We must glance in the last place at the change brought about by the wars in another department of Roman life, viz. in the working of the constitution. The reader will remember that in early Rome the salient feature in that constitution was the _imperium_ of the magistrate, just as in private life the salient feature was the discipline of the family under the rule of the head of the household. The man who held the _imperium_ was irresistible so long as he held it, though a wise custom made it necessary for him to seek the advice of his council, the Senate, in all questions of grave importance. But now the long wars took the consul and his _imperium_ away from the city for long periods, and as the Empire began to grow up and include provinces beyond sea, those periods became longer and longer. There were, indeed, always two magistrates with _imperium_ in Rome, the prætors, who for long past had been elected yearly to help the consuls in judicial business; but the prestige of their _imperium_ never reached the level of that of the consuls. And even when a consul returned home, though the majesty of the _imperium_ was present in his person as ever, it was not his hand that was really on the helm. The decision of great questions did not lie with him, but with his Council, whose knowledge of affairs and whose “courage never to submit or yield,” had carried Rome safely through a long series of unexampled trials. In the period after the war with Hannibal, the Senate, not the _imperium_, is clearly the paramount power in the working of the constitutional machinery. To take a single instance: when the people declined to sanction the war with Philip of Macedon, the Senate directed the consul to convince them that they were wrong, and both consul and people bowed to its will. They had other agents in the tribunes of the people, if the consuls failed them, and would now and then even coerce a consul by means of the power of the tribune. But what chiefly gave the Senate its power was the fact that it was the only permanent part of the government. A senator held office for life unless ejected by the Censor for immorality, while all the magistrates were elected for a year only. In the Senate there sat for life every man who had held high office and done the State good service, and as there were some three hundred of these, it was almost impossible for the yearly holders of _imperium_ to resist their deliberate judgments. And for those judgments the Senate was responsible to no man.