From the Gracchi to Nero: A History of Rome from 133 B.C. to A.D. 68 by H. H. Scullard Page B

this and his profit from collecting the taxes, only rich Equites would have sufficient capital to accept the contract. The proposal was in line with previous Roman policy, by which private individuals had been utilized in order to avoid creating a professional body of financial officials. But the measure, while helping to protect provincials from rapacious governors, gave the Equites more than a chance for further wealth: those who gained the contracts could not be prosecuted for extortion (a crime which only senators could commit), while any governor who tried to check them could, on some trumped-up charge, be brought before the
quaestio perpetua de repetundis,
the court in Rome that tried provincial governors on charges of extortion. And here, after Gaius’ second law in favour of the Equites, the jury would consist of members of that Order.
    At first Gaius had probably mooted the idea of adding some 300 members of the equestrian order to the Senate and leaving the court in the hands of this enlarged Senate, but the suggestion was not accepted. Later, perhaps after the counter-attack by Drusus when the gulf between Gaius and the Senate had widened (p. 30), he sponsored a measure, which was moved probably by Acilius, to transfer the court from the Senate to the Equites. 31 This had very far-reaching political effects. It gave the Equites influence over senatorial provincial governors (this would have been avoided, if his first scheme had been accepted). However, if trust can be placed in Cicero’s statement that the equestrian juries for some time did not succumb to the temptations that were open to them, Gracchus’ measure may be regarded as good in so far as it gave the equestrian order a position in the State more consonant with its importance,but bad in so far as it antagonized relations between it and the Senate and made control of the lawcourts a bone of contention for the next fifty years.
    Gracchus also carried a measure ‘ne quis iudicio circumveniatur’. This has generally been regarded as a law against judicial corruption, making bribery of jurors a criminal offence and applying only to senators and not to Equites because it was passed before the court was transferred to the latter. But alternative interpretations are more probable. 32
    Another measure compelled the Senate, which decided to which provinces consuls should be sent (normally after their year of office in Rome), to fix the provinces before the consuls were elected instead of during their consulships. Thus the Senate could less easily reward its favourites with the best provinces, but since the provinces would now have to be allocated eighteen months in advance, the new arrangement would not make for efficiency. Gracchus may also have established some new dues (
portoria
) in Italian harbours, but, whatever his intentions, he probably did not alter the method of voting in the Comitia Centuriata.
    7.  THE OPPOSITION TO GAIUS GRACCHUS
    During his second tribunate the Senate at last moved to the attack but at first by an indirect method. A tribune, M. Livius Drusus, was put up by the Senate to win over some of Gaius’ supporters by offering a number of attractive proposals designed to show that the Senate also was not unconcerned about reform. He suggested twelve colonies, each to consist of 3000 men with no property qualification; all allotments distributed since 133 were to be relieved of rent; and no Latin was to be liable to scourging, even on military service, a measure which might satisfy the demands of some of the allies and at the same time save the Roman people from sharing their advantages more widely. A commission was set up to implement these
leges Liviae,
but apparently it did little. 33 The fact that the twelve colonies were not founded suggests that Drusus’ purpose was primarily to undermine Gracchus’ position rather than to accomplish genuine economic reform.
    This opposition forced Gaius to more extreme measures. If he had not