Scipio Africanus who had been elected proconsul without having exercised any previous _imperium_.[652] By the close of the Republic both these scruples had been set aside. The triumph was decreed to proconsuls by the Senate, and without regard to their having held any previous _imperium_.[653] (ii.) _Powers exercised in connexion with the people._—The dealings which the magistrate had with the assembled people were of two kinds; he might summon them for the purpose of imparting information: in this case the meeting was called a _contio_;[654] or he might convene them for the purpose of passing decrees binding on the community: such an assembly assumed one of the various forms of the _comitia_. The first power (_contionem habere_) was often preliminary to the exercise of the second (_cum populo agere_); for a _contio_ or a series of _contiones_ generally preceded the formal meetings of the assemblies at which laws or _plebiscita_ were passed,[655] and was in fact an indispensable preliminary, since, in the case of legislation, it was the chief opportunity for recommendations or criticisms of a bill, and, in the case of popular jurisdiction, was the only means by which the people could form an estimate of the evidence. The magisterial _contio_ was, in fact, the great vehicle for constitutional agitation and, as such, the most democratic institution in Rome. But the use of the _contio_ was not confined to the preliminaries of legislation. It was the form in which the people were summoned to witness any public act,[656] and to listen to the magistrate’s commands when these were expressed in the form of verbal edicts.[657] The essential feature of such an assembly was that the people were invited to meet a magistrate and to listen to his views; the masses were mere auditors; and the fact that this was no chance gathering was further emphasised by the solemnity of the proceedings—the formal summons, the opening prayer,[658] and the elevation of the magistrate on the tribunal. We cannot say with certainty how far this right of holding a _contio_ extended. It was certainly possessed by the consuls, praetors, censors, and tribunes, and probably by all the magistrates down to the quaestor.[659] The conflict of magisterial authority was felt here as in other departments, and the higher magistrate could summon to himself the _contio_ convoked by an inferior.[660]