The Senate of Rome, we are informed by Sallust, judged very properly in passing a decree, that no treaty could be made without their consent and that of the people. Livy relates that Hieronymus, king of Syracuse, having entered into a convention with Hannibal, sent afterwards to Carthage to have it converted by the state into a league. For which reason Seneca the elder has said, applying the expression to persons invested with a special commission for that purpose, that a treaty, negotiated by the general, binds the whole of the Roman people, who are supposed to have made it. But in monarchies, the power of making treaties belongs to the king alone, a maxim which the language of poetry, no less than the records of history, shews to have been held in all ages. Euripides, whose sentiments are always conformable to nature, and popular opinion, in his Tragedy of the Suppliants, says, "It rests with Adrastus to take the oath, to whom, as sovereign, the sole right of binding the country by treaties belongs." No subordinate magistrates have such a power of binding the people; nor will the acts of a smaller portion bind the greater, an argument used in favour of the Romans against the Gauls. For there was a majority of the people with Camillus, the dictator. But it remains to be considered how far the acts of those, who have engaged for the people, without any public authority, are binding. Perhaps it may be said that the contracting parties have discharged their responsibility when they have done all in their power towards the fulfilment of their obligation. That might be the case in promises, but the obligation in public contracts is of a stricter kind. For the party contracting requires something in return for the engagements he makes. Hence the civil law, which rejects all promises made by one person for the performance of some act by another, renders him who engages for the ratification of a thing liable to pay damages and interest.