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. 43 CHAPTER II. THE SENATE. diate II. ACCORDING to the Roman theory of public law, the people CHAP. 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. 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 a greater number of magistrates; the short duration of their time of office and the frequent changes of the ad Causes tending to increase the power of the senate. BOOK VI. 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. 1 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. II. consulted, or when its voice was disregarded. The weight of CHAP. responsibility naturally rested more heavily upon the public official if he took it entirely upon his own shoulders instead of distributing it over a greater number. Hence we see that with the annual changes of magistrates established by the republic, and the responsibility which was now imposed upon them, the influence of the senate necessarily increased and continued to increase. The kings of the pre-republican period, being appointed for life, might consult the council of elders according to their will and inclination, and could accept or disregard their council's advice; but the republican magistrate after the expiration of his year of office became a simple citizen confronted by a body of his equals, who were evidently not inclined to allow any one of their number to hold arbitrary sway, and who possessed the means of chastising him for any abuse of power. The senate contained the sum total of political experience and personal authority, which distinguished from the mass of the people men eminent by birth or wealth. It was a body which was always being renewed, so that it appeared to remain ever young and immortal, like the nation itself. An uninterrupted tradition of political doctrines and principles, continually increased and enriched by new experience, naturally gained for this body the authority of an authentic source of legal lore at a time when there were no books or easily accessible records of constitutional law and of the rules of practice. Thus all circumstances combined to confer upon the senate the management of public affairs, and to make it, in spite of the absence of formal right, the actual ruler of the state.' Though the power of the senate began to grow with the establishment of the republic, yet the full development of this power dates from the time when the Roman dominion extended beyond Latium to the whole of Italy, The Cabinet Council or Ministry of the modern constitutional monarchy holds an analogous position. Though, as such, unknown to the law, and nominally only entrusted with the privilege of advising the Crown, it carries on the actual government and is primarily responsible for it. Political the senate. services of BOOK The senate and the magis trates. and to territories across the sea. In the older time, before the great increase of the Roman dominion took place, the difference was not very considerable between a simple citizen and a member of the council. The questions of internal policy and the relations with immediate neighbours were not then of a complicated nature. Upon a proposal of the magistrates, the citizens could easily decide whether a truce was to be concluded with Tarquinii, whether a war was to be undertaken against the Æqui, or a colony to be sent to Labici. But when in the time of the Samnite wars the political relations of Rome extended to the whole of central Italy; when the Greek towns on the Tarentine gulf, when the foreign powers in Greece and Sicily, when at length Carthage and the distant east and west were drawn within the range of Roman politics; when the state conquered provinces, and entered into alliances with foreign potentates, like king Hiero of Syracuse; when Rome through her political power acquired untold riches, and, in her position as the leading state of the ancient world, was obliged to deal with questions which could not be decided by the Yes or No of the sovereign population of the city, then it was the senate which alone proved equal to the task, and through which it became possible to adapt, however imperfectly, the ancient town constitution of Rome to entirely new circumstances. It was not the efficiency of the magistrates nor the perseverance of the people, but the wisdom of the senate, which, in conjunction with the military organisation and the bravery of the Roman legions, created the Roman empire. In this great process of the world's history, the people and the magistrates were but tools-and often very imperfect tools-in the hands of the genius of Rome represented by the senate. The active part which the senate took in the government, and which it played with almost unlimited freedom of will, was, therefore, at bottom a usurpation, but one that was forced upon it by the development of the Roman state, and which was justified, not only by the re |