The Historians' History of the World 05

This constitution was not formulated from the first in any general and fundamental law (any more than the older system had been), nor was it determinately fixed by such a law at any subsequent period, while, by means of particular statutes, some more or less important innovations were by degrees adopted as supplementary to the organisation handed down from primitive times and to the traditional code. Many things were gradually and silently modified by the mere force of altered circumstances. The will of the people was the foundation of all law and all authority in the state, and every man who enjoyed the full rights of citizenship contributed directly, by his vote in the legislative and elective assemblies, to the expression of the popular will; though with varying degrees of influence in individual cases and within the limits of set form and inherited opinion.

The freedom of republican Rome presupposed the existence of a servile population to do the most menial work, a population from which in earlier times the burgher class received only a small accession, invariably unwelcome and regarded with contempt in the first generation of citizenship. At the same time, the ancient usages mos majorum were held by the freemen in high honour, enhanced by a kind of religious reverence, as having come into being by the favour and help of the gods, and having continued to exist under their constant control and in virtue of their intervention (religio).

Among these ancient usages was the classification of burghers according to their wealth and economic independence or their poverty and precarious means of subsistence; a classification which found expression in early times in class divisions and in the application of the same standard to the citizen army, and was even more strikingly manifested in the exclusive employment of wealthy burghers for the special duties of cavalry, with its complement, the formation of an order of knighthood, on the basis of which there arose another class numerically small and a governing body of citizens, to wit, the senate. The majesty of the people (maiestas populi) was recognised by the highest executive power (by the lowering of the symbols of consular authority, fasces submissi, traced back by tradition to Valerius Publicola in the first year of the consulate) and from the people all authority in the state was derived; nemo potestatem habet nisi a populo (Cic. de Leg. Agr. II, 11). In them was vested the right of enacting laws and the right of making war or peace (Polyb. VI, 14); by the popular election of the magistrates they also indirectly determined the composition of the senate and they originally exercised the highest jurisdiction. But their effective action in popular assemblies was dependent on the initiative of the magistrates, which in turn was partly under the control of the senate.

This body (which consisted of life members, and was consequently subject only to gradual change by the infusion of fresh blood, and which maintained its honourable character by the expulsion of unworthy members), as the centre of rule and administration, preserved continuity and balance in the policy of the state by means of special regulations and injunctions set forth within the bounds permitted by express law and ancient custom; but the senate itself could not transact business or pass resolutions except under the presidency and direction of competent magistrates. Moreover, the execution of all decrees and the maintenance of law and order were (like the initiative in legislation and the superintendence of the transactions of the council) in the hands of two or more co-ordinate magistrates elected annually. But these magistrates were chosen solely from among the economically independent burgesses, regard being had to age and to promotion through a fixed course of preliminary steps—requirements which were enforced with more minuteness and exactitude as time went on. From the consulate, that is from the two colleagues invested with the highest authority in matters civil and military (imperium), which they wielded at first with but a limited amount of assistance (from the quæstors), the magisterial authority was gradually split up among a series of officials armed with special powers (potestas) for special functions and departments of the public service. The citizens obeyed the orders of these magistrates with strict subordination and discipline, especially in time of war.