In the early Roman days the custom also obtained of submitting to the people, by popular vote, the determination of accusations against judges and other public officers, as matters of general public interest and the _judicia publica_ of later times owed its existence to this antique custom. Preators, or those invested with judicial functions were no exception to the general rule, but all classes of public servants were directly responsible to the Roman people and were liable to be called upon, at any time, to answer to a charge which might mean banishment or death. In the early days of the Republic, every act of a citizen which was deemed injurious to the State, or its peace, was called perduellio, and the offender (perduellis) was tried before the forum of public sentiment (_populi judicio_) and, if convicted of any violation of the obligations he owed to the State, he was put to death.[30] The crime known as _Majestas_, corresponding to the English charge of treason, was apt, at any time to be preferred against the most upright public servant and the opinions of the populace were found frequently at variance with the justice of the cause. Justice was not always found to be consistent with the expressed will of the multitude of Roman citizenship, for their opinions were not always shaped or controled by the most exalted standards of equality. Unpopular officials were frequently condemned, regardless of the reason for the unpopularity, while the able orator or popular citizen, was usually successful in his cause.[31] Under the empire, judicial magistrates, such as Preators, were removed, at the will of the Emperor, and we find that while Julius Caesar had appointed sixteen, to settle the disputes of the Romans, Augustus peremptorily removed four and thus reduced the number to twelve.[32] The early Anglo-Saxons, like the Israelites of patriarchial days, while recognizing that the power of distributing or enforcing justice, was primarily lodged with the people, as a whole, constituting the great body of society, understood the impossibility of administering justice, in the concrete, by delegating the performance of such important functions, without investigation or the understanding of correct ideals, to the great unskilled mass of the people, in their collective capacity, so apt to be carried away, in such matters, by variable sentiments, or whims or caprices, based upon impulses, not always consistent with the proper standards of right. In order to insure the rendition of justice to every individual, or to approximate as nearly as might be, to this object, this important power was committed, therefore, at a very early day, in England, to specially selected magistrates, possessing peculiar skill and fitness to hear and determine causes in courts of law and qualified, by study and training to discharge these difficult public functions with certainty and expedition, according to correct standards.