Page:Cicero And The Fall Of The Roman Republic.djvu/43

Rh the constitutional control into the hands of the permanent advising board, the Senate of Nobles. Constitutional usage obliged the magistrate to employ his power of initiative only in accordance with the advice of the Senate; if he declined to do so, his action was at once paralysed by the veto, and he must either submit or else incur the guilt and danger of an actual breach of the law. Thus, so long as a single tribune remained loyal, the Senate would govern Rome in peace.

The whole constitutional fabric rested on the absolute sanctity of the veto. In the controversies of the Gracchi and their successors with the Senate, this ultimate safeguard of the constitution was violated and so the Revolution began. But while they impaired the oligarchical constitution, the democrats failed in all efforts to set up a new one in its place. Notwithstanding its formally recognised sovereignty, the Assembly was too uncertain and too little representative of the whole people to be able either to check its leaders or to give them any effective support in the hour of danger. The demagogues were for the moment irresponsible despots in the midst of a dependent crowd, and for that very reason they had no reserve force of organised public opinion on which to fall back. The democracy in its impotence turned to a military chief, and attained by this evil alliance a brief supremacy under the leadership of Marius and of his successor Cinna.