Page:The City-State of the Greeks and Romans.djvu/133

IV against such chances by following the general voice of the aristocracy assembled in the Senate. And it was not long before habit had made this practice into a definite constitutional principle, affecting all the magistrates of the Republic, with results of the greatest importance; for it eventually raised the Senate from the position of an advising council to that of a supreme administrative body, whose advice became the utterance of an authority which even the holder of the imperium was morally bound to obey.

Again, it was now laid down by law, according to the universal tradition of the Romans, that the imperium should not be used to put to death any Roman citizen without allowing him that right of appealing from the magistrate to the people, which the king had usually perhaps been willing to allow, but might certainly refuse if he chose. For this purpose, as well as for others to be mentioned hereafter, the convention of the whole number of citizens in their military array (comitia centuriata) was now made to serve as a political assembly, answering yes or no to the question (rogatio) of the presiding magistrate. The consul was now bound by law to allow this appeal, and this was perhaps the only direct legal limitation placed on his imperium. It was a necessary one, if the aristocracy were really to control their executive, or even to secure themselves against it; and as they had a majority of votes in this new form of assembly (to which we shall return later on), their security was practically complete.

The imperium, then, though in theory it remained