Cæsar obeyed a necessity when he overthrew the Constitution. In quoting Mommsen's description, then, of the Senate as it was at its best, we are not adducing the evidence of a too partial witness:—
"Called to power not through the empty accident of birth, but substantially through the free choice of the nation; confirmed every five years by the stern moral judgment of the worthiest men; holding office for life, and so not dependent on the expiration of its commission or on the varying opinion of the people; having its ranks close and united ever after the equalisation of the orders; embracing in it all that the people possessed of political intelligence and practical statesmanship; absolutely disposing of all financial questions and controlling foreign policy; having complete power over the executive by virtue of its brief duration and of the tribunitian intercession which was at the service of the Senate after the termination of the quarrels between the orders—the Roman Senate was the noblest embodiment of the nation, and in consistency and political sagacity, in unanimity and patriotism, in grasp of power and unwavering courage, the foremost political corporation of all times—an 'assembly of kings' which well knew how to combine despotic energy with republican self-devotedness."
The "despotic energy" of such a Senate was calculated to be at least as effective, for the purposes of empire over foreign subjects, as the despotic energy of a single will; while on other grounds it was decidedly to be preferred, as not depending on the equilibrium of a single character or the term of a single life. This was proved by experiment. For more than a century and a half the Senate efficiently discharged imperial duties, duties the same in kind, though not so wide in scope, as those which were afterwards performed by the military monarchy.
