Nevertheless, if it is to the letter of the constitution that one appeals, we must not forget the existence of a third element in the constitution of Augustus--the People. As we have seen, the plebiscite and the lex still passed formally through the comitia. The plebiscite had of late republican years become a weapon of opposition to the senate. Yet even under Augustus we can point to a few measures passed in this form. None were of much importance--one was merely the conferring of the new title of “Father of his Country” upon Cæsar. Another concerned aqueducts. The judicial functions of the populus were entirely abrogated by Augustus, and there only remained that which, after all, had always been its most important function, the elections. Popular election in the comitia was still under Augustus, the only path to the senate and the magistracies. It is true that the magistracies had all paled into insignificance before the new and mighty office of the princeps. For this reason, perhaps, Augustus did not deprive them of what they regarded not only as an ancient right, but still more as a source of income. Here also there might have been effective opposition. The populus might have returned to office, and so to the senate, a series of champions of freedom. But except Egnatius Rufus, there were no such champions. The patron of the people, the man whose munificence fed them and gave them the shows they lived for, was Cæsar. No one could bribe against his purse. He had, moreover, two direct methods of securing the return of his nominees. In virtue of his tribunician powers he had the right to draw up the list of candidates, and in the second place it had always been the practice for candidates to put forward the names of their principal supporters. Augustus in his early days of strict deference to constitutional etiquette used to go down to the forum and personally canvass for his friends, afterwards, however, he reverted to the brusquer methods of Julius, and merely issued a fly-sheet to the electors bearing the names of his nominees. Thus the elections became more and more a form, and Tiberius transferred them to the senate without arousing much opposition. In the whole period of Augustus we have only one instance of his failure to pass a law which he desired and then it was due to the organised opposition of the knights who demanded its rejection publicly in the theatre.