consular, like all other, elections were vested in the Senate. The survival of the _comitia_ into the third century, whether for the purpose of the _renuntiatio_ or for that of ratifying the powers of the Princeps, was no mere mass-meeting informally assembled. The stately forms of the Republic were preserved, and when the centuries were assembled the red flag still flew from the Janiculum.[1766] (3) _The Senate_ It was through the Senate of the Principate that the idea of popular sovereignty was most practically and even most formally expressed; and, as the Principate claimed and even tried to be nothing more than the extraordinary magistracy of a Republic, the most infinite pains was taken with this body to give it dignity, stability, and weight. We shall speak elsewhere of the senatorial “order” which was created during the Principate; it was from this order that the Senate was recruited, and the will of the Princeps could be very distinctly asserted in the selection of members of the great council. Entrance was, as in the Republic, chiefly through the magistracy, the tenure of the quaestorship qualifying for a seat at the board. When, therefore, the Senate became itself the electing body, the principle of entrance was one of cooptation; and as the Princeps did not, to any great extent, influence the selection of quaestors by his _commendatio_,[1767] the principle was something more than a mere theory. But we shall see that he often gave the _latus clavus_ which admitted to the senatorial order; we have seen that he advanced to the military tribunate, which became one of the qualifications for the quaestorship;[1768] he might also have exercised an influence in the formal nomination of candidates for this office; while his right of _adlectio_,[1769] when exercised with reference to persons who had not been magistrates, gave him the power of actually creating senators. The qualifications for the Senate had reference to age, wealth, and birth. As twenty-five was the minimum age for the quaestorship, a man might be a senator at twenty-six.[1770] The _census_ required, though it varied from time to time during the reign of Augustus, was finally fixed at a million sesterces.[1771] _Ingenuitas_ was required—Claudius even demanded free birth through three generations[1772]—and it was counted one of the abuses of tyrannical rule when the favour of Emperors admitted freedmen into the Senate.[1773] For a time the council maintained its mainly Roman character, but “new men” from Italy and the provinces crept in with the censorships of Claudius and Vespasian,[1774] and the former Emperor even granted admission to the Gallic Aedui, perhaps by an employment of his right of _adlectio_.[1775] The reception of provincials finally became so frequent that, to give them an Italian interest, it was decreed by Trajan that one-third of their property must be invested in land in Italy,[1776] a quota that was changed by Marcus Aurelius to one-fourth.[1777]