Roman Antiquities, and Ancient Mythology | Page 5

they were kept in the temple of Ceres. The place where the public records were kept was called "Tabularium." The decrees of the Senate concerning the honors conferred on C?sar were inscribed in golden letters, on columns of silver. When not carried to the treasury, they were reckoned invalid. Hence it was ordained under Tiberius, that the decrees of the Senate, especially concerning the capital punishment of any one, should not be carried there before the tenth day, that the emperor, if absent from the city, might have an opportunity of considering them, and if he thought proper of mitigating them.
Decrees of the Senate were rarely reversed. While a question was under debate, every one was at freedom to express his dissent; but when once determined, it was looked upon as the common concern of each member to support the opinion of the majority.
The power of the Senate was different at different times. Under the regal government, the Senate deliberated upon such affairs as the king proposed to them, and the kings were said to act according to their counsel as the consuls did afterwards according to their decrees.
Tarquin the proud, dropped the custom handed down from his predecessors, of consulting the Senate about everything; banished or put to death the chief men of that order, and chose no others in their room; but he was expelled from the throne for his tyranny, and the regal government abolished, A. U. 243. Afterwards the power of the Senate was raised to the highest. Everything was done by its authority. The magistrates were in a manner only its ministers. But when the Patricians began to abuse their power, and to exercise cruelty on the Plebeians, especially after the death of Tarquin, the multitude took arms in their own defence, made a secession from the city, seized on Mons Sacer, and created tribunes for themselves, who attacked the authority of the Senate, and in process of time greatly diminished it.
Although the supreme power at Rome belonged to the people, yet they seldom enacted anything without the authority of the Senate. In all weighty matters, the method usually observed was that the Senate should first deliberate and decree, and then the people order.
The Senate assumed to themselves exclusively, the guardianship of the public religion; so that no new god could be introduced, nor altar erected, nor the Sybiline books consulted without their order. They had the direction of the treasury, and distributed the public money at pleasure. They appointed stipends to their generals and officers, and provisions and clothing to the armies. They settled the provinces which were annually assigned to the consuls and pr?tors, and when it seemed fit, they prolonged their command. They nominated, out of their own body, all ambassadors sent from Rome, and gave to foreign ambassadors what answers they thought proper. They decreed all public thanksgivings for victories obtained, and conferred the honor of an ovation or triumph with the title of imperator on their victorious generals. They could decree the title of king to any prince whom they pleased, and declare any one an enemy by a vote. They inquired into all public crimes or treasons, either in Rome or other parts of Italy; and adjusted all disputes among the allied and dependent cities. They exercised a power not only of interpreting the laws, but of absolving men from the obligation of them. They could postpone the assemblies of the people, and prescribe a change of habit to the city, in cases of any imminent danger or calamity.
But their power was chiefly conspicuous in civil dissension or dangerous tumults within the city, in which that solemn decree used to be passed; "That the consuls should take care that the republic should receive no harm." By which decree an absolute power was granted to them to punish and put to death whom they pleased without a trial; to raise forces and carry on war, without the order of the people.
Although the decrees of the Senate had not properly the force of laws, and took place chiefly in those matters which were not provided for by the laws, yet they were understood always to have a binding force, and were therefore obeyed by all orders. The consuls themselves were obliged to submit to them. They could be annulled or cancelled only by the Senate itself. In the last ages of the republic, the authority of the Senate was little regarded by the leading men and their creatures, who by means of bribery obtained from a corrupted populace what they desired, in spite of the Senate.
Augustus, when he became master of the empire, retained the forms of the ancient republic, and the same names of the magistrates; but left nothing of the ancient virtue and liberty. While he pretended always to