ntroduced foreign envoys
to the senate. The symbols of their presidency were manifold. It was
marked by the twelve lictors (q.v.), a number permitted to no other
ordinary magistrate, by the fact that the first act of newly-admitted
consuls was to take the auspices, their second to summon the senate, and
by the use of their names for dating the year. The consulate was,
indeed, as Cicero expresses it, the culminating point in an official
career ("Honorum populi finis est consulatus," Cic. _Pro Planco_, 25.
60).

In the domestic sphere the consuls retained certain powers of
jurisdiction. This jurisdiction was either (i.) administrative or (ii.)
criminal. (i.) Their administrative jurisdiction was sometimes concerned
with financial matters such as pecuniary claims made by the state and
individuals against one another. They acted in these matters in the
periods during which the censors were not in office. We also find them
adjudicating in disputes about property between the cities of Italy,
(ii.) Their criminal jurisdiction was of three kinds. In the first place
it was their duty, before the development of the standing commissions
which originated in the middle of the 2nd century B.C., to set in motion
the criminal law against offenders for the cognizance of ordinary, as
opposed to political, crimes. The reference of such cases to the
assembly of the people was effected through their quaestors (see
Quaestor). Secondly, when the people and senate, or the senate alone,
appointed a special commission (see Senate), the commissioner named was
often a consul. Thirdly, we find the consul conducting a criminal
inquiry raised by a point of international law. It is possible that in
this case his advising body (_consilium_) was composed of the _fetiales_
(see Herald, ad fin.). (Cicero, _De republica_, iii. 18. 28; Mommsen,
_Staatsrecht_, ii. p. 112, n. 3).

During the greater part of the republic the consuls were recognized as
the heads of the administration abroad as well as at home. It thus
became necessary that departments of administration (_provinciae_)
should be determined and assigned. The method of assignment varied. The
least usual device was for one consul to take the field at the head of
an army, while the other remained at home to transact the civil business
of state. More often foreign wars demanded the attention of both
consuls. In this case the regular army of four legions was usually
divided between them. When it was