if there be any feeling in the dead, a brazen statue, and that too a pedestrian one, will be more acceptable to him than a gilt equestrian one, such as was first erected to Lucius Sylla.

For when these honours have been paid to Servius Sulpicius, the evidence of his embassy having been insulted and rejected by Antonius will remain for everlasting.