Page:Roman Constitutional History, 753-44 B.C..djvu/75

Rh public, — privileges which later constituted practically a patent of nobility (jus imaginum), — a consular tribune acquired no such distinction for his descendants.

Patrician Politics. — As a reason for the new arrangement, the patricians urged that the numerous wars made a greater number of commanders-in-chief necessary. In reality they intended to withhold in practice what they granted in theory. For this reason the senate alone was given authority to decide each year whether consuls or consular tribunes were to be elected. In this way the struggle was renewed every year, and the patricians annoyed and discouraged their opponents. Even if they were defeated in the preliminary contest in the senate, they were usually able to fill all the places, varying the number of tribunes to be chosen according to their opportunities. If too many plebeians were chosen, the election might be annulled by the patrician senators, or, especially later, by the declaration of a college of aristocratic priests that the religious requirements had not been met.

The Censorship. — In spite of these precautions, the patricians did not feel secure; and, in order to postpone their inevitable political defeat, they broke up the supreme consular power, which had hitherto been in theory indivisible, and in 443 established a new patrician office, the censorship. Two assessors (censores) were to be elected by the assembly of centuries; their election was to be sanctioned also by the centuries (lex centuriata de censoria potestate), not by the assembly of curies. Their term is said to have been five years at first, but was soon limited to eighteen months. As the census was normally to be taken every fourth or, after the second Punic war, every fifth year, there was an interval between the resignation of the last censors and the election of their successors.