Qui cum senatui priscum restituere cuperet decus et iudicia ab equitibus ad eum transferre ordinem (quippe eam potestatem nacti equites Gracchanis legibus cum in multos clarissimos atque innocentissimos viros saevissent, tum P. Rutilium, virum non saeculi sui, sed omnis aevi optimum, interrogatum lege repetundarum maximo cum gemitu civitatis damnaverant), in iis ipsis, quae pro senatu moliebatur, senatum habuit adversarium non intellegentem, si qua de plebis commodis ab eo agerentur, veluti inescandae inliciendaeque multitudinis causa fieri, ut minoribus perceptis maiora permitteret.
It was his aim to restore to the senate its ancient prestige, and again to transfer the law courts to that order from the knights. The knights had acquired this prerogative through the legislation of Gracchus and had treated with severity many noted men who were quite innocent, and, in particular, had brought to trial on a charge of extortion and had condemned, to the great sorrow of all the citizens, Publius Rutilius, one of the best men not only of his age, but of all time. But in these very measures which Livius undertook on behalf of the senate he had an opponent in the senate itself, which failed to see that the proposals he also urged in the interest of the plebs were made as a bait and a sop to the populace, that they might, by receiving lesser concessions, permit the passage of more important measures.
final_alignments\Velleius_Paterculus_Compendium.json