unfavourable to the holding of the _comitia_.[734] A patrician magistrate had, therefore, only to give out that “he would observe the heavens” (_se servaturum de coelo_) to suspend all meetings of the _comitia_ and of the _concilium_.[735] Hence the edict by which the consuls summoned the _comitia centuriata_ contained the words “ne quis magistratus minor de coelo servasse velit.”[736] The patrician _obnuntiatio_ was a powerful weapon in politics, the counterpoise to the plebeian _intercessio_. The uncertainty respecting the necessity for observing most of these religious messages called for legislation; and about the year 153 B.C. two laws, the _lex Aelia_ and the _lex Fufia_, were passed which, amongst other comitial regulations,[737] professed to give rules for the _obnuntiatio_.[738] The import of these rules is quite uncertain, but they seem to have recognised the right of the magistrate to watch the skies to the detriment of public business, and to have attempted to define the value of the announcement made by plebeian magistrates, augurs, and perhaps even by private individuals. The scandalous use made of the auspices by the consul Bibulus in the year 59 B.C. was a shock to the national conscience, and the ineffectiveness of his procedure gave courage to the enemy. In the next year the tribune P. Clodius abrogated at least that portion of the law which bolstered up the misuse of the _spectio_; the _obnuntiatio_ was frequently employed as a political engine after this date, but its authors are tribunes and augurs,[739] which shows that it was in these cases based on the professed chance observation of _auspicia oblativa_. The other modes of conflict were based on powers inherent in the magistracy; these were the right of prohibition possessed by the higher magistrates over the lower, and the right of veto possessed by superiors over inferiors or by colleagues with equal powers over one another. The right of prohibition was an outcome of _major potestas_ and was possessed by all higher over all lower magistrates. The tribune had it against all officials except the dictator; the consul against the praetor and against all magistrates with the exception of the dictator and the tribune. The magistrate’s right to forbid differed from the magistrate’s intercession in that the latter was levelled against a completed act and _rendered it invalid_; the former was merely a prohibition based on some power which the superior magistrate had in reserve; this power was the coercitio, the use of which was threatened if the command was disobeyed; hence, if the _coercitio_ was not effectively put forward, _the act which contravened the command was valid_.[740]