Most of these have passed through several editions. The fullest commentary is that contained in the edition of the text by J. E. Sandys (London, 1893). The best translations are those of Kenyon, in English, and of Kaibel and Kiessling, in German.
Works dealing with the subject: Bruno Keil, Die Solonische Verfassung nach Aristoteles (Berlin, 1892); G. Gilbert, Constitutional Antiquities of Sparta and Athens (Eng. trans., 1895); U. von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, Aristoteles und Athen (2 vols., Berlin, 1893), a work of great importance, in spite of many unsound conclusions; E. Meyer, Forschungen, vol. ii. pp. 406 ff. (the section dealing with the Four Hundred is especially valuable). Articles: R. W. Macan, Journal of Hellenic Studies (April 1891); R. Nissen, Rheinisches Museum (1892), p. 161; G. Busolt, Hermes (1898), pp. 71 ff.; O. Seeck, “Quellenstudien zu des Aristoteles’ Verfassungsgeschichte Athens,” in Lehmann’s Beiträge zur alten Geschichte, vol. iv. pp. 164 and 270.
(E. M. W.)
CONSUETUDINARY (Med. Lat. consuetudinarius, from consuetudo, custom), customary, a term used especially of law based on custom as opposed to statutory or written law. As a noun “consuetudinary” (Lat. consuetudinarius, sc. liber) is the name given to a ritual book containing the forms and ceremonies used in the services of a particular monastery, cathedral or religious order.
CONSUL (in Gr. generally ὓπατος, a shortened form of στρατηγὸς ὓπατος, i.e. praetor maximus), the title borne by the two highest of the ordinary magistrates of the whole Roman community during the republic. In the imperial period these magistrates had ceased practically to be the heads of the state, but their technical position remained unaltered. (For the modern commercial office of consul see the separate article below.)
The consulship arose with the fall of the ancient monarchy (see further [Rome]: History, II. “The Republic”). The Roman reverence for the abstract conception of the magistracy, as expressed in the imperium and the auspicia, led to the preservation of the regal power weakened only by external limitations. The two new officials who replaced the king bore the titles of leaders (praetores) and of judges (judices; cf. Cicero, De legibus, iii. 3. 8, “regio imperio duo sunto iique a praeeundo judicando ... praetores judices ... appellamino”). But the new fact of colleagueship caused a third title to prevail, that of consules or “partners,” a word probably derived from consalio on the analogy of praesul and exul (Mommsen, Staatsrecht, ii. p. 77, n. 3). This first example of the collegiate principle assumed the form that soon became familiar in the Roman commonwealth. Each of the pair of magistrates could act up to the full powers of the imperium; but the dissent of his colleague rendered his decision or his action null and void. At the same time the principle of a merely annual tenure of office was insisted on. The two magistrates at the close of their year of office were bound to transmit their power to successors; and these successors whom they nominated were obliged to seek the suffrages of the people. The only body known to us as electing the consuls during the republican period was the comitia centuriata (see [Comitia]). The consulate was originally confined to patricians. During the struggle for higher office that was waged between the orders the office was suspended on fifty-one occasions between the years 444 and 367 B.C. and replaced by the military tribunate with consular power, to which plebeians were eligible. The struggle was brought to an end by the Licinio-Sextian laws of 367 B.C., which enacted that one consul must be a plebeian (see [Patricians]).
Most of the internal history of Rome down to the beginning of the third century B.C. consists in a series of attacks, whether intentional or accidental, on the power of the executive. As the consuls are the sole representatives of higher executive authority in early times, this history is one of a progressive decline in the originally wide and arbitrary powers of the office. Their right of summary criminal jurisdiction was weakened by the successive laws of appeal (provocatio); their capacity for interpreting the civil law at their pleasure by the publication of the Twelve Tables and the Forms of Action. The growth of the tribunate of the plebs hampered their activity both as legislators and as judges. They surrendered the duties of registration to the censors in 443 B.C., and the rights of civil jurisdiction and control over the market and police to the praetor and the curule aediles in 367 B.C.
The result of these limitations and of this specialization of functions in the community was to leave the consuls with less specific duties at home than any magistrates in the state. But the absence of specific functions may be of itself a sign of a general duty of supervision. The consuls were in a very real sense the heads of the state. Polybius describes them as controlling the whole administration (Polyb. vi. 12 πασῶν εἰσι κύριοι τῶν δημοσίων πράξεων). This control they exercised in concert with the senate, whose chief servants they were. It was they who were the most regular consultants of this council, who formulated its decrees as edicts, and who brought before the people legislative measures which the senate had approved. It was they also who represented the state to the outer world and introduced foreign envoys to the senate. The symbols of their presidency were manifold. It was marked by the twelve [lictors] (q.v.), a number permitted to no other ordinary magistrate, by the fact that the first act of newly-admitted consuls was to take the auspices, their second to summon the senate, and by the use of their names for dating the year. The consulate was, indeed, as Cicero expresses it, the culminating point in an official career (“Honorum populi finis est consulatus,” Cic. Pro Planco, 25. 60).