Page:Roman Constitutional History, 753-44 B.C..djvu/102

88 assembly (concilium plebis) was liberated from the fetters of senatorial sanction (pp. 83-84), and could alone express the sovereign will of the state.

Character and Influence of the Assemblies. — While their constitutional powers increased; the assemblies began to lose ground in actual influence on the government. This was to be regretted; but it may have been inevitable. When of old the Roman territory comprised a few hundred square miles, and the citizens lived in, or close to, the city, they were able to attend the meetings of the assemblies in full numbers, and could learn the facts and grasp the simple questions of domestic policy and of their relations to neighboring towns. But henceforth, when some three hundred thousand voters were scattered over a large part of the Italian peninsula, the great majority of them could not, under ordinary circumstances, attend the meetings, or obtain sufficient information on public questions, or master the problems in the domestic and foreign policy of Rome, the most powerful state in Western Europe. As a rule, comparatively few attended, and the composition of an assembly depended largely on accident, on the person who had called the meeting, or on the city populace. The Roman statesmen did not in any adequate way try to secure a larger or better attendance. On the contrary, by taking away the most convenient days for the plebeian assembly (p. 84), they had done just the opposite. Moreover, those who did meet were not always able to form an intelligent opinion of the questions at issue, since a magistrate alone could convene an assembly, and he had the right to prevent all debate and all amendments. It became customary for the assemblies to assent to everything proposed; and, so long as the government was harmonious, they neither helped nor hindered the administration. In times of discord they might, however, become very dangerous instruments, since every