The Pnmltive Democracy of the Germans. 31 



considerable warmth, whether the right of entertaining a 

 comitatus was confined to the magistrates or chiefs of the 

 state. Some have held that any person who chose might 

 gather about him a body of followers; others, on the other 

 hand, have taken principes in this relation to mean " nobles," 

 and have regarded the right as a privilege of nobility. I 

 have already said that neither Csesar nor Tacitus ascribes any 

 political privileges to the nobility, which appears, therefore, 

 to have been a purely social distinction; and this statement 

 is correct, if we take only the terms nohiles or proceres to 

 mean " nobles," they being the words regularly used in this 

 sense. The word principes, on the other hand, does not 

 properly mean " nobles," but " chiefs " — individuals invested 

 with certain governmental powers. It is purely begging the 

 question to assume that, in relation to the comitatus it is 

 used in a different sense from its usual one. But the con- 

 nection in which the word is used is conclusive upon this 

 point. Both the writers in question speak of the principes 

 as magistrates before speaking of them as leaders of the 

 coniitatus; and in Tacitus the passages follow close upon 

 one another with no interruption. He passes directly from 

 the election and the judicial functions of the principes to the 

 description of the comitatus; the conclusion is irresistible 

 that X\iQ p)rincipes who maintain the comitatus are the same 

 as those who administer the government of the state and 

 preside over the judicial assemblies of the districts. 



It will be readily seen that an institution like this, which, 

 as Tacitus says, had a direct interest in war,* must have 

 had a powerful influence in converting a peaceful commu- 

 nity of peasants into the turbulent and quarrelsome nation 

 of warriors who invaded and overthrew the Roman empire. 

 But our immediate connection is with the constitutional 

 change which it effected. We see a body of elected magis- 

 trates (to use a modern term) holding their office for life, and 

 therefore, virtually irresponsible, administering the govern- 

 ment in the intervals between the assemblies, having the 

 administration of justice whollj^ under their direction and 



*Magm(.vi comitatum nan nisi vi belloque tueare. Germ. 14. 



