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Senate, which soon realized the value of the tribune’s veto as a means of controlling the other magistrates as well as his fellow tribunes; and there would be few years when the Senate was unable to win the support of at least one of the ten tribunes.
    While magistrates came and went the Senate remained. The need of a permanent governing body which could make quick decisions in times of crisis led to an immense increase in its powers. Theoretically it could not legislate, but its resolutions ( senatus consulta ) were generally obeyed, and it came to wield a predominating moral guidance in the state. After the fifth century more plebeians won entry, and the rise of the new nobility strengthened its authority at a time when patrician prestige was weakening. Originally its numbers had been filled by the kings and then by the consuls at will, but tradition gradually restricted the consuls’ choice to ex-magistrates. When the duty of revising the list was transferred from the consuls to the censors bythe Ovinian law they were instructed to give preference to ex-magistrates. As members retained their seats for life, the Senate might justly be considered a representative council, embodying all the experience of past and present. The sovereign people who claimed ultimate authority were more ready to acquiesce in its rule, since it was they who elected the magistrates and thus they were indirectly responsible for the composition of the Senate. It tended, however, to remain conservative, since the higher magistrates were elected by the Comitia Centuriata where wealth predominated. Its great reverence for custom, mos maiorum , together with its numbers, tended to stereotype its policy in a safe and mediocre mould; but if it lacked brilliance it guided the state safely through many troublous seas and its collective wisdom often checked the extravagant or dangerous whims of the sovereign people.
    The people, with their more cumbrous assemblies, were willing for the most part to acquiesce in the growth of the Senate’s power: still more were the magistrates over whom it soon exercised almost absolute control. It became customary for the consul to refer every matter of importance to the Senate, and he was morally bound to follow its advice when formally expressed in a senatus consultum . The average official would not dare to challenge the authority of a body composed of ex-magistrates, on which he himself would sit for the rest of his career; if he was bold enough to withstand this moral pressure, he could generally be checked by a tribune. Thus the magistrates became the executive of a senatorial administration which claimed by right of custom alone to direct the policy of the state in all its important branches, especially in finance and foreign affairs. Only the actual declaration of war and concluding of peace were left to the people, and even then the preliminary diplomatic negotiations had been conducted by the Senate, which was able to give the people a strong lead. Finally, the dignity rather than the actual power of the Senate has found its classic expression in the report of Pyrrhus’ ambassador, Cineas, that the Senate was an assembly of kings.
    5. THE ASSEMBLIES AND PEOPLE
    In practice the Roman people were willing to allow the Senate and magistrates to conduct a large part of the business of the state, but in theory they claimed to represent the ultimate source of authority. During the century that followed the Gallic invasion they expressed this authority through the legislative, judicial and electoral activity of their assemblies, the Curiata, Centuriata and Tributa, and of the purely plebeian Concilium Plebis: but they could only take action on matters submitted to them by the presiding magistrate. The tendency was, however, in the direction of real democracy; but it was checked by the skill with which the nobles manipulated thetribunate and religion and by the rapid expansion of Roman arms which distracted attention