The Sulpician legislation attempted to transfer the Mithridatic command from Sulla to Marius and to reshape the political weight of newly enfranchised Italians.
Historical Significance
The laws transformed a dispute over voting and command into a constitutional rupture. They showed that popular legislation, street violence and military command could no longer be separated.
In the Sullan crisis
Sulla treated the transfer of command as political dispossession. His response made the army the final arbiter of a dispute that Roman institutions could not contain.