The lack of any definite principle of succession combined with the warring forces within the Empire to make the position of a ruling Emperor one of dazzling uncertainty. The possibility of election by the legions created a rude standard of merit, and it is questionable whether any really incapable man ever sat on the Roman throne. But usurpation was often followed by dethronement, tyranny by death or posthumous disgrace; and although such expulsions, executions, and censures were practically the work of the army, it is of some importance for the constitutional theory of the Principate to determine the legal form which dethronement or condemnation assumed. As it was the Senate, representing the people, which gave, so it was this power which took away the Principate; and the act of deposition is attested in the cases of Nero, Didius Julianus, and Maximin.[1692] Deposition was followed by death, and then came the condemnation of the reign, one that might follow even when the death of the tyrant had not been directly ordered by the government.[1693] In its extremest form this was a condemnation of the memory (_damnatio memoriae_) of the late ruler on the ground that he was a traitor (_perduellis_).[1694] His _acta_ were rescinded, his name erased from the records. A milder form of censure was the mere neglect of his _acta_ in the form that no oath to observe them was sworn by magistrates and senators.[1695] In the latter case there was no wholesale rescission of the acts, and each special case in which the late Emperor had decided was approved on its individual merits. On the other hand the acceptance of a reign took the twofold form of an oath to observe the _acta_ of the dead Emperor[1696] and a vote to assign him a place amongst the deified Caesars. The prospect of this posthumous recognition of the merits of a reign must often have exercised a stimulating influence on the occupant of the throne,[1697] although it was somewhat spoilt by the consciousness that the decision of the Senate would, to a large extent, be guided by the wishes of his successor in office. § 4. _The other Powers in the State—the Magistracy, the Comitia, and the Senate_ (1) _The Magistracy_