Jealous as the people were of their legislative power, they had no great uneasiness
about the executive. This they left almost entirely to the senate and to
the consuls, reserving scarcely anything more to themselves than the
right of choosing the magistrates, and of confirming the acts of the
senate and of the generals.
Rome, whose passion was to command, whose ambition was to conquer,
whose commencement and progress were one continued usurpation, had
constantly affairs of the greatest weight upon her hands; her enemies
were ever conspiring against her, or she against her enemies.
As she was obliged to behave on the one hand with heroic courage,
and on the other with consummate prudence, it was requisite, of course,
that the management of affairs should be committed to the senate. Thus
the people disputed every branch of the legislative power with the
senate, because they were jealous of their liberty; but they had no
disputes about the executive, because they were animated with the love
of glory.
So great was the share the senate took in the executive power, that,
as Polybius
[46]
informs us, foreign nations imagined that Rome was an aristocracy. The senate disposed of the public money, and farmed out the
revenue; they were arbiters of the affairs of their allies; they
determined war or peace, and directed in this respect the consuls; they
fixed the number of the Roman and of the allied troops, disposed of the
provinces and armies to the consuls or prætors, and upon the expiration
of the year of command had the power of appointing successors; they
decreed triumphs, received and sent embassies: they nominated, rewarded,
punished, and were judges of kings, declared them allies of the Roman
people, or stripped them of that title.
The consuls levied the troops which they were to carry into the
field; had the command of the forces by sea and by land; disposed of the
forces of the allies; were invested with the whole power of the republic
in the provinces; gave peace to the vanquished nations, imposed
conditions on them, or referred them to the senate.
In the earliest times, when the people had some share in the affairs
relating to war or peace, they exercised rather their legislative than
their executive power. They scarcely did anything else but confirm the
acts of the kings, and after their expulsion those of the consuls or
senate. So far were they from being the arbiters of war that we have
instances of its having been often declared, notwithstanding the
opposition of the tribunes. But growing wanton in their prosperity, they
increased their executive power. Thus
[47]
they created the military tribunes, the nomination of whom till then had belonged to the generals;
and some time before the first Punic war, they decreed that only their
own body should have the right of declaring war.
[48]
