There were certain sacrifices which the Romans believed could only be offered by a king; after the abolition of royalty, a priest, named the petty sacrificing king, (rex sacrificulus,) was elected to perform this duty.
Perhaps it would be more accurate to say the exclusive right of legislation; for it appears that the comitia centuriata were sometimes summoned to give their sanction to laws which had been previously enacted by the curiæ.
See [Chap. XII.]
The Romans were previously acquainted with that great principle of justice, the right of trial by a person's peers. In the earliest ages the patricians had a right of appeal to the curiæ; the Valerian laws extended the same right to the plebeians.
The senators were called conscript fathers, (patres conscripti,) either from their being enrolled on the censor's list, or more probably from the addition made to their numbers after the expulsion of the kings, in order to supply the places of those who had been murdered by Tarquin. The new senators were at first called conscript, and in the process of time the name was extended to the entire body.