those of the burgesses.

Abolition of the Dictatorship

Under the former head the most important innovation was the practical
abolition of the dictatorship. The crisis occasioned by Quintus
Fabius and his popular opponents in 537(61) gave the death-blow to
this all-along unpopular institution. Although the government once
afterwards, in 538, under the immediate impression produced by the
battle of Cannae, nominated a dictator invested with active command,
it could not again venture to do so in more peaceful times. On
several occasions subsequently (the last in 552), sometimes after
a previous indication by the burgesses of the person to be nominated,
a dictator was appointed for urban business; but the office, without
being formally abolished, fell practically into desuetude. Through
its abeyance the Roman constitutional system, so artificially
constructed, lost a corrective which was very desirable with reference
to its peculiar feature of collegiate magistrates;(62) and the
government, which was vested with the sole power of creating a
dictatorship or in other words of suspending the consuls, and
ordinarily designated also the person who was to be nominated as
dictator, lost one of its most important instruments. Its place
was but very imperfectly supplied by the power--which the senate
thenceforth claimed--of conferring in extraordinary emergencies,
particularly on the sudden outbreak of revolt or war, a quasi-
dictatorial power on the supreme magistrates for the time being, by
instructing them "to take measures for the safety of the commonwealth
at their discretion," and thus creating a state of things similar to
the modern martial law.

Election of Priests by the Community

Along with this change the formal powers of the people in the
nomination of magistrates as well as in questions of government,
administration, and finance, received a hazardous extension. The
priesthoods--particularly those politically most important, the
colleges of men of lore--according to ancient custom filled up the
vacancies in their own ranks, and nominated also their own presidents,
where these corporations had presidents at all; and in fact, for such
institutions destined to transmit the knowledge of divine things from
generation to generation, the only form of election in keeping with
their spirit was cooptation. It was therefore--although not of great
political importance--significant of the incipient disorganization of