Page:Roman Constitutional History, 753-44 B.C..djvu/141

Rh of 218, and later called Africanus, was not a magistrate at the time of his election, and had been only an aedile, — the first instance of such an irregular promotion. From 207 on, another popular assembly (the comitia trihuta) chose twenty-four military tribunes in place of sixteen — an arrangement which, in its permanent effect, introduced politics into military affairs and tended to demoralize the army.

In 212 the people, or rather seventeen districts chosen by lot from the thirty-five, elected one of the pontiffs chief pontiff (pontifex maximus), and may have done so on earlier occasions. Further, in 209 one of the directors (curiones) was in the same way chosen general director of the curies (curio maximus). For the first time the man selected was a plebeian — a fact which tends to prove that by this time, at least, the plebeians were full members of the curies and the assembly of curies (p. 35).

Finally, the people authorized the senate to decide the fate of the Campanians, who had rebelled and then been subdued, and sanctioned the farming of the revenue from the Campanian region (p. 131).

Minor Political Conflicts. — Amidst the general harmony, minor disagreements naturally occurred. For instance, Marcus Marcellus was elected consul in 215, but was compelled to resign, nominally because of a defective election — in reality because there would have been two plebeian consuls, if he had not withdrawn. Marcus Livius Salinator, who had been condemned on account of embezzlement, was reëlected to the consulship through the influence of the nobility. In 204 he was censor, and together with his colleague greatly diminished the popular regard for this office. Still, when these censors were prosecuted by a tribune, they were stoutly defended by the nobility, who well understood that the moral jurisdiction of the censors would perish, if they were not practically irresponsible in its exercise.