VI. BOOK popular assemblies sank to mere formalities, and became a tool in the hands of the ruling class. This change besides being inevitable was also fortunate for Rome. The management of public affairs remained in the firm hands of those men who possessed the requisite knowledge and experience; and at the same time the sovereignty of the people, which continued to exist by law, formed a barrier against arbitrary encroachments on the part of the aristocracy. But it was this continued nominal sovereignty of the people which contained a latent danger for the government of the aristocracy and the continuance of the republic. If the popular assemblies should ever come to be applied, not in the service of the aristocracy, but in the interest of ambitious demagogues against the will and against the policy of the nobles, a conflict was sure to arise between formal right and existing usage, a conflict which would necessarily lead to a revolution, and to the remodelling of the forms of public law. This process fills up the period from the Gracchi till the time when the Roman state was established on a new foundation, when a single ruler as the representative of the whole population took the place of the sovereign assembly of the people. But up to this time the undisputed rule in Rome belonged to the senate, that body to which its development and glory are principally due. The comitia and the We should have a very mistaken and inadequate conception of the share taken by the people in the governcontiones. ment of Rome, if we looked upon it as being limited to the formal decrees of the comitia by which laws (leges and plebiscita), elections1 and administrative measures were resolved upon. The direct influence of the comitia must It is strange that the Romans had no technical term for 'election,' though it would have been easy to form a verbal substantive from the words creare, facere, or eligere, to be used for this purpose. This is an illustration of the poverty of the Latin language in the domain of public law, which is the cause of so much uncertainty and so many conjectures as to the precise meaning of patres, populus, quæstor, lex, concilium, and other terms. The wonderful fertility of the Greek language in this respect forms a marked contrast to the Latin. I. have been of limited extent for this reason, that they CHAP. were called upon merely to answer yes or no to questions formally laid before them. The people would have had no influence on the form in which these questions were put, had they not had a special organ for the purpose, an organ in some way corresponding to the public press of our day and the right of meeting and forming associations for political objects. Such associations were always regarded with distrust by the Romans, who suspected in them conspiracy and treason. Their place was taken by a kind of assemblies of the people, less formal than the comitia, called contiones,' in which no binding resolutions could be passed, but public questions could be freely discussed. It is true that even these contiones' were far from being altogether exempt from restricting formalities. They could not be called together by anybody except the magistrates, neither had every man the liberty of speaking in them, of making proposals or of declaring his opinion, but only the magistrates who had assembled them or those to whom the magistrates granted the permission to do so; but even in this limited manner public questions could be discussed and the people could be enlightened on the purport and the bearings of the questions laid before them for final decision in the comitia. of the The custom of discussing public questions in the Increasing 'contiones' became general after the comitia of tribes influence had obtained full legislative competency, and it was espe- contiones. cially the tribunes of the people who made use of them. It was in the contiones' that the policy of the ruling aristocracy was explained and made palatable to the mass of the people, who were then persuaded that they gave their legislative decisions with perfect freedom and after due consideration. As long as perfect harmony prevailed in the ranks of the nobility, the contiones' were no obstacle to the undisturbed aristocratic government. But a change necessarily took place when this harmony was disturbed, when demagogues appeared and endeavoured to engage public opinion for their reformatory BOOK projects. The first attempts were successfully made, between the first and second Punic wars, by Caius Flaminius. Soon after that time the common distress of the Hannibalic war drowned the voice of the public orators, and the success of the wars of conquest which followed down to the overthrow of Carthage prevented the growth of popular opposition to the traditional aristocratic rule. But when the Gracchi had once sounded the note of democratic opposition, it was found that the 'contiones' were a powerful instrument to work upon the people for good and for evil. It was now no longer possible to put out of sight the danger involved for the existing order of things in the fact that the mass of the people, who had so long allowed themselves to be guided by the will of others, possessed the constitutional right of controlling the state regardless of other powers, whenever the desire to do so should be roused in them by able leaders. 1 Vol. ii. p. 126. CHAPTER II. THE SENATE. CHAP. diate II. ACCORDING to the Roman theory of public law, the people and the magistrates shared between them the power of the state. The people were the source from which the Intermemagistrates derived their authority. In strict law these position of two component parts of the commonwealth were in them- the senate. selves sufficient to discharge all public duties and required. no aid or direction from any third power. Nevertheless, it had appeared desirable from the very beginning to support the magistrates and the people in two directions— firstly, by bringing the action of the people as well as of the magistrates into harmony with the will of the gods; and, secondly, by giving due influence to the collective experience and wisdom of a body of men placed between the magistrates on the one side and the people on the other. Whilst the Roman law never suffered the representatives of religion to hold an independent position in which they might oppose the will of the state or exercise a controlling influence upon political life, like the Church in Christian communities, the Roman senate or council of elders gradually became a power in the state which, without possessing the formal right of government, obtained the actual direction of public affairs and made both magistrates and people subservient to its will. Causes tending to increase the power of the The natural consequence of the growth of the republic in power and extent was that the influence of the senate also was extended and increased. The division of the supreme executive authority first among two, then among senate. a greater number of magistrates; the short duration of their time of office and the frequent changes of the ad BOOK Informal authority of the senate. ministration resulting therefrom; the multiplicity of the three kinds of popular assemblies, the comitia of curies, of centuries, and of tribes; but above all the rise and development of the power of the tribunes, who were specially destined for opposition and control, made it absolutely necessary to have a constitutional organ in which the many threads of public life could be joined as it were in one knot, and prevented from falling asunder or becoming entangled. This organ was supplied by the senate, which in course of time attained to a degree of excellence unequalled in any other nation of antiquity, and which contributed more than any other part of the Roman constitution to raise the state to its high and powerful position. The senate was in truth the soul of the Roman body politic; and at all times the fortunes of the community depended upon the healthy condition and the civic virtues and wisdom possessed by this assembly. An intimate acquaintance with the composition and functions of the senate is therefore necessary if we would understand the history of the Roman people. The senate was originally in the state exactly what a family council was to the head of a household, and what a council of war was in the field-namely, an assembly, not to control or restrain, but to assist by its advice the person who called it together. There was no absolute necessity for the political magistrates to consult such a council, any more than such a necessity was laid on the father of a family or the chief of an army. But it was contrary to the general custom, and it was looked upon as a mark of arbitrary dealing, when such a council was not 1 Cicero calls it (De Harusp. resp. 27) 'principem salutis mentisque publicæ.' The same writer says (Pro Sest. 65): Senatum rei publicæ custodem, præsidem, propugnatorem collocaverunt [maiores]; huius ordinis auctoritate uti magistratus et quasi ministros gravissimi consilii esse voluerunt; senatum autem ipsum proximorum ordinum splendore confirmari, plebis libertatem et commoda tueri atque augere voluerunt. De Orat. i. 52: Cui [senatui] populus ipse moderandi et regendi sui potestatem quasi quasdam habenas tradidisset. The senate-house Cicero calls (Pro Mil. 33): Templum sanctitatis, caput urbis, aram sociorum, portum omnium gentium. Cf. Cic. Pro Dom. 28; Dionys. vi. 66. |