Page:General History of Europe 1921.djvu/178

 122 General History of Europe 186. Growing Body of Government Officials. It gradually became necessary to create new officers for various kinds of business. To take care of the government funds treasury officials called quaestors were appointed. Officials called censors were re- quired to keep lists of the people and to look after their daily con- duct and see that nothing improper was permitted. Our own use of the word "censor" is derived from these Roman officials. For the decision of legal cases judges called praetors were appointed to assist the consuls. In times of great national danger it was customary to appoint some revered and trustworthy leader as the supreme ruler of the State. He was called the Dictator, but he could hold his power for only a brief period. 187. The Senate and the Struggle of Plebs and Patricians. The consuls had great power and influence in all government mat- ters, but they were much influenced by a council of patricians called the Senate (from Latin, senex, meaning "old man"). The patricians enjoyed the exclusive right to serve as consuls, to sit in the Senate, and .to hold almost all the offices created to carry on the business of government. The struggle of the common people to win their rights from the wealthy and powerful therefore continued. It was a struggle like that which we have followed in Athens and the other Greek states, but at Rome it reached a much wiser and more successful settlement. The citizens of Rome insisted upon having their rights, and without civil war or bloodshed they secured them, to a large extent, in the course of the first two centuries after the founding of the Republic. 188. The Twelve Tables; Control of Legislation by the People. About fifty years after the establishment of the Republic the earliest Roman laws were put in writing and engraved upon twelve tablets of bronze (450 B.C.). But at the same time the people demanded the right to share in the making of new laws. The plebs succeeded in shaking off the legal power of the Senate to control their action, and the assemblies of the people be- came the lawmaking bodies of the Roman State. In this way they gradually secured a fairer share of the public lands. Most