Shortly after entering upon the office of consul in 70, or at all events before the elections of the year,[2673] Pompey promulgated his rogation for the restoration of the tribunician power. The senate yielded in spite of its dislike for the measure,[2674] and Licinius Crassus, his colleague,[2675] added his name to the proposal.[2676] The people gladly accepted it. Those articles of the Cornelian statute which remained untouched by the Aurelian law of 75 were thereby repealed, and every restriction on the tribunes removed.[2677] By destroying the chief support of the Cornelian constitution this measure paved the way to its overthrow. Notwithstanding the popular clamor for a reform of the courts,[2678] Pompey hesitated to propose a law for that purpose, as he hoped rather to purify the senatorial order through a severe censorial revision so as to make a judiciary law unnecessary. The reform, however, was taken in hand by L. Aurelius Cotta, praetor in the same year, youngest brother of the consul of 75.[2679] The rogation was promulgated while the trial of Verres was in progress and while the people were excited by lack of confidence in the senatorial jurors.[2680] The first project seems to have been the retransfer of the courts to the equites;[2681] but when the senators saw that they were destined to lose in the contest, they were able to save something by compromise. It was agreed that there should be three decuries of jurors, composed in equal numbers of senators, knights, and tribuni aerarii respectively.[2682] The last-named decury was included because the Plautian judiciary law of 89 had opened the courts to common citizens in addition to senators and knights,[2683] and it was now thought that no less liberality should be shown. The Aurelian statute provided accordingly that the urban praetor[2684] should make up the annual album iudicum of an equal number of men from each of the three classes.[2685] The good feature of the law is obvious. As experience had proved the equestrian courts, as well as the senatorial, to be partisan and corrupt, it was hoped that a combination of the two with an equal proportion of the most responsible and respectable common citizens would be just and impartial. If these expectations were not realized, it was the fault of the Romans, not of their law. II. _Democracy in Alliance with Caesarism_ 70-49