Page:Roman Constitutional History, 753-44 B.C..djvu/88

74 Consequently, when Quintus Publilius Philo had been appointed dictator in 339, he seized the favorable moment and carried three laws, relating to plebiscites, the patrician right of sanction, and the censorship.

It was again established by law that the plebiscites should be legally binding on all citizens (cf. p. 57). Probably other provisions, now entirely lost, increased the efficiency or the powers of the plebeian assembly. The law was no doubt intended to gain popular support and to serve the purpose of the plebeian aristocrats, who turned the plebeian organization into an instrument of their own.

Law respecting the Sanction of Patrician Senators. — The second law decreed that the patrician senators should sanction (or reject) a bill before it was voted on in the centuriate assembly — not after its passage, as was the old custom (cf. pp. 14, 33). Just as it is easier nowadays to reintroduce a bill in the American congress than to pass it over the president's veto, so it was easier then to renew a bill (rogatio) that had been rejected before passing the assembly, than one rejected after its passage. On the other hand, it was also less objectionable to veto a bill before than after its passage by the centuries. It is probable, therefore, that the patrician senators were restricted in some way in the exercise of their power. At all events the change seems to have proved effectual; and, partly because of a change of circumstances, this patrician right of sanctioning laws (patrum auctoritas) was henceforth a matter of form.

Law in Regard to the Censorship. — The third law declared that one censor must, and probably that both might, be plebeians. It insured fair treatment of the plebeians in the enrollment and assessment of citizens, later also in the choice of senators; and it was an important political victory.