as free and absolute as ever, was practically restricted in civil matters — (1) in respect of the time for which it was held, and the relation to each other of the two magistrates who held it; (2) in respect of the relations of these magistrates to the other parts of the nascent constitution, the Senate and the centuriate assembly. But in the sense of a military command it was still free from all limitations save that of the duration of a campaign. The good sense of the Romans retained for their consuls in the field a temporary absolutism as complete as that of the king. They were free from the necessity of consulting the Senate, and they held the power of life and death unhampered by the right of the accused to appeal to the people. Hence arose a distinction between the imperium in the city (domi) and the same imperium in the field (militiæ), which was maintained throughout the life of the Republic, and which must be clearly grasped before the Roman system of government can be understood adequately. It was only when that government passed once more into the hands of a single man that this distinction vanished, and Cæsar and his successors held a single undivided and unrestricted imperium.[1]
Our knowledge of this revolution at Rome rests on no contemporary records, only on the traditions of the Romans and on scraps of learning collected by their antiquaries, sifted and supplemented by the modern "method of survivals." Yet it is the most
- ↑ Mommsen, Staatsrecht, i. 59 foll.; article "Imperium" in Dict. of Antiquities (new edition).
