CHAPTER XXIII.
THE EARLY ROMAN REPUBLIC: CONQUEST OF ITALY.
(509–264 B.C.)
The First Consuls.—With the monarchy overthrown and the last king and his house banished from Rome, the people set to work to reorganize the government. In place of the king, there were elected (by the comitia centuriata, in which assembly the plebeians had a place) two patrician magistrates, called consuls,[1] who were chosen for one year, and were invested with all the powers, save some priestly functions, that had been held by the monarch during the regal period.
In public each consul was attended by twelve servants, called lictors, each of whom bore an axe bound in a bundle of rods (fasces), the symbols of the authority of the consul to flog and to put to death. Within the limits of the city, however, the axe must be removed from the fasces, by which was indicated that no Roman citizen could be put to death by the consuls without the consent of the public assembly.
Lucius Junius Brutus and Tarquinius Collatinus were the first consuls under the new constitution. But it is said that the very name of Tarquinius was so intolerable to the people that he was forced to resign the consulship, and that he and all his house were driven out of Rome. [2] Another consul, Publius Valerius, was chosen in his stead.
- ↑ That is, colleagues. Each consul had the power of obstructing the acts or vetoing the commands of the other. In times of great public danger the consuls were superseded by a special officer called a dictator, whose term of office was limited to six months, but whose power during this time was as unlimited as that of the kings had been.
- ↑ The truth is, he was related to the exiled royal family, and the people were distrustful of his loyalty to the republic.
