Page:The City-State of the Greeks and Romans.djvu/255

VIII And his own natural instinct must have prompted him not only to seek this advice, but to follow it when given; for the Roman, habitually conservative, was only too apt to guide himself by the custom of his ancestors (mos majorum), said, to avoid untrodden paths.

Now consider how this instinct of his would be strengthened by the overwhelming prestige of such a council as the Senate. The consul had before him in the Senate every living man who had already held the consulship, as well as all who had learnt experience in any department of public administration. He was but one among many who were older and more experienced than himself; the duties he was now for the first time learning they had already discharged with credit. If his council of war consisted largely of ex-commanders-in-chief, what general would be able to resist the force of their authority? The united voice of such a body as the Senate, in which was gathered all the wisdom and experience of the State, was not to be defied or even neglected by men of the steady and loyal type which the Roman people preferred at this period to entrust with magisterial power.

Thus it is not hard to see how the consul, though always revered as the impersonation of the majesty of the Roman State, and though he summoned the Senate, presided over it, and technically initiated all its business, should have gradually slipped into the position of the servant of such a council of sages. Even the tribunes, young men often and inexperienced, came to feel the same irresistible authority, and hardly ever ventured in this