The later Publilian law of the dictator Q. Publilius Philo, has quite a different intention. By it the sanction of the curies to a resolution which had been carried in the tribes, was declared superfluous, as this course was too circuitous, and the senate after all had the right of proposing. His law, _ut plebiscita omnem populum tenerent_, must on the other hand run thus,--_ut plebiscita_ QUÆ SENATU AUCTORE FACTA SINT, _omnes Quirites tenerent_; for from henceforth it happens with regard to many enactments concerning the administration, that the senate commissions the consuls to arrange with the tribunes about making proposals to the tribes which they were to approve of; yet this was only with reference to administrative ordinances (ψηφίσματα), (for instance, whether an extraordinary _imperium_ should be given to any one), and not to legislative ones (νόμοι). This was a useful simplification: on certain days only, from religious reasons, might the curies and centuries be convoked; the tribes on the contrary might assemble, and did assemble, every day, they were not restricted by the _dies nefasti_. People saw more and more that the form of general assemblies was a mere semblance, and too much depending on accident: it is but fancy to think of votes being the expression of personal will; impulse, the force of example, does every thing. Clearer and clearer became the conviction, that the more the state increased, the more necessary it was to have a settled government; and thus what the Romans had to do, was to find out forms, which might check the arbitrary sway of the men in power, and secure publicity. In this especially the Romans differ from the Greeks, that they confidently gave themselves up to the personal guidance of individuals, which was never the case at Athens.