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.