The executive magistrates were
chosen annually. The assembly was the supreme Court of Appeal; and without
its sanction no freeman could be lawfully put to death. In the assembly
also was the supreme power of legislation. Any consul, any praetor, any
tribune, might propose a law from the Rostra to the people. The people if
it pleased them might accept such law, and senators and public officers
might be sworn to obey it under pains of treason. As a check on
precipitate resolutions, a single consul or a single tribune might
interpose his veto. But the veto was binding only so long as the year of
office continued. If the people were in earnest, submission to their
wishes could be made a condition at the next election, and thus no
constitutional means existed of resisting them when these wishes showed
themselves.
In normal times the Senate was allowed the privilege of preconsidering
intended acts of legislation, and refusing to recommend them if
inexpedient, but the privilege was only converted into a right after
violent convulsions, and was never able to maintain itself. That under
such a system the functions of government could have been carried on at
all was due entirely to the habits of self-restraint which the Romans had
engraved into their nature. They were called a nation of kings, kings over
their own appetites, passions, and inclinations.
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