aristocratic garrison. There were no trials, there were no pardons. Common
report or private information was at once indictment and evidence, and
accusation was in itself condemnation.

The ground being thus cleared, the Dictator took up again his measures of
political reform. He did not attempt a second time to take the franchise
from the Italians. Romans and Italians he was ready to leave on the same
level, but it was to be a level of impotence. Rome was to be ruled by the
Senate, and as a first step, and to protect the Senate's dignity, he
enfranchised ten thousand slaves who had belonged to the proscribed
gentlemen, and formed them into a senatorial guard. Before departing for
the East he had doubled the Senate's numbers out of the patrician order.
Under Cinna the new members had not claimed their privilege, and had
probably been absent from Italy. They were now installed in their places,
and the power of the censors to revise the list and remove those who had
proved unworthy was taken away. The senators were thus peers for life,
peers in a single chamber which Sylla meant to make omnipotent. Vacancies
were to be supplied as before from the retiring consuls, praetors,
aediles, and quaestors. The form of a popular constitution would remain,
since the road into the council of State lay through the popular
elections. But to guard against popular favorites finding access to the
consulship, a provision was made that no person who had been a tribune of
the people could be chosen afterward to any other office.

The Senate's power depended on the withdrawal from the assembly of
citizens of the right of original legislation. So long as the citizens
could act immediately at the invitation of either consul or tribune, they
could repeal at their pleasure any arrangement which Sylla might
prescribe. As a matter of course, therefore, he re-enacted the condition
which restricted the initiation of laws to the Senate. The tribunes still