lative power and the close of the Hannibalic War, there are recorded but eleven Centuriate Laws, and more than thirty which emanated from the Tribes. Even of those eleven, five were measures of compromise, which served to advance the authority of the Tribes. The Centuriate Assembly more and more became a passive instrument in the hands of the Senate. The Tribe Assembly rose more and more to be the real and sole organ of popular opinion.

§ 18. In other matters, the powers of the two Assemblies were more definitely marked and the limits better observed.

In Elections, the Centuriate Assembly always retained the right of choosing the chief Officers of State, the Consuls, the Prætors, and the Censors. The Tribe Assembly, originally, elected only their own Tribunes and the Plebeian Ediles. But in no long time they obtained the right of choosing also the Curule Ædiles, the Quæstors, the great majority of the Legionary Tribunes, and all inferior Officers of State. But as the Centuries were, generally, obliged to elect their Prætors and Consuls out of those who had already been elected Quæstors and Ediles by the Tribes, it is manifest that the elective power of the former was controlled and over-ridden by the latter. In conferring extraordinary commands, such as that of Scipio in Spain, the Tribes were always consulted, not the Centuries.

§ 19. In regard to Jurisdiction, it has before been noticed that Rome was tender of the personal liberties of her citizens. Various Laws of Appeal provided for an open trial before his peers of any one charged with grave offences, such as would subject him to stripes, imprisonment, or death. Now the Centuries alone formed a High Court of Justice for the trial of citizens; the Tribe Assembly never achieved this dangerous privilege. But the peculiar nature of the Tribunician power offered to the chief officers of the Tribes a ready means of interference. They used their right of intercession, occasionally, to prevent any trial from taking place, and thus screened real offenders from justice. But more frequently they acted on the offensive. There was a merciful provision of the law of Rome, by which a person liable to a state-prosecution might Chapt. xi. § 4.

withdraw from Italian soil at any time before his trial, and become the citizen of some allied city, such as Syracuse or Pergamus. But the Tribunes sometimes threw culprits into prison before trial, as in the case of App. Claudius the Decemvir and his father. Or, after a culprit had sought safety in voluntary exile, they proposed a Bill of Outlawry, by which he was "interdicted from fire and water" on Italian soil, and all his goods were confiscated. Offending Magistrates were also fined heavily, without trial, by special Plebiscita, which resembled the Bills of Attainder so familiar to the reader of English history.

These encroachments of the Tribunes were met by other unconstitutional measures on the part of the Senate. To bar the action of the Tribunes and to suspend the Laws of Appeal, they at one time had constant recourse to Dictatorial appointments. Ten years after the nomination of Dictators had been solemnly prohibited by the Valerio-Horatian Laws (449 B.C.), Cincinnatus approved the act of Ahala, who had struck down the popular champion Q. Mælius in the Forum. In the following 237 years the Fasti supply the names of 65 Dictators, of whom no fewer than 37 appear in the 67 years next after the Licinian Laws. Three of these are expressly said to have been named for the purpose of quelling sedition. But it must be remembered that of those appointed for special military service, many employed their power to overawe the Plebeian leaders. It is a complaint constantly put by Livy into the mouths of the Tribunes, that Dictators were appointed nominally to carry on war, but really for a very different purpose; nor indeed is it conceivable that so many emergencies should have occurred requiring the special action of an irresponsible magistrate. But these contests slackened at the time of the Samnite Wars, and for a long season there were no Dictatorships. This arbitrary magistracy was again called into existence, but for real service, in the desperate conflict of the Punic Wars. After that it is not heard of till the time of Sylla.

Sedunda seditionis causâ.

Rei gerendæ causa. The third cause for appointing Dictators was clavi figendi causâ,-to drive a nail into the door-post of the Temple of Jupiter, as a rude way of keeping count of the years.

We shall find, however, that at a later time, in cases of emergency, the Senate assumed the questionable right of investing the Consuls with dictatorial power. And the disputes about jurisdiction over the persons of citizens assumed a new form when the Calpurnian Law, already noticed, transferred the power of trying all grave offences from the Centuries to Juries of the Senate under the presidency of the Prætor.

