The burgess-body remained formally sovereign; but so far as its primary assemblies were concerned, while it seemed to the regent necessary carefully to preserve the form, he was still more careful to prevent any real activity on their part.

Sulla dealt even with the franchise itself in the most contemptuous manner; he made no difficulty either in conceding it to the new burgess-communities, or in bestowing it on Spaniards and Celts en masse; in fact, probably not without design, no steps were taken at all for the adjustment of the burgess-roll, which nevertheless after so violent revolutions stood in urgent need of a revision, if the government was still at all in earnest with the legal privileges attaching to it.

The legislative functions of the comitia, however, were not directly restricted; there was no need in fact for doing so, for in consequence of the better- secured initiative of the senate the people could not readily against the will of the government intermeddle with administration, finance, or criminal jurisdiction, and its legislative co-operation was once more reduced in substance to the right of giving assent to alterations of the constitution.
Co-optation Restored in the Priestly Colleges Regulating of the Qualifications for Office Of greater moment was the participation of the burgesses in the elections--a participation, with which they seemed not to be able to dispense without disturbing more than Sulla's superficial restoration could or would disturb.

The interferences of the movement party in the sacerdotal elections were set aside; not only the Domitian law of 650, which transferred the election of the supreme priesthoods generally to the people,( 19) but also the similar older enactments as to the -Pontifex Maximus- and the -Curio Maximus-( 20) were cancelled by Sulla, and the colleges of priests received back the right of self-completion in its original absoluteness.

In the case of elections to the offices of state, the mode hitherto pursued was on the whole retained; except in so far as the new regulation of the military command to be mentioned immediately certainly involved as its consequence a material restriction of the powers of the burgesses, and indeed in some measure transferred the right of bestowing the appointment of generals from the burgesses to the senate.