The first act of the centuriate assembly according to Livy,[1350] who has certainly placed the beginning of its functions at the earliest possible date,[1351] was the election of the first two consuls. Thereafter these comitia not only continued to elect the consuls, but also naturally acquired the right to choose all elective higher magistrates, extraordinary as well as ordinary, who were entrusted temporarily or permanently with some or all of the consular power—including the decemviri legibus scribundis, 451, 450, the tribuni militum consulari potestate, beginning in 444, the two censors, beginning in 443 (or 435?), and the praetors, increased gradually from one in 366 to sixteen under Caesar.[1352] The activity of this assembly in elections expanded with the growth in the number of offices; and its importance was further enhanced by the opening of the patrician magistracies to plebeians. The validity of a centuriate elective act depended upon the subsequent curiate law, which soon became a mere form, and upon the patrum auctoritas. The latter, too, was deprived of all vitality by the Maenian plebiscite,[1353] which required the act to be passed before the election while the issue was uncertain.[1354] The date of this plebiscite is unknown; but it probably followed close upon the Hortensian legislation (287).[1355] II. _Legislative_ In an earlier chapter[1356] it was shown that primitive Rome, like primitive Greece, regarded law as god-given—a conception which left no scope for legislation by a popular assembly. Though under the kings the people may occasionally have been called to vote on a resolution affecting their customs, the comitia curiata never acquired a law-making function.[1357] Even the declaration of war, which historical Rome looked upon as a lex, was issued by the king without the consent of the community, his only need being to secure the hearty support of the warriors.[1358] It seems probable therefore that this question came, not before the comitia, but before a military contio.[1359] From the custom of the soldiers to participate in the settlement of questions touching their interests[1360] developed the function of declaring war. The people, however, were slow in acquiring the right. It is true that several such acts are mentioned by Dionysius for the early republic—for the war against the Volscians, 489,[1361] against Veii, 482,[1362] and against the Aequians and Volscians in 462.[1363] These instances may be explained either as acclamations in contio or as exceptional votes in the comitia centuriata, or with more probability, owing to the character of our sources for those early times, as anticipations of later usage. The decisive fact in the problem is that as late as 427 a controversy arose as to whether war could be declared by order of the people only, or whether a senatus consultum was sufficient. It was settled in favor of the people by the threats of the plebeian tribunes to impede the