Page:The Ancient City- A Study on the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome.djvu/248

 242 THE CITY. BOOK in. prayer, the protection of the gods. A consul is some- thing more than a man; he is a mediator between man and the divinity. To liis fortune is attached the pub- lic fortune; be is, as it were, the tutelary genius of the city. The death of a consul is calamitous to the re- public' When the consul Claudius Nero left his army to fly to the succor of his colleague, Livy shows us into how great alarm Rome was thrown for the fate of this army ; this was because, deprived of its chief, the army was at the same time deprived of its celestial protection; with the consul, the auspices have gone — that is to say, religion and the gods. The other Roman magistracies, which were, in a certain sense, members successively detached from the sonsulship, like that oflSce, united sacerdotal and politi- cal attributes. We have seen the censor, on certain days, with a crown upon his head, oflfeiing a sacrifice in the name of the city, and striking down a victim with bis own hand. The pretors and the curule ediles pre- sided at religious festivals.* There was no magistrate who had not some sacred act to perform ; for, in the minds of the ancients, all authority ought to have some connection with religion. The tribunes of the people were the only ones who had no sacrifice to oflTer; but they were not counted among the real magistrates. We shall see, farther along, that their authority was of an entirely exceptional nature. The sacerdotal character belonging to the magis- trate is shown, above all, in the manner of his election. In the eyes of the ancients the votes of men were not sufficient to establish the ruler of a city. So long as » Livy, XXVI r. 40. « Varro, L. L. VI. 54. Athenajus, XIV. 79.