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 power of pardon. It is sometimes regarded as a signal attribute of sovereignty, but somewhat improperly, since the power of rescinding sentences or of ordering a new trial may reside in a mere executive authority, such as a court of cassation, which possesses none of the other attributes which we usually associate with a sovereign. In the constitution of the Principate it is certainly not regarded as a sovereign right, for the power is limited and, like most of the manifestations of public life, is theoretically divided between the organs of the Republic and the Princeps.

The Senate possessed no general power of pardon beyond the right, inherited from the Republic, of annulling charges and thus releasing people, who are on their trial, on certain public and festal occasions. This right of declaring abolitiones publicae was one expression of its right of amnesty. But the Senate had besides, as a high court, the right of rescinding its own former sentences (in integrum restitutio). It might also be occasionally consulted by the Princeps on the advisability of his rescinding the sentences of the imperial courts—those, as a rule, which had been pronounced by former Emperors. But such consultation was not a right of the Senate, but merely a concession of the Emperor.

The Emperor, in his relation to the courts of Rome, possessed the full power of restitutio only over his own sentences and those of his predecessors in office. He had no right of interference in the way of restitutio with the judgments of the Senate, for the power which he possessed, of preventing the reception of the charge or the execution of the judgment, was merely a