person of the tribune was sacred, he or his helpers could rescue an arrested person out of the consul's hands, and thus protection was afforded to this order on the principle of one power in the state counteracting another. From this beginning, the tribunitian office grew in importance and efficiency until, although without imperium, it became equiponderant with that of consul; and the subsequent history of Rome turns very much on the contests in which tribunes are on one side principal actors. And this, too, was the case after the old distinctions as to the political rights of the two orders had become obliterated. The plebs had ere long, if enjoying the right of suffrage, two assemblies in which they could exercise it, the comitia of the centuries and that of the tribes. The patricians met with them in the first, on the common ground, and had their own assembly, that of the curia, besides. But this, in the course of years, became an unimportant, antiquated body, where no political rights were lodged, and only certain forms and usages required its existence.

The appointment of tribunes both parties seem to have regarded as involving the existence of two kinds of persons in the state; and it really perpetuated that political duality out of which it grew, more than any other measure in Roman history. The tribunes, when united, could hinder any measure, block the wheels of the senate, and procure the passage

following persons, etc." He then gives the names of five, and the sacral oath. So in ix., 41, he says that Publilius Volero (who is called Publius in the present text), got a law to be passed concerning the tribunitian elections, to transfer them from the φρατριακή ψηφοφορία, which the Romans call the curiata, to that of the tribes. So also x., 4.

And Livy says, ii., 58 (282 A. U. c.), tributis comitiis creati tribuni sunt. Wachsmuth, Huschke, Mommsen (u. s., i., 361, trans.), accept this view, which in itself is extremely improbable. Schwegler, Röm. Gesch., ii., 543 seq., L. Lange, Röm. Alt., i., 440, ed i., reject it as a historical blunder. Niebuhr, Walter, Arnold, hist. of Rome, i., 148, note 34, think that the curia confirmed the choice. See the references in Schwegler. Rein in Pauly's Real-Encycl., vi., 2114, dissents from this. Bekker tries to show that the choice took place in the comitia centuriata (Handb., ii., 2, 253-259), and Lange agrees with him.

of plebiscites, which by and by gained the force of laws binding on all citizens. But, as one could stay the proceedings of the rest, it was not difficult to cause disunion among them by influences of one kind or another. They appear in all the dissensions of Rome, and especially in the later times of the republican state, when they are found generally opposing the interests of the optimates and the senate-the tribune Octavius, who opposed his colleague C. Gracchus, being one of the exceptions-and they contributed more than any other magistrates to the downfall of the republic. With all this they did much good. The tribunate had its use, says Mommsen (u. s., i., 359), in pointing out legitimate paths of opposition, and averting many a wrong; but it is equally evident that, where it did prove useful, it was employed for very different objects from those for which it had been established. “The bold experiment of allowing the leaders of the opposition a constitutional veto, and of vesting them with a right to assert it regardless of consequences, proved to be an expedient by which the state was politically unhinged; and social evils were prolonged by useless palliatives." And again, "this singular magistracy presented to the commons an obvious and available aid, and yet could not possibly carry out the necessary economic reforms [those relating to the bad taxation, the system of credit and the occupation of the domain-lands by the upper classes]. It was no proof of political wisdom, but a wretched compromise between the wealthy aristocracy and the leaderless multitude." (u. s., i., 358.)

The years following the establishment of the tribunate were filled with violence, one of the worst instances of which was the murder of the tribune Genucius in 281 A. U. C., just before his impeachment of two ex-consuls was to be tried. This had, it would seem, the usual effect of political crimes-it benefited the other party; for in 283 U. C., a law of Publilius Volero was proposed, by which the plebeian assemblies of the tribes (the comitia tributa) were first introduced, and was carried; at the same time, it is probable that

plebiscites, if approved by the senate, were to have equal validity with laws passed in the comitia centuriata. (Mommsen, i., 361.)

