[1107] Lex Col. Gen. (CIL. ii. Supplb. 5439) 67: “Quicumque pontif(ices) quique augures c(oloniae) G(enetivae) I(uliae) post h(anc) l(egem) datam in conlegium pontific(um) augurumq(ue) in demortui damnative loco h(ac) lege lectus cooptatusve erit, is pontif(ex) augurq(ue) in c(olonia) Iul(ia) in conlegium pontifex augurq(ue) esto, ita uti qui optuma lege in quaque colon(ia) pontif(ices) auguresq(ue) sunt erunt”; ch. 66: “Ei pontifices c(oloniae) G(enetivae) I(uliae) sunto, ... ita uti qui optima lege optumo iure in quaque colon(ia) pontif(ices) augures sunt erunt.” Optima lege refers to the perfection of their right to the sacerdotal places (cf. 67 above), whereas optumo iure seems to apply to the privileges and honors attaching to these positions.
[1108] Papinian, in Dig. iv. 4. 31 (slaves manumitted in the way here described were exempt from payment to maintain their freedom, on the ground that they were emancipated in a perfectly legal way—optimo iure); Lex Salp. (CIL. ii. 1963) 28: “Ut qui optumo iure Latini libertini liberi sunt erunt” (Just as are, or shall be, Latin freedmen or freemen of best standing); Cic. Verr. II. v. 22. 58: “Quae colonia est in Italia tam bono iure, quod tam immune municipium, quod ... sit usum.”
[1109] Lex Col. Gen. 67, quoted in n. above.
[1110] Fest. 198. 32; cf. 189. 21. Applied to the censor, dictator, and interrex in Livy ix. 34. 10-12, it has reference not to amount of power but length of office.
[1111] See p. 186, n. 5.
[1112] As the Lex Col. Gen. 66 f.; p. 186, n. 1 above.
[1113] P. 186.
[1114] Magistratus optuma lege is the same as magistratus iustus; cf. Messala, p. 185, n. 6. In this connection iustus does not signify legal as opposed to illegal, but legally or technically perfect, correct; cf. for the meaning “proper,” “perfect,” Cic. Fam. ii. 10. 3 (iusta victoria); Caes. B. G. i. 23 (iustum iter); Livy i. 4. 4 (iusti cursum amnis); xxxix. 2. 8 (iusto proelio). When Cicero (Red. in Sen. 11. 27), accordingly, speaks of the comitia centuriata as the iusta comitia, he does not imply that the other comitia and their acts lack legality, but rather that they carry less weight; and when as late as 300 the patricians claimed that they alone had iustum imperium et auspicium (Livy x. 8. 9), they could only mean that their right to these powers was better established than that of the plebeians. C. Flaminius, consul in 217, possessed imperium, which he was actually exercising over his troops, but which was not iustum, for he had neglected the auspical formalities appropriate to the entrance upon the consulship (Livy xxii. 1. 5). It would be wrong, however, to suppose with Nissen, Beitr. z. röm. Staatsr. 51, that he commanded on the sufferance only of his soldiers.
[1115] Including the auspices; see n. above.
[1116] The usual expression is “de suo imperio curiatam legem tulit,” or “populum consuluit;” Cic. Rep. ii. 13. 25; 17. 31; 18. 33; 20. 35; 21. 38; Livy ix. 38. 15. According to Cicero, Phil. v. 16. 45, the senate grants the imperium to Octavianus, a private citizen. The interrex, who could not have had a curiate law, nevertheless possessed imperium (Livy i. 17. 5 f.), and the absolute imperium was granted by a decree of the senate (Livy iii. 4. 9; Sall. Cat. 29; Hist. i. 77. 22). See also Cic. Leg. iii. 3. 9: “Imperia, potestates, legationes, quom senatus creverit populusve iusserit, ex urbe exeunto;” Leg. Agr. ii. 7. 17: “Omnes potestates, imperia, curationes ab universo populo proficisci convenit” (reference cannot here be to the curiate assembly, which in this connection Cicero does not recognize as the people). For the centuriate assembly, see Livy xxvi. 18. 9: “Omnes non centuriae modo sed etiam homines P. Scipioni imperium esse in Hispania iusserunt;” 22. 15: “Centuriam vero iuniorum seniores consulere voluisse, quibus imperium suffragio mandarunt.” For the tribal assembly, see T. Annius Luscus, Orat. adv. Ti. Gracch. in Fest. 314. 30: “Imperium quod plebes ... dederat.” It is a fact, too, that the tribal assembly had power to abrogate the imperium; Livy xxvii. 20. 11; 21. 1, 4; xxix. 19. 6; cf. p. 342, 360, 367. Also from Cic. Leg. Agr. ii. 11. 28 (“Vidit ... sine curiata lege decemviros potestatem habere non posse, quoniam per novem tribus essent constituti”) we must infer that had these decemvirs been elected in the regular way, by the thirty-five tribes, they would have had the potestas without a curiate law. The phrase nullis comitiis in 11. 29 (“Si hoc fieri potest, ut ... quisquam nullis comitiis imperium aut potestatem adsequi posset, etc.,”) implies that the imperium or potestas may be obtained in more than one form of comitia—either the centuriata or the tributa. In the same paragraph he asserts that on the principle followed by Servilius, whom he is assailing, any one could obtain the imperium or potestas without the vote of any comitia, for he does not consider the comitia curiata real comitia, seeing that they have degenerated into a mere form. From these passages it is clear that Cicero believed the imperium or potestas to be conferred by the centuries or tribes and merely confirmed by the curiae.