power which magistrates had of speaking (verba facere) without invitation at any period of the debate. This power was possessed as an admitted right by those magistrates who were themselves presiding; the quaestors, whose financial statements were indispensable, and the aediles may have exercised it only on sufferance. This privilege was the more necessary as the presiding magistrates at least could not be asked their opinion by the official who held the attention of the house; they could not give advice, for they were themselves seeking it of others.
Custom had determined with equal care the method by which opinions should be elicited from the unofficial and advising members of the house. The question "what is your advice?" (quid censes?) was put by the president to each senator in an order corresponding to his official rank. In the days of the activity of the censorship, it was this magistracy which had determined the president's first selection; the censors had placed at the head of their list the name of some distinguished man (often himself an ex-censor), and it was this "chief of the Senate" (princeps senatus) whose opinion was first sought. But, after Sulla's reform in the constitution of the order, there is, in spite of the occasional revival of the censorship, no certain evidence of the perpetuation of this dignity. Henceforth a body of consulates holds the first place, and from these the presiding magistrate—at least the consul who opens the business of the house—chooses his first adviser, according to no settled rules, but with due regard to seniority or personal distinction.[1] The only exception to this practice was to be found in the latter half of the year, when the consuls elect, either in virtue of their quasi-magisterial position or because they might themselves have to carry out the decrees which were being discussed, took precedence of the consulars.[2] From the latter the question passed down through the praetorii to the men of aedilician or
- ↑ Gell. xiv. 7, 9 (from the Commentarius of Varro) "singulos autem debere consuli gradatim incipique a consulari gradu. Ex quo gradu semper quidem antea primum rogari solitum qui princeps in senatum lectus esset; tum autem, cum haec scriberet, novum morem institutum refert per ambitionem gratiamque ut is primus rogaretur quem rogare vellet qui haberet senatum, dum is tamen ex gradu consulari esset." For this novus mos cf. Cic. ad Att. i. 13, 2 (61 B.C.) "Primum igitur scito primum me non esse rogatum sententiam praepositumque esse nobis pacificatorem Allobrogum" (C. Calpurnius Piso, a relative of the presiding consul).
- ↑ Sall. Cat. 50 (in the debate on the Catilinarian conspirators) "D. Junius Silanus primus sententiam rogatus quod eo tempore consul designatus erat."