A few years later, in 292, one of the tribunes, with the ob-l ject, it would seem, of lessening the consul's imperium in judicial matters, proposed a revision of the laws, so that a fixed form should be given to them and arbitrary judgments be prevented. After years of strife this project was carried, and the laws of the twelve tables were compiled. The aristocracy during the strife endeavored to pacify the minds of the opposite party by several concessions, namely, that the number of tribunes should be raised from five to ten (297 U. C.), so that two should be elected from each class; that the part of the Aventine mount which had been public land, should be assigned to poorer plebeian citizens for building purposes (298 U. C.); and that the power of imposing fines, which had been without limits exercised by the consuls, should be restricted (300 U. C.) This was a great relief, as fixing a maximum of fines, as giving the power to all the magistrates of imposing them and thus disconnecting them with the consul's imperium, and probably as allowing appeal from the magistrates' decision.*

The commission for making a code was not carried in the way in which the plebeians desired. They wished a share in the codification, but the other party would not consent, on the pretext that it was necessary to clothe the commission with the imperium, since alterations in the constitution could be brought to pass according to usage only by persons invested with that power; while plebeians could have no imperium granted to them, both for political and for religious reasons. The commissioners for preparing the code, ten in number, were invested with consular imperium, and thus superseded the existing chief magistrates, although it is not made out that this regime was meant to be lasting. The decemvirs not having finished their work, a new set were ap

*See L. Lange, Röm. Alt., i., § 72.

pointed, among whom, besides a part of the old ones, some new men from the plebeian order appear. Within the board a plan of securing oligarchical power seems to have been cherished, and the leading decemvir allowed himself, according to the story, to commit great atrocities, which led the plebs to make another secession. By a combination of patriotic men of both parties, the decemviral power was overthrown, the old magistrates, including the consuls and tribunes, were restored, and the law proposed by the consuls Valerius and Horatius (the lex Valeria Horatia) not only repeated the old Valerian law, allowing appeal from a judicial sentence to death or stripes, but enacted also that quod tributim populus jussisset populum teneret (Livy, iii., 55), that laws passed in the comitia tributa should be binding on the patricians as well as on the other order. To these another law, repeating in substance the old Valerian law against tyrants, was added, that no magistrate from whose sentences there could be no appeal should be created; that any person who had procured the creation of such a magistrate might be killed without breach of law or of religious obligation; and that such killing should not be held to be a capital crime. (Livy, u. s.)

The law of the twelve tables contained very little of a political nature which had not been regarded as law before, and thus did not essentially change the relations of the orders. The contests, therefore, necessarily were renewed. In 309, U. C., the tribune Canuleius struck at one of the main causes of separation between the orders, by a law which made marriage legitimate between a patrician and a plebeian. In the same year a proposition was made that one of the consuls might be selected from a plebeian family. The first of these was aided, no doubt, by social good feeling between patricians and wealthy citizens of the other order. It is likely, also, that marriages had taken place between the orders, although the child of a plebeian mother followed her in her rank. Both propositions were opposed on religious pretexts. If the blood was mixed, the auspices would be impure. If, on the other hand, marriage were to be free without affecting

civil status, the child of a plebeian father or mother might be created consul without offence against religion. The social feeling respecting intermarriage, in which the rich plebeian alone could have had a great interest, enabled them to carry. their point. The other must have soon followed, but for a proposal that met with success, that military tribunes with consular imperium should be the chief magistrates in the place of consuls. This may be regarded, perhaps, as a compromise between the parties, for members of either could fill this post of military tribune in the army. But-what shows that the concession was wrung from the patrician party-everything about this magistracy was left at loose ends; the senate was to make a decision every year whether the chief magistrates should be tribunes with consular power, or consuls. The former had this to recommend it, that the exigencies of war might require the presence of both consuls in the field, and the military tribunes-three, afterwards six in number, then six for each legion-had been officers of the army from the oldest time. Yet the grant of imperium to them, as they might be plebeians, was a giving up of the patrician point, as far as the non-military imperium was concerned. But they had no right of triumph, and in some other respects stood below the consuls in dignity.

The office of consular tribunes continued from 310 to 387, U. C., with some interruptions of years when consuls were appointed. Of these years two-and-twenty had consuls, and fifty-one military tribunes for the chief magistrates. The greater part of the time patricians won the elections, which seems to show that the poorer plebeians cared little about rewarding the wealthier men of their order with places; to them the disability was of little value.

Early in this period (prob. in 311, U. C., or in 319), the patricians managed, by separating from the consulship the function of holding the census, to constitute a new, very im

*Comp. L. Lange, 1, § 76, Mommsen, Hist., i., 374, Staats., ii., 1, 165-175, for the consular tribunes.