FOOTNOTES
[64] [Both consular places were opened to the plebeians by the law of the tribune Genucius, passed in 342 B.C.; cf. Mommsen[h] and Greenidge.[i]]
[65] [The reduction of the comitia curiata to a mere form belongs to the fifth century B.C.]
[66] [The senators were chiefly men who had held the principal civic offices; and as these offices were monopolised by a narrow circle of wealthy families, the senatorial places must have been practically, though not constitutionally, hereditary.]
[67] [By the Publilian law of 339 B.C. (cf. [p. 185]) the senatorial control over the centuries was reduced to a formality. But the senate still controlled the magistrates, and the magistrates controlled the assemblies.]
[68] [In fact the tribal assembly came into existence before the comitia centuriata began to grow more popular—the tribal assembly influenced the development of the centuriate assembly in a democratic direction.]
[69] [According to some authorities, however, the comitia centuriata did not come into existence before the end of the regal period.]
[70] [Rarely were laws passed by the tribal assembly under the presidency of a consul.]
[71] [After the passing of the Hortensian Law, 287 B.C., the tribunes were no longer constitutionally bound to gain the consent of the senate to their bills; and occasionally a tribune, as Flaminius in 232 and Claudius in 218, availed himself of his constitutional freedom. Generally, however, the tribunes were ministers of the senate, and more subservient than the consuls.]
[72] When the pound of weight ceased to be the same with the pound of currency, the former was usually designated æs grave.
[73] Munire viam, was their phrase.
