Page:A history and description of Roman political institutions (IA historyanddescri00abbo).pdf/25

Rh knowledge of the form which an ancient institution had taken in their own day. So, for instance, historians and antiquarians of the first century may have been led by their knowledge of the constitutional character of the consulship to assume erroneously that certain corresponding constitutional restrictions were put on the power of the king. It is evident that in using the third source of information, that is, in reconstructing the political institions of the regal period from our knowledge of the forms which they had taken in republican times, we must make due allowance for development or decay, and must not be guilty of the same mistake which the Roman antiquarians made. The way in which the nature of the interregnum is determined illustrates the use which may be made of these different sources of information. First of all, the technical term itself indicates the period elapsing between the death, resignation, or dethronement of one kind and the accession of his successor. This general notion is amplified by the traditional account given in more or less detail by Livy, Dionysius, and Cicero of the way in which the affairs of state were conducted after the death of each one of the first four kings; explanatory remarks on the institution have been made by the commentators Asconius and Servius, and these three sources of information have been supplemented by the contemporaneous accounts which Cicero and other writers have left us of the method of procedure during the interregnums of

15. The Senate as the Ultimate Source of Authority. As we have already had occasion to notice (p. 2), in the prehistoric tribal community the control of affairs was largely, if not entirely, vested in the clan elders. On the establishment of the monarchy, the supreme power was transferred to a single individual, to be exercised by him