127 CHAPTER I. THE FIRST YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC. CHAP. I. ment of the Roman republic. ROMAN tradition is, as we have seen, wholly untrustworthy as to the cause and course of the revolution which brought about the overthrow of the kingly power, and laid the Establishfoundation of the republic. Whatever may have been the nature of these struggles, it cannot be supposed that the republic appeared at once in its perfect form, and that in the very first year the regular consular power was introduced with all its attributes and functions in relation to the senate and citizens. Traces of a less quick and smooth transition have been preserved, especially in the traditions connected with the name of the great legislator P. Valerius Poplicola, from which it appears not unlikely that, after the abolition of the royal dignity, a period of dictatorial government followed, which ended with the dictatorship of Valerius.' At all events the republic seems to have been first regularly established by the Valerian laws, of which, unfortunately, we can discover little more than halfobliterated traces in the oldest traditions of the Romans. According to the story, P. Valerius was chosen as con- The dietasul after the banishment of Tarquinius Collatinus, and torship of Valerius. remained alone in office after the death of his colleague, Brutus, without assembling the people for the election of a second consul. This proceeding excited a suspicion in the minds of the people, that he intended to take sole possession of the state, and to re-establish royal power. But these fears proved groundless. Valerius remained in office with the sole design of introducing a number of laws See the Author's Researches, p. 58 ff; and Schwegler, Röm. Gesch., ii. 86, 92. BOOK The II. Valerian law of annual magistracies. The Valerian law intended to establish the republic on a legal foundation, without the danger of any interference on the part of a colleague. The first of these Valerian laws threatened with the curse of the gods any one who, without the consent of the people, should dare to assume the highest magistracy.' By this law the sovereignty of the people was not only recognised, but an effectual barrier was presented to any attempt to keep an office beyond the period legally fixed for its duration. As the public law did not allow the people to compel a magistrate to resign, and as, therefore, a magistrate once elected could only return into private life by an act of voluntary abdication, it would have depended apparently on his own free will whether his power should last during his lifetime or not, unless by this law the magistrate who, after the legal time, refused to resign an office was marked as a traitor to the state. Against such a one resistance by force was legally sanctioned, and from this time forward, therefore, the regular annual change of republican magistrates was secured, and the restoration of the royal power in Rome was made impossible, unless a usurper was prepared to use force and violence to upset the very basis of the established order. Such an act of violence, however, was not to be expected in Rome, where the magistrates had the command of no military force except the armed citizens, and where each member of the aristocracy was a zealous guardian of republican equality. The second law of Valerius was of equal importance for of appeal. the good order of the republic. It prescribed that in criminal trials, where the life of a citizen was at stake, the sentence of the consul should be subject to an appeal to the general assembly of the people." This Valerian law of appeal was the Roman Habeas Corpus Act. It formed the keystone of the structure of the republic. 1 Dionysius, v. 19. Livy, ii. 8. Plutarch, Poplicola, 11, 12. 2 See Schwegler, Röm. Gesch., ii. 170. It Pomponius (De Origine Juris, 16) lays especial stress on this law, as the chief distinction between the consular authority and the royal power. I. provided a barrier against every illegal stretch of authority CHAP. on the part of the magistrates, and against every act of military tyranny during their legal term of office. With such a guarantee against abuse of judicial authority, the Romans could afford to entrust to their magistrates an extensive jurisdiction, without being obliged, like the Athenians, to have recourse to popular assemblies as ordinary courts of law. consular authority. As an outward sign of the limitation of the official Insignia of power, and as an acknowledgment of the sovereignty of the people, Valerius caused the fasces of the lictors to be lowered before the people. From this time the consuls never displayed the dreaded axes within the town. But in the field, where the consular authority was preserved without limitation, the axes continued to be in the fasces of the lictors, as a symbol of the military power of the consuls. consuls. The Romans found a further protection against the The two abuse of consular authority in the division of the office between two colleagues of equal rank. In this way not only was the re-establishment of the monarchy rendered difficult, but too harsh and severe an exercise of the power which was left to the consuls was also prevented, as in the intercession of one of the two consuls against the decisions of the other there was a certain guarantee against precipitation and injustice. According to the principles of public law in Rome, the intercession of a magistrate had the effect of stopping the execution of any order or sentence pronounced by an official of equal rank. There can be no doubt that the possibility of limiting the power of the consuls by the consuls themselves was the principal if not the only reason for the division of the chief magistracy of the state, which was in many respects so prejudicial. Although the Roman consulship was divided between the two colleagues, and was limited in its duration to one year, yet it conferred very considerable power, and by the insignia of the office, as well as its substantial rights, The power of the consuls. |