The History of Rome, Book II eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 375 pages of information about The History of Rome, Book II.

The History of Rome, Book II eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 375 pages of information about The History of Rome, Book II.
severe years of war 434-443.  On the other hand, the principle of not allowing a plurality of offices was strictly adhered to.  There is no certain instance of the combination of two of the three ordinary curule (Liv. xxxix. 39, 4) offices (the consulate, praetorship, and curule aedileship), but instances occur of other combinations, such as of the curule aedileship and the office of master of the horse (Liv. xxiii. 24, 30); of the praetorship and censorship (Fast.  Cap. a. 501); of the praetorship and the dictatorship (Liv. viii. 12); of the consulate and the dictatorship (Liv. viii. 12).

17.  II.  I. Senate

18.  Hence despatches intended for the senate were addressed to Consuls, Praetors, Tribunes of the Plebs, and Senate (Cicero, ad Fam. xv. 2, et al.)

19.  I. V. The Senate

20.  II.  I. Senate

21.  II.  III.  Censorship

22.  This prerogative and the similar ones with reference to the equestrian and burgess-lists were perhaps not formally and legally assigned to the censors, but were always practically implied in their powers.  It was the community, not the censor, that conferred burgess-rights; but the person, to whom the latter in making up the list of persons entitled to vote did not assign a place or assigned an inferior one, did not lose his burgess-right, but could not exercise the privileges of a burgess, or could only exercise them in the inferior place, till the preparation of a new list.  The same was the case with the senate; the person omitted by the censor from his list ceased to attend the senate, as long as the list in question remained valid—­unless the presiding magistrate should reject it and reinstate the earlier list.  Evidently therefore the important question in this respect was not so much what was the legal liberty of the censors, as how far their authority availed with those magistrates who had to summon according to their lists.  Hence it is easy to understand how this prerogative gradually rose in importance, and how with the increasing consolidation of the nobility such erasures assumed virtually the form of judicial decisions and were virtually respected as such.  As to the adjustment of the senatorial list undoubtedly the enactment of the Ovinian -plebiscitum- exercised a material share of influence—­that the censors should admit to the senate “the best men out of all classes.”

23.  II.  III.  The Burgess-Body.  Its Composition

24.  II.  III.  Complete Opening Up of Magistracies and Priesthoods

25.  II.  III.  Restrictions as to the Accumulation and the Reoccupation of Offices

26.  II.  III.  Partition and Weakening of Consular Powers

CHAPTER IV

Fall of the Etruscan Power-the Celts

Etrusco-Carthaginian Maritime Supremacy

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The History of Rome, Book II from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.