The struggle between the optimates and the populares continued with a bitterness that passionately

awaited another opportunity for violence.

The optimates, or best people, made nobilitas their creed.

Not in the sense of noblest oblige, but on the theory that good government required the restriction

of major magistracies to men whose ancestors had held high office.

Anyone who ran for office, without such forbear's, was scorned, as Novus Homo, a new man, or upstart.

The Populares demanded career open to talent, all power to the

assemblies, and free land for veterans and the poor. Neither party believed in democracy. Both

aspired to dictatorship, and both practiced intimidation and corruption without conscience or concealment.

The collegia that had once been mutual benefit societies became agencies for the sale of

great blocks of plebeian votes. The business of vote buying reached a scale where it required

a high specialization of labor. There were divisiores who bought votes,

interpretees, or go-betweens, and sequestres, who held the money until the votes had been

delivered. The courts, now preempted by senators, rivaled the polls in corruption.

Oaths had lost all value as testimony. Perjury was as common as bribery.

Protected by such courts, the senatorial pro-consuls, the tax-gatherers, the money-lenders,

and the business agents milked the provinces at a rate that would have angered their predecessors

with envy. The sole check upon their venality was the Senate, and the senators could be trusted as gentlemen,

not to raise a fuss, since nearly all of them had done or hoped to do the same.

Antiquity had never known so rich, so powerful, and so corrupt a government.

Will Durant.

Caesar and Christ.

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