Political Science Of The State

ARISTOCRACY. 19
raising of levies at home and the contingent to be furnished
by the allies, made the general arrangements for expeditions,
or sometimes put a skilful commander out of order in the place
of one who had drawn a province by lot, one consul, for in-
stance, or one consular man in the place of another. In
short, there was no operation of war over which it had not
the ultimate control. For making treaties of peace a magis-
trate with imperium, as a commander of a province, had the
competence. But it became the usage generally not to exer-
cise this high authority, but rather to refer those who sued
for peace to the senate. And the senate still retained its
part in making treaties of peace after it came to be regarded
as constitutional that a treaty of any kind was invalid without
the consent of the Roman community. (Lange, n,, <§> 117, p,
376, cd. I.) In order to do its appropriate work of arranging
terms and all details, which were to be laid before the people,
the senate was wont to send legates, usually ten in number,
to a distant province, for the purpose of acting with the com-
manders in the field. From those principal acts of adminis-
tration it naturally came about that the senate had all diplo- *
matic business in its hand ; it heard foreign ambassadors;
kings even appeared in the curia to transact business or make
requests there. The senate, again, performed acts of almost
sovereign power towards the subjected states or peoples, de-
cided as to the condition of such as had submitted themselves
in war to the Roman state, perhaps in connection with the
joint action of the people in making treaties. The details,
also, of provincial government passed under its review, or
were subject to its control Thus the appeals of the provin-
cials against an oppressive governor were presented to this
body for its decision, and trials, as in suits rcrum rtpetunda-
rum> could be instituted by its advice,
(3») The senate had supervision over public property aad
the finances. The care of the treasury, the control of all re-
ceipts and expenses, Poiybius justly regards as its principal
duty. The quaestors, he says, can deliver no money over
without resolutions of the senate giving them the authority,