Roman Public LifeGreenidge, A. H. J. (Abel Hendy Jones)
History
Roman Public Life
Greenidge, A. H. J. (Abel Hendy Jones)
Constitutional history -- Rome; Rome -- Politics and government
There were other manifestations of the king’s power as general over which
the people would have no control. The disposal of the booty taken in
war and of the conquered lands was one of these,[243] and the statements
which record this right find support in Republican survivals. The control
of the spoils of war (at least of the movable portions) belongs to the
Republican general, subject to the advice of his council of war and
sometimes to subsequent ratification by the Senate. The first condition
may have been necessary in the time of the monarchy, but hardly the
second.
The council of war was a type of the smaller special _consilia_, which
the king doubtless employed to advise him in different branches of the
administration; and such special councils must have been chosen from
the great _consilium publicum_, the Senate. One of the most important
of these was that which furnished his assessors in jurisdiction. That
it became the custom, in the more important cases judged by the king in
person, to employ a _consilium_ of some sort, is stated in the charge
brought by tradition against Tarquinius Superbus that he neglected
this essential guarantee of even justice.[244] In the secular criminal
jurisdiction of the king such a council would doubtless have been taken
from the Senate. In the religious jurisdiction, which we have considered,
the pontiffs would have been the advising board.
Senators also must have been chiefly chosen as delegates of the king,
except, perhaps, those appointed for subordinate command in war;[245]
there military fitness would be chiefly looked to.
The chief of these delegates was the prefect of the city (_praefectus
urbi_), an _alter ego_ left behind in the capital by the king when he
himself was absent in the field.[246] To him must have been delegated
the whole of the executive power, and with it the right and duty of
consulting the Senate. It is not probable that the right of questioning
the people was or could be delegated.[247] In criminal jurisdiction a
distinction was believed to have been made in the cases brought before
the king; the more important were tried by himself in person, the less
important transmitted to judges chosen from the Senate.[248] This may be
the germ of a distinction which is said to have been perfected by Servius
Tullius. Crimes affecting the public welfare he tried himself; wrongs
done to private individuals he entrusted to others.[249]
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