Book XI.
Chap. 16.which the patricians[1] had no share in the legislative power, and[2] in which they were subject to the legislation of another body of the state. This was the highest extravagance of liberty. The people to establish a democracy, acted against the very principles of this government. One would have imagined that so exorbitant a power must have destroyed the authority of the senate. But Rome had admirable institutions. Two of these were especially remarkable; one by which the legislative power of the people was regulated, and the other by which it was limited.
The censors, and before them the consuls[3], formed and created, as it were, every five years the body of the people; they exercised the legislation on the very body that was possessed of the legislative power. "Tiberius Gracchus, says Cicero, caused the freedmen to be admitted into the tribes of the city not by t be force of his eloquence, but by a wordy by a gesture; which had he not effected, the republic, whose drooping head we are at present scarce able to uphold, would not even exist."
On the other hand, the senate had the power of rescuing, as it were, the republic out of the hands of the people, by creating a dictator, before whom
- ↑ By the sacred laws the plebeians had a power of making the plebiscita by themselves, without admitting the patricians into their assembly. Dionys. Halicarn. Book 6. p. 410. & book 7. p. 430.
- ↑ By the law made after the expulsion of the decemvirs, the patricians were made subjeft to the plebiscita, though they had not a right of voting there. Livy Book 3. and Dionys. Halicarn. Book 11. p. 725. This law was confirmed by that of Publius Philo the dictator, in the year of Rome 416. Livy Book 8.
- ↑ In the year 312. of Rome, the consuls performed still the business of surveying the people and their estates. as appears by Dionys. Halicarn. Book 11.
