and a greater responsibility to laws and tribunals. We have never thought lightly of your prerogatives (so the Roman Knights argue), but we have chosen instead this life of quiet and leisure; as there is no glory to win in it, so let there be no trouble to molest it." This limitation was introduced not only in the case of the court which dealt with extortion in the provinces, but also into the trial of charges for judicial corruption. A senator, who gave false witness or conspired to bribe a jury or himself took money for the condemnation of an innocent man, might be put on his trial for the offence; any other citizen was irresponsible. This monstrous immunity was not only publicly defended by Cicero,[1] the favourite champion of the equestrian order, but was acquiesced in even by its greatest enemy, Sulla, who "when he reconstituted the court for the trial of these offences, forasmuch as he had found the Commons of Rome free from such responsibility did not venture to entangle them in fresh liabilities."[2] Any one who presumed to interfere with these cherished exemptions and prerogatives incurred the deadly enmity of the Roman Knights. Livius Drusus, the patriotic tribune of 91 B.C., had committed this unpardonable offence, and, in order to thwart him, the Knights turned against the Italian allies, whose cause Drusus defended, and thus involved Rome in the disaster of the Social War.[3] On
