bribery, malversation, and the like,
were so commonly practiced by the whole order, that they were, in most
cases, nearly certain of acquittal from men who required similar
indulgence themselves.

Sulla's reform in the criminal law, the greatest and most enduring part
of his legislation, belongs to a history of Roman law, and can not be
given here.

* * * * *

IV. _Laws relating to the Improvement of Public Morals._--Of these we
have very little information. One of them was a Lex Sumtuaria, which
enacted that not more than a certain sum of money should be spent upon
entertainments, and also restrained extravagance in funerals. There was
likewise a law of Sulla respecting marriage, the provisions of which are
quite unknown, as it was probably abrogated by the Julian law of
Augustus.

[Illustration: Coin of Sulla.

On the obverse is the head of Sulla; on the reverse that of Q. Pompeius
Rufus, his colleague in his first Consulship.]

[Illustration: Cn. Pompeius Magnus.]

CHAPTER XXIX.

FROM THE DEATH OF SULLA TO THE CONSULSHIP OF POMPEY AND CRASSUS. B.C.
78-70.

Sulla was scarcely dead before an attempt was made to overthrow the
aristocratic constitution which he had established. The Consul M.
Lepidus had already, as we have seen, endeavored to prevent the burial
of Sulla in the Campus Martius. He now proposed to repeal the Dictator's
laws; but the other Consul, Q. Catulus, remained firm to the
aristocracy, and offered the most strenuous opposition to the measures
of his colleague. Shortly afterward the Senate ordered Lepidus to repair
to Farther Gaul, which had been assigned to him as his Province; but he
availed himself of the opportunity to collect an army in Etruria, and at
the beginning of the following year marched straight upon Rome. The
Senate assembled an army, which they placed under the command of Q.
Catulus, with Pompey as his lieutenant. A battle was fought near the
Mulvian bridge, in which Lepidus was defeated, and, finding it
impossible to maintain his footing in Italy, he sailed with the
remainder of his forces to Sardinia, where he died soon afterward.

Meantime the remainder of the Marian party found refuge in Spain. Q.
Sertorius, one of the ablest of their generals, had received the
government of this country in the year B.C. 82. He soon acquired an
extraordinary ascendency over the minds of the natives, and flattered
them with the hope of establishing