The strengthening of the kingship naturally tended to weaken the assembly. The Lacedaemonian kings had a right to make war on whatever state they pleased, and any citizen who obstructed this power was accursed;[1002] if, too, in anything the people gave a wrong decision, the kings and council could set it right.[1003] Under the Frankish monarchy the general assembly seems to have entirely disappeared in the sixth century A.D., to be revived in the latter part of the seventh,[1004] in a form which took little account of the commons.[1005] In the other Germanic tribes which entered the Empire the effect of the migration was to strengthen the king and to weaken in a corresponding degree the power of the people.[1006] In Russia Tartar domination, converting the legitimate princes into tyrants, effected the downfall of the assemblies.[1007] The building up of large states, too, necessarily degrades or destroys popular gatherings.[1008] The heritage of the Roman assembly from the earlier tribal time must have been slight as well as vague—a heritage diminished further by the growing power of the king and nobles. The assumption has often been made that from the beginning the Roman assembly was sovereign. The view rests in part, however, on a confusion of two ideas which should be kept distinct. In its broadest sense populus designates the state, which is sovereign whether it expresses its will through the king, the senate, or the popular assembly, or through the concurrence of two or more of these elements. In interstate relations it always has this meaning. More narrowly populus signifies the masses of citizens in contrast with the magistrates or with the senate.[1009] In the latter sense it cannot be said that the populus was from the beginning sovereign. The Romans themselves of later time understood that in the regal period the senate had the wisdom to advise, the king possessed the imperium, whereas the people enjoyed but a limited degree of freedom, right, and power.[1010] Their condition was not liberty but a preparation for it.[1011] Their assembly, like that of other early Europeans, had no power of initiative; it met only when summoned by the king, and could consider those matters only which the king brought before it. Its object must have been chiefly to receive information and to witness acts of public importance. In no case did the king call upon the assembly for advice; counsel belonged exclusively to the wise elders, who composed the senate;[1012] and should he wish to instruct the people in the merits of a proposed measure, he would himself address them and perhaps invite the most respected senators or his most trustworthy supporters among the private citizens to give the masses the benefit of their wisdom.[1013] In other than judicial assemblies the privilege of speaking must have been sparingly granted.[1014] Finally no elective or legislative act of the curiae was