Page:The Referendum and the Recall Among the Ancient Romans (Abbott, 1915, hvd.32044080048069).pdf/11

Rh office had to block the action of a magistrate. The other consideration which prevented the Romans for many centuries from accepting the principle which underlies the recall was purely practical. They did not like to interfere with the orderly transaction of public business by removing an executive from office.

Tradition tells us that at the very beginning of the Republic, Brutus removed from office his colleague in the consulship, but no credence can be put in this story. Perhaps the bringing of charges against a magistrate at the end of his term of office may be regarded as the first step which the Romans took toward recognizing the principle of recall. Livy and other ancient writers report several cases of this sort as early as the fifth century We are told, for instance, that Appius, after his stormy career as a decemvir, was charged with misconduct  in office, and that Camillus, the victor at Veii, was indicted in 391  for his unfairness in distributing the spoils of war; but these stories are probably inventions of a much later date. We seem to be on surer ground, however, when we come to the case of Lucius Postumius Megellus, who was tried in 293 for not having confined his operations when consul in the previous year to the province assigned him by the senate. By a trick he escaped condemnation, but, two years later, when he was consul for a third time, having little for his soldiers to do, he employed 2,000 of them on his own lands, and at the expiration of his term of office he was brought to trial and condemned. Publius Claudius Pulcher was the consul who commanded the Roman fleet in a disastrous naval battle with the Carthaginians in 249 off Drepana. Thinking that the chances favored him, he had engaged the enemy, although the auspices were unfavorable. When he returned to Rome he could not be indicted because he had lost the battle; he would not have been indicted if he had won a victory, even if it had been won after the sacred chickens had refused to eat, but he was brought to trial for disregarding the auspices and thereby losing the battle. As a result of the trial he was fined 1,000 for each ship which he lost, 100,000  in all. In 211 Gneius Fulvius, an ex-prætor, was charged with unsoldierly habits,