The
candidates sought to win its favors by giving shows and public feasts,
and by dispensing provisions. They even bought votes. This sale took
place on a large scale and in broad day; money was given to
distributers who divided it among the voters. Once the Senate
endeavored to stop this trade; but when Piso, the consul, proposed a
law to prohibit the sale of suffrages, the distributers excited a riot
and drove the consul from the forum. In the time of Cicero no
magistrate could be elected without enormous expenditures.
=Corruption of the Senate.=--Poverty corrupted the populace who formed
the assemblies; luxury tainted the men of the old families who
composed the Senate. The nobles regarded the state as their property
and so divided among themselves the functions of the state and
intrigued to exclude the rest of the citizens from them. When Cicero
was elected magistrate, he was for thirty years the first "new man" to
enter the succession of offices.
Accustomed to exercise power, some of the senators believed themselves
to be above the law. When Scipio was accused of embezzlement, he
refused even to exonerate himself and said at the tribune, "Romans, it
was on this day that I conquered Hannibal and the Carthaginians.
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