forbidden gold or silver to be paid to the Celtic tribes in the north of
Italy in exchange for the wares or slaves which they sold to Roman
merchants.[92]

Another series of laws aimed at securing the purity of an electorate
exposed to the danger of corruption by the overwhelming influence of
wealth. Laws against bribery, unknown in an earlier period,[93] become
painfully frequent from the date at which Rome came into contact with
the riches of the East. Six years after the close of the great Asiatic
campaign the people were asked, on the authority of the senate, to
sanction more than one act which was directed against the undue
influence exercised at elections;[94] in 166 fresh scandals called for
the consideration of the Council of State;[95] and the year 159 saw the
birth of another enactment.[96] Yet the capital penalty, which seems to
have been the consequence of the transgression of at least one of these
laws,[97] did not deter candidates from staking their citizenship on
their success. The still-surviving custom of clientship made the object
of largesses difficult to establish, and the secrecy of the ballot,
which had been introduced for elections in 139, made it impossible to
prove that the suspicious gift had been effective and thus to construct
a convincing case against the donor.

The moral control exercised by the magistrate and the sumptuary or
criminal ordinances expressed in acts of Parliament might serve as
temporary palliatives to certain pronounced evils of the moment; but
they were powerless to check the extravagance of an expenditure which
was sanctioned by custom and in some respects actually enforced by law.
One of the greatest of the practical needs of the new Roman was to
increase his income in every way that might be deemed legitimate by a
society which, even in its best days, had never been overscrupulous in