[477] Liv. iii. 32 “augur (mortuus est) C. Horatius Pulvillus; in cujus locum C. Veturium eo cupidius, quia damnatus a plebe erat, augures legere.” The pontifex maximus was early an exception to this rule; see the comitia sacerdotum in the section dealing with the people.
[478] Cic. de Leg. Agr. ii. 7, 18; Vell. ii. 12.
[479] Liv. viii. 12.
[480] p. 109.
[481] Mr. Strachan-Davidson conjectures that the law of Publilius Philo “may have struck out the intervening consultation of the Senate, and may have required the consul to bring the petition of the Plebs at once before the Populus” (Smith Dict. of Antiq. s.v. plebiscitum, ii. p. 439).
[482] p. 83.
[483] The only evidence that they were is furnished by Livy’s account of a lex Manlia of 357 B.C. (Willems Droit Public p. 183). See Liv. vii. 16 (Manlius the consul) “legem, novo exemplo ad Sutrium in castris tributim de vicesima eorum, qui manumitterentur, tulit. Patres, quia ea lege haud parvum vectigal inopi aerario additum esset, auctores fuerunt.”
[484] ib. viii. 12 “ut legum, quae comitiis centuriatis ferrentur, ante initum suffragium patres auctores fierent.”
[485] Cic. Brut. 14, 55. Cf. Liv. i. 17 “hodie ... in legibus magistratibusque rogandis usurpatur idem jus (the patrum auctoritas), vi adempta.”
[486] Laelius Felix ap. Gell. 15, 27 “(plebi scitis) ante patricii non tenebantur, donec Q. Hortensius dictator legem tulit, ut eo jure quod plebs statuisset, omnes quirites tenerentur”; Plin. H.N. xvi. 10, 37 “ut quod ea (plebs) jussisset, omnes quirites teneret.”