The Magistrates.—Every year the people elect officials to govern them and to them they delegate absolute power. These are called magistrates (those who are masters). Lictors march before them bearing a bundle of rods and an axe, emblems of the magisterial powers of chastising and condemning to death. The magistrate has at once the functions of presiding over the popular assembly and the senate, of sitting in court, and of commanding the army; he is master everywhere. He convokes and dissolves the assembly at will, he alone renders judgment, he does with the soldiers as he pleases, putting them to death without even taking counsel with his officers. In a war against the Latins Manlius, the Roman general, had forbidden the soldiers leaving camp: his son, provoked by one of the enemy, went forth and killed him; Manlius had him arrested and executed him immediately.
According to the Roman expression, the magistrate has the power of a king; but this power is brief and divided. The magistrate is elected for but one year and he has a colleague who has the same power as himself. There are at once in Rome two consuls who govern the people and command the armies, and several prætors to serve as subordinate governors or commanders and to pronounce judgment. There are other magistrates, besides—two censors, four ædiles to supervise the public ways and the markets, ten tribunes of the plebs, and quæstors to care for the state treasure.
The Censors.—The highest of all the magistrates are the censors. They are charged with taking the census every five years, that is to say, the enumeration of the Roman people. All the citizens appear before them to declare under oath their name, the number of their children and their slaves, the amount of their fortune; all this is inscribed on the registers. It is their duty, too, to draw up the list of the senators, of the knights, and of the citizens, assigning to each his proper rank in the city. They are charged as a result with making the lustrum, a great ceremony of purification which occurs every five years.[122]
On that day all the citizens are assembled on the Campus Martius arranged in order of battle; thrice there are led around the assembly three expiatory victims, a bull, a ram, and a swine; these are killed and their blood sprinkled on the people; the city is purified and reconciled with the gods.
The censors are the masters of the registration and they rank each as they please; they may degrade a senator by striking him from the senate-list, a knight by not registering him among the knights, and a citizen by not placing his name on the registers of the tribes. It is for them an easy means of punishing those whom they regard at fault and of reaching those whom the law does not condemn. They have been known to degrade citizens for poor tillage of the soil and for having too costly an equipage, a senator because he possessed ten pounds of silver, another for having repudiated his wife. It is this overweening power that the Romans call the supervision of morals. It makes the censors the masters of the city.
The Senate.—The Senate is composed of about 300 persons appointed by the censor. But the censor does not appoint at random; he chooses only rich citizens respected and of high family, the majority of them former magistrates. Almost always he appoints those who are already members of the Senate, so that ordinarily one remains a senator for life. The Senate is an assembly of the principal men of Rome, hence its authority. As soon as business is presented, one of the magistrates convokes the senators in a temple, lays the question before them, and then asks "what they think concerning this matter." The senators reply one by one, following the order of dignity. This is what they call "consulting the Senate," and the judgment of the majority is a senatus consultum (decree of the Senate). This conclusion is only advisory as the Senate has no power to make laws; but Rome obeys this advice as if it were a law. The people have confidence in the senators, knowing that they have more experience than themselves; the magistrates do not dare to resist an assembly composed of nobles who are their peers. And so the Senate regulates all public business: it declares war and determines the number of the armies; it receives ambassadors and makes peace; it fixes the revenues and the expenses. The people ratify these measures and the magistrates execute them. In 200 B.C. the Senate decided on war with the king of Macedon, but the people in terror refused to approve it: the Senate then ordered a magistrate to convoke the comitia anew and to adopt a more persuasive speech. This time the people voted for the war. In Rome it was the people who reigned, just as is the case with the king in England, but it was the Senate that governed.
The Offices.—Being magistrate or senator in Rome is not a profession. Magistrates or senators spend their time and their money without receiving any salary. A magistracy in Rome is before all an honor. Entrance to it is to nobles, at most to knights, but always to the rich; but these come to the highest magistracies only after they have occupied all the others. The man who aims one day to govern Rome must serve in the army during ten campaigns. Then he may be elected quæstor and he receives the administration of the state treasury. After this he becomes ædile, charged with the policing of the city and with the provision of the corn supply. Later he is elected prætor and gives judgment in the courts. Later yet, elected consul, he commands an army and presides over the assemblies. Then only may he aspire to the censorship. This is the highest round of the ladder and may be reached hardly before one's fiftieth year. The same man has therefore, been financier, administrator, judge, general, and governor before arriving at this original function of censor, the political distribution of the Roman people. This series of offices is what is called the "order of the honors." Each of these functions lasts but one year, and to rise to the one next higher a new election is necessary. In the year which precedes the voting one must show one's self continually in the streets, "circulate" as the Romans say (ambire: hence the word "ambition"), to solicit the suffrages of the people. For all this time it is the custom to wear a white toga, the very sense of the word "candidate" (white garment).