The authority of the Senate (_auctoritas patrum_) is mentioned in connexion with all the transmissions of the supreme office.[185] It is an authority, however, which did not spring from any theory of the Senate’s possessing elective powers, but was simply a result of the universal principle that no man in authority should act without taking advice of his _consilium_, and was merely an outcome of the constitutional necessity which the king was under of consulting the Senate on all great measures affecting the popular welfare. The greatest of these would be the appointment of a successor. Secondly, we are told of a formal ratification of the king’s power by the people assembled in the _comitia curiata_, one which continued into the Republic under the title of the _lex curiata_, a formal sanction always required for the ratification of an _imperium_ already assumed.[186] It is said to have had this character even in the time of the monarchy, and this was thought to be shown by the fact that the king himself proposed the _lex curiata_ which was to give the sanction for the exercise of his own power.[187] Such procedure was, indeed, necessary, since no one but the king had the right of putting the question to the people; consequently we must accept the view that the _lex curiata_ was not absolutely necessary for the exercise of power, and might be legally, though not perhaps constitutionally, withheld, as it was by King Servius during the early part of his reign.[188] The Roman jurists, who believed that the king was elected, credited the people with two distinct acts in the creation of a king—first, his election, and then the formal ratification of this election.[189] A parallel for this seemed to be furnished by Republican usage, where the _lex_ was taken by magistrates already elected as a necessary preliminary to the exercise of the _imperium_. But at this period the magistrates were not elected by the _comitia curiata_, and the _lex_ of this assembly is a mere survival, a reminiscence of the formal sovereignty which continued to be vested in the _curiae_. The _lex curiata_ is much more comprehensible in origin if the king was first nominated independently of the people and then challenged their allegiance. It was probably little more than an acclamation on the first summons of the _curiae_ by the king. The preceding king must have already made known to the people his choice of a successor, and the popular sentiment would have been already expressed; thus there was little chance of adverse shouts when the new king challenged the allegiance of his burgesses. If there was a chance of the challenge not being accepted, it might, as we saw, be withheld. But an exercise of the regal _imperium_ which was not sanctioned by these two acts of Senate and people—the expressed will of the one and the declared allegiance of the other—was regarded by later authorities as unconstitutional.[190]