summoned by a magistrate; it could not command the magistrate to take any course of action. Nor could it necessarily control the assemblies of the people; for the magistrate, when proposing a law, was not legally bound to consult the Senate on the subject. Whoever studies even cursorily the constitution of the Roman Republic will soon find that the magistrate had the sole initiative, and that the ultimate sovereign power lay with the people. How then was it possible that the Senate should become the instrument of the dominating power of a close oligarchy?
The explanation of this strange phenomenon is to be found (1) in the moral force exercised by an assembly of ex-magistrates; (2) in the nature of the business which the Roman government had to transact as the State increased in power and importance; (3) in the character, lacking culture and initiative, of the Roman people itself A few remarks on each of these points must suffice in this chapter; but to understand the problem thoroughly an accurate knowledge is needed not only of the constitution, but of the economy, the literature, and the external history of the Republic.
1. The magistrate, as we have seen (p. 108), was under no legal obligation to obey the decrees of the Senate. But he was morally bound to consult it; for it was a principle of the constitution from the earliest times to the latest, — one of the εἰωθότα νοήματα of the Roman mind, — that one in authority should fortify himself by the advice of a consilium.[1]
- ↑ See above, p. 77.
