(ii.) The _tribunicia potestas_, which had been granted to Augustus in 36, reconferred in 30, and made the chief outward support of his authority in 23 B.C.,[1605] continued to serve the Emperors as the ostensible means by which all other magistracies were subject to their control,[1606] and possessed an artificial prominence from its employment as a means of dating the years of their reign. Positively it conferred the _sacrosanctitas_, which had encompassed the Republican tribune,[1607] the right of approaching the assembly of the Plebs, which was of value as long as the Emperors deigned to legislate through popular channels, and perhaps the only strictly constitutional power which they possessed of transacting business with the Senate.[1608] But its negative were now, as ever, of more value than its positive powers. The _intercessio_ made its possessor the moderator of the state,[1609] and the severest means of tribunician coercion could be employed against every recalcitrant official; while this veto, when used in the Senate, became either a means of suspending the jurisdiction of that body or a method of pardoning the criminal whom it had condemned.[1610] The right of help (_auxilium_)[1611] based on the appeal (_appellatio_) becomes also, as we shall see, one of the means of establishing the first true appellate jurisdiction which the Roman world had seen. (iii.) With respect to other Republican offices in which the Princeps was directly interested, we have only to consider the consulship and the censorship, for they were the only two whose titles or powers were sufficient to warrant their assumption by the head of the state. The consulship was no integral part of the imperial power after Augustus had ceased to employ it in this way;[1612] but it was frequently assumed as an occasional office by the Princeps, who held it for a short time, generally at the beginning of his rule.