§ 20. It must not here be forgotten that of late years circumstances had greatly exalted the power of the Senate and proportionally diminished the power of the Tribunes. In great wars, especially such as threaten the existence of a community, the voice of popular leaders is little heard. Reforms are forgotten. Political agitation ceases. Each man applies his energies to avert present danger, rather than to achieve future improvements. During the Samnite Wars, scarcely one Tribunician law is recorded in the Annals: but no sooner is the peril overpast than the Ogulnian Law opens the Augurate to the Plebeians. During the first Punic War, the Forum is silent but no sooner is it ended than we are struck by the appearance of a leader of the Commons, bold, resolute, and accomplished. This was C. Flaminius. In 232 B.C., being Tribune, he proposed an Agrarian Law to distribute the lands taken from the Boians and Insubrians to a large number of Colonists; and notwithstanding the opposition of the Senate, the colonies of Placentia and Cremona were founded. In the memorable year in which Hannibal crossed the Alps, Flaminius was Consul-elect, and under his auspices the Tribune Claudius obliged the Senate to consent to a law by which Senators were prohibited from engaging in commercial pursuits. Nor did the popular spirit evoked by this man die till after the great battle of Cannæ. His own election and that of Terentius Varro were directly contrary to the wishes of the Senate; and the measure by which Fabius was obliged to share his imperial power with Minucius, his Master of the Horse, was a Plebiscitum proposed by a Tribune. Even after Cannæ, the Tribune Oppius forced the Senate to consent to a sumptuary law. But after this, the Senate under the leading of old Fabius Cunctator ruled abso

' By a Decree in the well-known form: "Caveant Consules ne quid detrimenti capiat Respublica."

lutely for several years. Even elections to the Consulate, which he deemed inopportune, were set aside, a thing without precedent in Roman constitutional history. Fabius was at length superseded by young Scipio, who in his turn became absolute, and at the close of the war might have made himself Dictator, had he been so pleased. At present, popular spirit had fallen asleep. Constitutional opposition there was none. The Senate seemed likely to retain in peace the power which war had necessarily thrown into their hands.

CHAPTER XXXVI.

THE PROVINCES AND FINANCES.

§ 1. Provincial and Italian Communities. § 2. Our knowledge chiefly drawn from Sicily. § 3. Condition of the Sicilian Cities after the Second Punic War. § 4. General principles of Provincial Government: similarity of Provincial Towns to Italian. § 5. Difference, chiefly consisting in Taxation: Jus Italicum. § 6. Treasury. § 7. Ordinary Revenues. § 8. Extraordinary Tax on Property levied for war expenses. § 9. Not sufficient for expenses of Second Punic War: Loans, Contracts paid in paper-money: nature of these advances: soon repaid. § 10. The War Tax itself repaid: finally abolished. § 11. How far Italians contributed to war expenses: reasons for their patience. § 12. System of Taxation and Tax-gathering in the Provinces. § 13. Corrupt administration of Provincial Government.

§ 1. AFTER this general view of the manner in which the different elements of the Roman Constitution were roughly welded into a sort of unity, we must give some account of the Imperial relations subsisting between Rome and her subjects at the beginning of the second century before the Christian Era, and especially of the way in which the expenses of government were defrayed. In speaking of the Subjects of the great Republic, the Latin and Italian Allies are not included. What has been said of them in a former Chapter will show the justice of drawing the distinction here indicated. It is true, indeed, that all the Italians were not Allies; for the Prefectures and some small Communities were strictly subject. Nor were all the Provincial Communities subject; for a favoured few left in a condition as independent as any Italian city. But, as a general rule, the Italian Communities were allied, the Provincial Communities were subject.

were

§ 2. At the close of the Hannibalic War, Rome was in possession, nominally, of five Provinces, Sicily, Sardinia, the Gallic coast of Umbria (then called the Province of Ariminum), with Hither and Further Spain. But of these, Sardinia and the Spains were almost to be conquered again; and Gallic Umbria