CHAPTER I
Change of the Constitution - Limitation of the Power of the Magistrate
2. The well-known fable for the most part refutes itself. To a considerable extent it has been concocted for the explanation of surnames (Brutus, Poplicola, Scaevola). But even its apparently historical ingredients are found on closer examination to have been invented. Of this character is the statement that Brutus was captain of the horsemen (tribunus celerum) and in that capacity proposed the decree of the people as to the banishment of the Tarquins; for, according to the Roman constitution, it is quite impossible that a mere officer should have had the right to convoke the curies. The whole of this statement has evidently been invented with the view of furnishing a legal basis for the Roman republic; and very ill invented it is, for in its case the tribunus celerum is confounded with the entirely different magister equitum (V. Burdens Of The Burgesses f.), and then the right of convoking the centuries which pertained to the latter by virtue of his praetorian rank is made to apply to the assembly of the curies.
3. Consules are those who 'leap or dance together,' as praesul is one who 'leaps before,' exsul, one who 'leaps out' (o ekpeson), insula, a 'leap into,' primarily applied to a mass of rock fallen into the sea.
4. The day of entering on office did not coincide with the beginning of the year (1st March), and was not at all fixed. The day of retiring was regulated by it, except when a consul was elected expressly in room of one who had dropped out (consul suffectus); in which case the substitute succeeded to the rights and consequently to the term of him whom he replaced. But these supplementary consuls in the earlier period only occurred when merely one of the consuls had dropped out: pairs of supplementary consuls are not found until the later ages of the republic. Ordinarily, therefore, the official year of a consul consisted of unequal portions of two civil years.
7. I. V. Prerogatives of the Senate
10. I. VI. Dependents and Guests
11. I. VI. Political Effects of the Servian Military Organization
12. I. V. The Senate as State Council
13. I. V. Prerogatives of the Senate
14. That the first consuls admitted to the senate 164 plebeians, is hardly to be regarded as a historical fact, but rather as a proof that the later Roman archaeologists were unable to point out more than 136 gentes of the Roman nobility (Rom, Forsch. i. 121).
15. It may not be superfluous to remark, that the iudicium legitimum, as well as that quod imperio continetur, rested on the imperium of the directing magistrate, and the distinction only consisted in the circumstance that the imperium was in the former case limited by the lex, while in the latter it was free.
16. II. I. Restrictions on the Delegation of Powers
