246 THE CITY. BOOK III. Here we see how great was the power of the presi- dent of the comitia, and we no longer wonder at the expression, Great consules^ which referred not to the people, but to the president of the coinitia. It was of him, indeed, rather than of the people, that it might be said, " He creates the consuls ;" fur he was the one who discovered the will of the gods. If he did not cre- ate the consuls, it was at least through him that the gods created them. The power of the people went no farther than to ratify the election, or, at most, to se- lect among three or four names, if the auspices had been equally favorable to three or four candidates. Doubtless this method of procedure was very advan- tageous to the Roman aristocracy; but we should deceive ourselves if we saw in all this merely a ruse invented by them. Such a ruse was never thouglit of in the ages when they believed in this religion. Politi- cally it was useless in the first ages, since at that time the patricians had a majority in voting. It might even have turned against them, by investing a single man with exorbitant power. Tiie only explanation that can be given of this custom, or, rather, of these rites of election, is, that every one then sincerely believed that the choice of the magistrates belonged, not to the peo- ple, but to the gods. The man in whose hands the religion and the fortune of the city were to be placed, ought to be revealed by the divine voice. The first rule for the election of a magistrate is the one given by Cicero: "That lie be named accord- ing to the rites." If, several months afterwards, the senate was told that some rite had been neglected, or badly performed, it ordered the consuls to abdicate, and they obeyed. The examples are very numerous ; and if, in case of two or three of them, v.'e may believe
