SATURNINUS, LUCIUS APPULEIUS

died 100 BC Roman politician who, with Gaius Servilius Glaucia, opposed the Roman Senate from 104 to 100, at first with the cooperation of Gaius Marius. He was quaestor shortly before 104. As tribune in 103 he sought the support of the proletariat in Rome with a law that drastically reduced the price of the monthly grain ration. By other bills he assigned land grants in Africa, which amounted to more than 60 acres per man, to Marius' soldiers discharged after service in the Jugurthine War (111105), and he established the first permanent court to try charges of treason. The two conservative censors of 102 attempted unsuccessfully to expel Saturninus and Glaucia from the Senate. The next year Saturninus was able to win acquittal on a capital charge because he had the backing of the equites, whose support had been won by Glaucia's bill restoring to them the exclusive right of constituting the juries in the permanent courts. In 100 Saturninus was tribune again, Marius consul for the 6th time, and Glaucia praetor. Turmoil surrounded passage of Saturninus' proposals for land allotments in Transalpine Gaul for Marius' soldiers discharged after service in the Cimbric War, and for the establishment of Latin colonies for other veterans in Sicily, Macedonia, and Achaea. Saturninus was elected tribune again for 99, but Marius, now aware of the danger of his extremist policies, broke with him. The consular elections, for which Glaucia's candidacy was disallowed, broke down in disorder, one of the candidates being murdered. Saturninus and Glaucia with their followers seized the Capitoline Hill; the Senate reacted by calling upon Marius to restore order. Saturninus and Glaucia surrendered to Marius, who locked them in the Senate house. Their enemies, tearing off the roof, stoned them to death. Most of Saturninus' radical legislation was rescinded by the Senate after his death. Although surviving accounts of Saturninus derive from hostile sources, it is clear that he lacked the integrity and statesmanship of Gaius Sempronius Gracchus, in whose footsteps he followed.