levy.[1364] For the next hundred years mention is often made of the exercise of this function by the people;[1365] and when a declaration was once issued by them, it could be recalled only by their vote.[1366] During the period of the Samnite wars the assembly still more frequently made use of this right.[1367] In better known times we find it firmly established. The people declared war against Carthage in 264,[1368] against the Illyrians in 229,[1369] against Carthage again in 218,[1370] against Macedon in 200,[1371] against Antiochus in 191,[1372] against Macedon again in 171,[1373] against Jugurtha in 111.[1374] In the case of the two Macedonian wars here referred to, the declaration is mentioned as an act of the comitia centuriata.[1375] In 167 the praetor M. Juventus Thalna attempted to pass through the tribal assembly a lex de bello indicendo against the Rhodians, but was effectually opposed by a tribune of the plebs;[1376] so that the function continued to be exclusively centuriate. Cn. Manlius Volso in 189 made war upon the Gallograeci without an order of the people or a decree of the senate, and was on that ground accused in the senate by two of his legati.[1377] We conclude, however, that the charge was fruitless from the circumstance that the senate finally decreed him a triumph.[1378] For beginning war against the Histrians on his own responsibility the consul A. Manlius, 178, was threatened with a prosecution, which was quashed by a tribunician veto.[1379] Licinius Lucullus was not even brought to trial for the war he waged without an order of the people against the Vaccaei in 151.[1380] Hence it appears that though a magistrate could not legally begin war on his own initiative, there was no real danger of condemnation for so doing. The reason is that those in authority attached little importance to the right of the comitia in the matter. Only once is mentioned a fear lest the people may not give their consent to a war.[1381] One case of rejection is recorded, and even here the centuries at a second session obediently accepted the consul’s proposition.[1382] The control of diplomacy and of the revenues by the senate and magistrates assured these powers the practical decision of questions of war and peace to such an extent that ratification by the assembly could ordinarily be counted on as certain; and its influence decreased with the expansion of the empire. Meantime, however, the idea of popular sovereignty, which was expressing itself in other spheres of government, effectually demanded, if only in form, some concession to the assembly in this field as well; and accordingly in the formula of declaration “populus” wholly takes the place of the once all-important “senatus.”[1383] By such empty concessions the nobility rendered the people more docile. Thus to the end of the republic the centuriate assembly retained the constitutional right to decide questions of aggressive war, although in practice the