comitia, would beyond question have carried
the rejection of the law as to jurymen, if it had been put to the vote
by itself. Drusus accordingly embraced all his proposals in one law;
and, as thus all the burgesses interested in the distributions of grain
and land were compelled to vote also for the law as to jurymen, he
succeeded in carrying the law with their help and that of the Italians,
who stood firmly by Drusus with the exception of the large landowners,
particularly those in Umbria and Etruria, whose domanial possessions
were threatened. It was not carried, however, until Drusus had caused
the consul Philippus, who would not desist from opposition, to be
arrested and carried off to prison by a bailiff. The people celebrated
the tribune as their benefactor, and received him in the theatre by
rising up and applauding; but the voting had not so much decided the
struggle as transferred it to another ground, for the opposite party
justly characterized the proposal of Drusus as contrary to the law
of 656(14) and therefore as null.

Chapter VII

The Revolt of the Italian Subjects, and the Sulpician Revolution

Romans and Italians

From the time when the defeat of Pyrrhus had put an end to the last
war which the Italians had waged for their independence--or, in other
words, for nearly two hundred years--the Roman primacy had now
subsisted in Italy, without having been once shaken in its
foundations even under circumstances of the utmost peril. Vainly
had the heroic family of the Barcides, vainly had the successors
of Alexander the Great and of the Achaemenids, endeavoured to rouse
the Italian nation to contend with the too powerful capital; it had
obsequiously appeared in the fields of battle on the Guadalquivir
and on the Mejerdah, at the pass of Tempe and at Mount Sipylus, and
with the best blood of its youth had helped its masters to achieve
the subjugation of three continents. Its own position meanwhile had
changed, but had deteriorated rather than improved. In a material
point of view, doubtless, it had in general not much ground to
complain. Though the small and intermediate landholders throughout
Italy suffered in consequence of the injudicious Roman legislation
as to corn, the larger landlords and still more the mercantile and
capitalist class were flourishing, for the Italians enjoyed, as
respected the turning of the provinces to financial account,
substantially the same protection and the sa