on to the decline in its actual power. The entry of
the consuls on office was celebrated by a great procession, by games
given to the people, by a distribution of gifts, such as the ivory
diptychs, a long series of which has been preserved. But the senate,
over which they presided until the time of Justinian, was little more
than the municipal council of the city of Rome; and the justice which
they meted out had dwindled down to the formal and uncontested acts of
manumission and the granting of guardians. Sometimes there was a consul
of the West at Rome and a consul of the East at Constantinople; at other
times both consuls might be found in either capital. The last consul
born in a private station was Basilius in the East in A.D. 541. But the
emperors continued to bear the title for some time longer.

AUTHORITIES.--Mommsen, _Roemisches Staatsrecht_, ii. pp. 74-140 (3rd
ed., Leipzig, 1887); Herzog, _Geschichte und System der roemischen
Staatsverfassung_, i. p. 688 foll., 827 foll. (Leipzig, 1884, &c.),
Lange, _Roemische Alterthuemer_, i. p. 524 foll. (Berlin, 1856, &c.);
Schiller, _Staats- und Rechtsaltertuemer_, p. 53 foll. (Munich, 1893,
_Handbuch der klassischen Altertums-Wissenschaft_, von Dr Iwan von
Mueller); Daremberg-Saglio, _Dictionnaire des antiquites grecques et
romaines_, i. 1455 foll. (1875, &c.); De Ruggiero, _Dizionario
epigrafico di antichita Romane_, ii. 679 foll., 868 foll. (Rome,
1886, &c.); Pauly-Wissowa, _Realencyclopaedie_, iv. 1112 foll. (new
edition, Stuttgart, 1893, &c.).

For the consular diptychs, cf. besides Daremberg-Saglio, _l.c._,
Gori, _Thesaurus veterum diptychorum_ (Florence, 1759), and Labarte,
_Histoire des arts industriels au moyen age_, i. p. 10 foll., 190
foll. (1st ed., Paris, 1864). (A. H. J. G.)

CONSUL, a public officer authorized by the state whose commission he
bears to manage the commercial affairs of its subjects in a foreign
country, and formally permitted by the government of the country wherein
he resides to perform the duties which are specified in his commission,
or _lettre de provision_. (For the ancient magisterial office of consul
see separate article above.)

A consul, as such, is not invested with any diplomatic character, and he
cannot enter on his official duties until a rescript, termed an
_exequatur_ (sometimes a mere countersign endorsed on the commission),
has been delivered to him by the authorities