Page:The City-State of the Greeks and Romans.djvu/225

VII a Board of Ten, having almost absolute power, while Consulship and Tribunate were for the time suspended. The position of this board thus resembles that of Solon, and of the Greek arbiter; it is a genuine example of the tendency to have recourse to absolutism in settling internal troubles which were the result of fermentation. But the Romans, with their singular gift for legal definition, and their political conception of collegiate power, placed this new power on a constitutional footing, shared it between ten members, gave it a definite task to do, and called on it to resign when the task was accomplished. The work was so well done that it lasted the Roman State throughout the whole of its political life. But the immediate result of it was to give the plebs, through their tribunes, a real controlling power over the patrician executive, and so to supply exactly that political basis of action which had been wanting so far. At this point it may be said that politics really begin — that is, the reciprocal action of parties and interests in a single State as distinguished from negotiations between two distinct communities. The whole State has now a common code to refer to in all legal difficulties. Consuls and tribunes are now officers of the same State, and the tribunes can take measures, now they know the secrets of