When Augustus, after the battle of Actium, tried to give a new form to the state, he, for the sake of appearance, went back in everything to the ancient form. Cæsar took into his own hands half of the elections, and at last even all of them; but Augustus restored the elections which were held by the _comitia_, though the _Candidati Cæsaris_ now stood, of whom it was an understood thing that they were to suffer no _repulsa_. The poets of that time, for instance Horace, speak of the _ambitio Campi_, and of the uncertainty of the elections, in language which one could only have used in the days of the republic; and there is some truth in it: for Augustus did not give himself the trouble, or did not take it upon himself to meddle with all the elections. This was so much the case, that owing to Egnatius Rufus in particular a tumult arose; as the latter, in defiance of the person who represented Augustus, and in violation of the _leges annales_, stood for the prætorship, just after he had been ædile; and also, immediately after his prætorship, for the consulship: to such a degree was the show of liberty kept up! Yet, after all, assemblies of the people were in reality confined to those elections. Of _plebiscita_ no mention is made in earnest in the reign of Augustus: for we cannot reckon that to be one, which Pacuvius, a tribune, brought forward to have the month of Sextilis called August. Of laws, there were several passed: the form in which this was done, was that a decree of the senate was laid by the consuls before the centuries, and approved of by the latter. This, as there is reason to believe, may have lasted until some time in the reign of Tiberius, to judge from the _Lex Julia Norbana_: afterwards we do not hear any more of laws properly so called.