[457] Liv. vi. 37 “Novam rogationem promulgant, ut pro duumviris sacris faciundis decemviri creentur; ita ut pars ex plebe, pars ex patribus fiat.”
[458] ib. 38. His statements are inconsistent. He speaks of the college as being unanimous, and yet of intercessio being used at the meeting.
[459] Liv. vi. 42 “concessum ... a plebe nobilitati de praetore uno, qui jus in urbe diceret, ex patribus creando,” probably by a clause introduced into the Licinian rogations when they were submitted by the consul to the Populus (see p. 97). The true motive is given by Pomponius in Dig. 1, 2, 2, 27, “Cum consules avocarentur bellis finitimis neque esset, qui in urbe jus reddere posset, factum est ut praetor quoque crearetur, qui urbanus appellatus est, quod in urbe jus redderet.”
[460] Mommsen (Staatsr. ii. p. 204) doubts it, chiefly on the ground that no law is mentioned as opening the office to Plebeians thirty years later. Probably the same doubt hung over the praetorship as over the second place in the consulship, i.e. whether the Licinian law, by reserving one consulship to the Plebs, had left the other posts open to both orders or not.
[461] Liv. vii. 1 “collegam consulibus atque iisdem auspiciis creatum.” Cf. Gell. xiii. 15.
[462] An instance of the exercise of a consular veto over a judicial decision of a praetor in 77 B.C. is preserved by Valerius Maximus (vii. 7, 6).
[463] Liv. viii. 15 “eodem anno Q. Publilius Philo praetor primus de plebe, adversante Sulpicio consule, qui negabat rationem ejus se habiturum, est factus; senatu, cum in summis imperiis id non obtinuisset, minus in praetura intendente.”
[464] p. 98.
[465] Liv. vi. 42 “Factum senatus consultum, ut duo viros aediles ex patribus dictator populum rogaret.”
[466] ib. vii. 1 (366 B.C.) “verecundia inde imposita est senatui ex patribus jubendi aediles curules creari. primo, ut alternis annis ex plebe fierent, convenerat; [this was the rule in 213 (Polyb. x. 4)]. postea promiscuum fuit” [Mommsen (Staatsr. ii. p. 482) thinks as late as the last century of the Republic].