While the Romans were engaged in acquiring political supremacy in Italy, the Roman state itself underwent a profound transformation as the result of severe internal struggles between the patrician and the plebeian elements. *The constitution of the early republic: the magistrates.* Upon the overthrow of the monarchy, the Romans set up a republican form of government, where the chief executive office was filled by popular election. At the head of the state were two annually elected magistrates, or presidents, called at first praetors but later consuls. They possessed the _auspicium_ or the right to consult the gods on behalf of the state, and the _imperium_, which gave them the right of military command, as well as administrative and judicial authority. Both enjoyed these powers in equal measure and, by his veto, the one could suspend the other’s action. Thus from the beginning of the Republic annuality and collegiality were the characteristics of the Roman magistracy. Nevertheless, the Romans recognized the advantage of an occasional concentration of all power in the state in the hands of a single magistrate and so, in times of emergency, the consuls, acting upon the advice of the senate, nominated a dictator, who superseded the consuls themselves for a maximum period of six months. The dictator, or _magister populi_, as he was called in early times, appointed as his assistant a master of the horse (_magister equitum_). *The Senate.* At the side of the magistrates stood the Senate, a body of three hundred members, who acted in an advisory capacity to the officials, and possessed the power of sanctioning or vetoing laws passed by the Assembly of the People. The senators were nominated by the consuls from the patrician order and held office for life. *The comitia curiata.* During the early years of the Republic, the popular Assembly, which had the power of electing the consuls and passing or rejecting such measures as the latter brought before it, was probably the old _comitia curiata_. But, as we shall see, it was soon superseded in most of its functions by a new primary assembly.