[2085] Livy xxv. 5. 2, for the first instance and for the pontifical presidency. Such a departure in favor of the people was hardly possible in the period of comitial stagnation preceding the tribunate of Flaminius, 232; and the law must have been passed, or at least amended, after the institution of the last two tribes; for it specified definitely seventeen tribes; Cic. Leg. Agr. ii. 7. 16. On this measure, see Mommsen, Röm. Staatsr. ii. 27 f.; Wissowa, Relig. u. Kult. d. Röm. 437; Lange, Röm. Alt. ii. 131. Pais, L’elezione del pontefice massimo, etc. (1908), maintains on the contrary that the plebiscite in question was passed about 254, and that it resorted to seventeen tribes as the legal half of the total number (33) then existing. On the use of the word comitia, see p. 130 above.
[2086] The first recorded instance occurs at the date mentioned; Livy xxvii. 8. 1-3.
[2087] Cf. Cic. Sest. 46. 98.
[2088] P. 391.
[2089] P. 234, 305, 306.
[2090] Livy, ep. xx; Dig. i. 2. 2. 32. Lange, Röm. Alt. i. 784; ii. 152, 654, conjecturally identifies it with the Plaetorian plebiscite, which assigned two lictors to the urban praetor when acting as judge, and defined his jurisdiction; Censorin. 24. 3.
[2091] Livy xxvii. 36. 14; p. 306 above. In 171 because of the impending Macedonian war the consular lex Licinia Cassia permitted the consuls to name their tribuni militum (Livy xliii. 31)—a precedent followed thereafter in emergencies.
[2092] P. 305; Polyb. vi. 15. 6.
[2093] Livy xxvii. 22. 6. On the comparatively frequent use of the promagistracy during the war with Hannibal, see Ihne, Hist. of Rome, iv. 310.
[2094] Livy xxii. 25; Herzog, Röm. Staatsverf. i. 355.