With the legions that fought at Vercellae drawn up in the town, amid riot and bloodshed, the assembly passed the bill.  The senate, together with Marius himself, for a time demurred from taking the oath.  Finally,[6] at the instigation of “the man from the ranks,” who had come to the conclusion that it was best to subscribe, all save one, Metellus, took the oath.  The law enacted that assignments of land in the country of the Gauls, in Sicily, Achaia, and Macedonia, should be made; that colonies should be established, and that Marius should be the head of the commission entrusted with the establishment of all these settlements.[7] These colonies were to consist of Roman citizens; and, in order that Latini,[8] their companions in arms, might participate in the grants, Marius was invested with power to bestow the franchise upon a certain number of these.  But no one of these colonies was ever founded.  The only colony of the year 100 was Eporedia[9] (Ivrea), in the northwestern Alps, and it is not likely that this was established in accordance with the provisions of the enactment.  The law was to take effect in 99, and a change of party took place before that time which sent Marius into practical banishment and rewarded his partisan, Saturninus, with death.  The optimates who were now in office paid no attention to the law, and the senators forgot their oath.  Another injury is added to the many which the Latini had suffered.

In the year 99, i.e., in the year following the death of Saturninus, an agrarian law was proposed by the tribune Titius, but we know nothing of its conditions.  Cicero is the only writer who mentions it and even his text is doubtful.[10] According to one of his statements Titius was banished because he had preserved a portrait of Saturninus, and the knights deemed him for this reason a seditious citizen.  Valerius Maximus, who without doubt borrowed his facts from Cicero, states that “Titius had rendered himself dear to the people by having[11] brought forward an agrarian law.”  Cicero mentions in another place, the lex Titia[12] upon the same page as the lex Saturnina and implies that it had been enacted.  If so it was disregarded and thus rendered void.

In 91 an agrarian law was proposed by Livius Drusus, the son of the adversary of Gaius Gracchus, and, with his new judiciary, the measure was carried and became a law.[13] The Italians were embraced in this law and were to have equal rights with Roman citizens, but Drusus died before he had time to carry his law into execution, and his law died with him.

[Footnote 1:  Cic., De Off., II, 21.]

[Footnote 2:  Lucius Appuleius Saturninus, tribunus plebis seditiosus ut gratiam Marianorum militum pararet, legem tulit ut veteranis centena agri jugera in Africa dividerentur....  Siciliam, Achaiam, Macedoniam novis colonis destinavit; et aurum, dolo an scelere, Caepionis partum, ad emtionem agrorum convertit.  Aurel.  Victor.  De Vir.  Illus., 73.]