171 



many checks against misgovernment, that at last even good and 

 energetic government was impossible. When, therefore, men 

 like Polybius saw a Roman consul surrounded with military 

 and civil authority of which they had had no conception, 

 commanding large armies, disposing of vast resources, presiding 

 in the Senate and the popular assembly, they might well liken 

 him to a king. But they could not fail soon to discover that 

 there was a power, even superior to that which first presented 

 itself to the eye, — a power of which consuls and dictators 

 were in reality only the agents, and to whose decision all con- 

 flicting and discordant elements in the delegates of power 

 were doomed to bend, not less submissively than the will of 

 gods was overruled by the decrees oi fate. 



The concurrence of the Roman Senate in the executive is 

 most distinctly marked in their foreign policy. The Senate, 

 as a body, was in fact the minister for foreign affairs. The 

 whole intercourse with other states was carried on by the 

 Senate ; ambassadors received and despatched ; commissioners 

 chosen by the Senate, and from the body of senators were sent 

 out to regulate the conditions of peace or alliance, or to settle 

 conquered districts ; the Senate fixed the line of policy to be 

 pursued, decided in the first instance on the question of peace 

 and war (finally to be settled by the people), and prescribed to 

 the generals the mode of conducting wars ; the Senate selected 

 the consul to whom a war was to be entrusted, determined on 

 the amount of resources to be placed at his disposal, continued 

 him in command, or sent him a successor, as it thought fit. 



The allies and subjects of Rome were entirely under the 

 control of the Senate, from whom they received redress against 

 their provincial governors. Thus the Senate exercised a vast 

 jurisdiction over subject territories, which led soon to the 

 establishment of the standing tribunals, (Quajstiones perpe- 

 tuse) in which the jury was composed of senators, until their 

 corruption and rapacity caused C. Gracchus to substitute in 

 their place the Knights. 



