home. [Sidenote:  Effect of the new scheme.] The effect of all this is plain.  Whereas formerly the magistrates, directly elected in the Comitia, might combine civil and military authority, now the military authority could only be held by those whose term of office was prolonged by the Senate’s pleasure; for, though the practice became invariable, it remained at the Senate’s discretion to break through it when it chose.

[Sidenote:  Co-optation restored to the colleges.] Fifthly, having thus lessened the power of the censors, consuls, praetors, and tribunes, he by way of compensation—­a serio-comic compensation it must have seemed to his shrewd yet superstitious mind—­restored the right of co-optation to the sacred colleges of augurs and pontiffs, and increased their numbers, thus multiplying harmless objects of rivalry analogous to the ribands and garters of modern courts.

Sixthly, he took away from the equites and restored to the Senate the judicia.

[Sidenote:  Restoration of the Judicia to the Senate.] The judicia have been often mentioned, and something maybe said about them here.  In civil suits the praetor, as we have seen, had the superintendence.  Sometimes he decided a case at once.  Sometimes, if he thought the case should be tried, he appointed a judex, giving him certain instructions by which after the investigation he must decide the case.  His action here would be something like one of our judge’s charges, but given before hearing the evidence.  There is nothing to prove that a judex of this kind was at this time taken from any special class, or that Sulla interfered with the established mode of procedure. [Sidenote:  Organisation of criminal courts.] It was about the constitution of the criminal courts that the long struggle had raged between the Senate and equites and here he made great changes.  He found some permanent criminal courts (e.g. the Quaestio de Repetundis, or court for investigating cases of extortion in the provinces) already in existence.  He instituted or settled others; but it cannot be ascertained how many of the following, which were in existence after his time, were due to him.  There were at least nine of these permanent courts (Quaestiones Perpetuae):  the Quaestio Majestatis; de vi; de sicariis &c; de veneficiis; de parricidio; de falso; de repetundis; peculatus; ambitus; or courts for trying cases of treason, violence, assassination, poisoning, parricide, forgery, extortion, embezzlement, and bribery.  And there may have been more, e.g. de adulteriis and de plagiis, for trying cases of adultery and the enslavement of freemen. [Sidenote:  Procedure in the courts.] His object in consolidating them was to take from the Comitia the settlement of criminal cases, and to obviate the necessity for appointing special commissions.  For there was no appeal from the quaestio, and a special commission was seldom requisite when so many courts were available.