The office of tribune, since it conferred little distinction, was by no means an object of ambition; and the difficulty of getting the ten places filled led to the inclusion of this magistracy, as one of the necessary steps, in the _cursus honorum_,[1753] and sometimes to more drastic measures such as the selection of ex-quaestors by lot under Augustus,[1754] or the reception of members of the equestrian order under Claudius.[1755] Yet, with all its disadvantages, the tribunate survived the Principate, and tribunes are named in imperial despatches of the fourth century.[1756] (2) _The Comitia_ An element in the restoration of the Republic by Augustus, after the provisional government of the Triumvirate was over, was a renewal of the life of the popular assemblies.[1757] But it was impossible that their purely local character could be reconciled with the imperial interests of the day, or that their popular character should be consistent with the rule of the Princeps and his nobility. For a moment they remained to a certain extent a reality, and throughout the Principate they exercised the shadow of power which was sufficient to express the still surviving theory of popular sovereignty. From the first a considerable portion of the powers of the _comitia_ had been transferred wholly to the Princeps; for to him belonged the rights of declaring war, of making peace, and of forming alliances;[1758] while the criminal jurisdiction which the people exercised at the end of the Republic was no longer necessary, for while the more definite portion of it was handed over to the _quaestiones_,[1759] the more indefinite now fell under the extraordinary cognisance of the Senate. Legislative power tended to centre more and more in the Princeps and Senate, and it is only during the first century that enactments are mentioned which have the true forms of _leges_ and _plebiscita_.[1760] The right of election was the most permanent of the popular prerogatives. Under Augustus the people still chose its magistrates, although the choice was considerably influenced by the Princeps;[1761] and after Tiberius in the first year of his reign had caused all the real elements of election—the profession, the nomination, the vote—to be transferred to the Senate,[1762] the formal _renuntiatio_ of the successful candidates (an integral part of the election)[1763] still continued to be made to the people down to the third century.[1764] It is only in respect to the consulship that there is a doubt whether, during the first century A.D., more than the mere announcement of the result was not effected in the _comitia_. The evidence is conflicting, but the indications of a formal popular control of these appointments are on the whole outweighed by those which refer to the Senate the real elements of election—rendered nugatory at times by the way in which the Princeps exercised his powers of nomination.[1765] There can be little question, however, that in the later Principate the