Page:Roman Constitutional History, 753-44 B.C..djvu/103

Rh resolution of an assembly was, when passed in due form, the ultimate legal expression of the sovereign will of the people.

II. The Magistrates and the Senate.

Powers and Influence of the Magistracy. — It was chiefly the magistrates that had lost what the people gained in regard to elections, cases on appeal, and laws. The weakening of the executive power was in fact one of the most important results of the struggle between the orders. To the original general restrictions of collegiate and annual tenure had been added the rules as to the combination of ordinary curule offices and as to the ten years' interval between two terms in the same office (p. 73). The latter requirement was, however, not strictly enforced as yet. Soon (in 265) the additional regulation was made that no one should fill the censorship a second time.

The Consulship. — Of the individual offices, the consulate had lost the most. At the beginning of the second period it was the only office (magistratus) and conferred in a large measure the old regal powers. It was now one of many, and in some respects not even the first. It had been deprived of a number of its most important functions — the appointment of the quaestors, the census, and the financial administration, civil and police jurisdiction, and the choice of senators and horsemen (equites equo puiblico). Besides, it had suffered greater loss than the formal change in the constitution indicated. Owing to the influence of the senate, the consuls did not always select independently their separate spheres of action (provinciae) by mutual agreement (comparatio) or the drawing of lots (sortitio). They obeyed the senatorial instructions in concluding treaties of peace and alliance, and they even allowed the senate practically