it did not assign the office to any one
class in particular. It also provided that anyone not a citizen who
won his suit against an official should by virtue of doing so obtain
the citizenship. [Sidenote: Threefold purpose of the Lex Servilia.] So
that we may trace in this law a threefold policy--an attempt (1) to
relieve the provincials, by making prosecutions for extortion easy,
and even putting a premium on them; (2) to conciliate the equites; (3)
to pave the way for the overthrow of class jurisdiction by, nominally
at least, leaving the judicia open to all who did not come under
specified restrictions. Cicero inveighs against Glaucia as a demagogue
of the Hyperbolus stamp. But there was more of the statesman than the
demagogue in this law.

When Saturninus was a candidate for the tribunate, he and Glaucia are
said to have set on men to murder Nonius, another candidate, who they
feared might use his veto to thwart their projects. Marius had
been previously elected consul, and supported Saturninus in his
candidature, as Saturninus had supported him. [Sidenote: Personal
reasons for Marius joining Saturninus.] Marius may have been induced
to enter into this alliance by the desire to gratify a personal
grudge, for the rival candidate had been the man he most detested, Q.
Metellus; and the first measure of Saturninus was a compliment to
him and a direct blow aimed at Metellus. [Sidenote: Agrarian law of
Saturninus.] This was an agrarian law which would benefit the Marian
veterans; and as it contained a proviso that any senator refusing
to swear to observe it within five days should be expelled from the
Senate, it would be sure to drive Metellus from Rome. But if there was
diplomacy in this measure of Saturninus, there was sagacity also. What
discontent was seething in Italy the Social War soon proved, and this
was an attempt to appease it. Saturninus had previously proposed
allotments in Africa; now he proposed to allot lands in Transalpine
Gaul, Sicily, Achaia, and Macedonia, and to supply the colonists with
an outfit from the treasure taken from Tolosa. Marius was to have the
allotment of the land. [Sidenote: Difficulty about this agrarian law.]
There is a difficulty as to these colonies which no history solves.
They were Roman colonies to which only Roman citizens were eligible,
and yet the Roman populace opposed the law. The Italians, on the
contrary, carried it by violence. Some have cut the knot by supposing
that,