The name of this patrician reformer was Q. Publilius Philo, who introduced three laws calculated to extend the basis of political power. By the first, the curiæ, consisting of patricians only, were compelled to confirm the laws passed by the centuries in which the two orders were mixed; by the second, the plebiscita, or decrees of the plebs, were to be binding on all Roman citizens; and the third provided, that there should always be one plebeian censor. These laws, though, perhaps, well adapted to the wants of the age, were not exactly such as we should hail with enthusiasm if they were to be brought forward in our own day by the head of a government. Depriving the curiæ of a veto was a measure equivalent to a proposition that the measures of the House of Commons should not require the concurrence of the House of Lords; and giving the force of law to a plebiscitum was much the same thing as determining that every resolution of every public meeting should at once be embodied in the statute-book. Such an arrangement in the present day would render our laws a curiosity of legislative mosaic work, laid down without the advantage of uniformity or design. If the interpretation of an act of Parliament is sometimes difficult, we may conceive the utter hopelessness of the effort to understand the laws, if they were to consist of a body of resolutions pouring in constantly from Exeter Hall, or Freemasons' Tavern, and, occasionally, from a lamp-post in Trafalgar Square, or a cart on Kennington Common.
With every due respect for the plebiscita—or resolutions of public meetings—we doubt whether any party would be desirous of accepting them as a substitute for our present method of law-making. The only chance of safety would be in the fact, that the plebiscitum of to-morrow would be sure to repeal the plebiscitum of to-day, and the best security for the state would consist in keeping a public meeting always assembled to negative every new proposition.
It was many years, however, before Rome, though it had suffered so much from patrician insolence, was prepared to go to the length of allowing a plebiscitum the force of law without being subject to the veto of the senate.[30] Aristocratic pretension had, however, been carried to such an extent in Rome, that we could hardly be surprised at any amount of democratic license; for extremes are sure to meet, and it is unfortunate, indeed, for a country that is reduced to such extremities.
FOOTNOTES:
[29] From this circumstance, the word Rostrum, which means the prow of a ship, has been derived, and has got into such universal use as to describe the box from which an auctioneer launches his eloquence.
[30] The Hortensian Law, carried some years later by Q. Hortensius.