Page:The history of Rome. Translated with the author's sanction and additions.djvu/106

86 conceptions on which the Roman commonwealth was thenceforth to be based; for, as long as there was a Roman community, in spite of changes of form its settled principles were:—that the magistrate had absolute command; that the council of elders was the highest authority in the state; and that every exceptional resolution required the sanction of the sovereign, or, in other words, of the community of the people.