Page:The City-State of the Greeks and Romans.djvu/248

224 candidate for the consulship, at a time when the power of the nobility had long been waning, he felt the disadvantage of his novitas most keenly. Quintus Cicero, in the short "Handbook of Electioneering" which he drew up for his brother's use, starts with an emphatic warning on this point — "Every day, when you go down to the Forum to canvass, say to yourself these words: I am a new man; I am a candidate for the consulship; and this is Rome." And though Cicero was elected, the unwillingness of the nobility to act with this newcomer as with one of themselves had a permanent and disastrous influence on his declining years.

The overwhelming social prestige of the families already ennobled by State service, giving them a strong moral claim to retain within their own circle the honours and duties of executive government, is the first fact which must be grasped if we are to understand the constitution of this period. But there is another fact still more important and less easy to explain. If we turn again to our authorities — if, for example, we open the third, fourth, or fifth decades of Livy — we shall very soon find that it is not with the executive magistracy that the real conduct of the State resides. The consul is in office for a year only, and during that year he is constantly away from Rome in command of an army. He may initiate a policy, but he cannot secure its permanence; he is liable to be hindered by the voice of his colleague, or by the veto of the tribune of the plebs. He is a functionary without