he senate, and
that portion of it into whose hands government and administration
were concentrated, was thus according to the Ovinian law substantially
based no longer on the arbitrary will of a magistrate, but indirectly
on election by the people. The Roman state in this way made some
approach to, although it did not reach, the great institution of
modern times, representative popular government, while the aggregate
of the non-debating senators furnished--what it is so necessary and
yet so difficult to get in governing corporations--a compact mass
of members capable of forming and entitled to pronounce an opinion,
but voting in silence.

Powers of the Senate

The powers of the senate underwent scarcely any change in form. The
senate carefully avoided giving a handle to opposition or to ambition
by unpopular changes, or manifest violations, of the constitution; it
permitted, though it did nor promote, the enlargement in a democratic
direction of the power of the burgesses. But while the burgesses
acquired the semblance, the senate acquired the substance of power
--a decisive influence over legislation and the official elections,
and the whole control of the state.

Its Influence in Legislation

Every new project of law was subjected to a preliminary deliberation
in the senate, and scarcely ever did a magistrate venture to lay a
proposal before the community without or in opposition to the senate's
opinion. If he did so, the senate had--in the intercessory powers of
the magistrates and the annulling powers of the priests--an ample set
of means at hand to nip in the bud, or subsequently to get rid of,
obnoxious proposals; and in case of extremity it had in its hands
as the supreme administrative authority not only the executing, but
the power of refusing to execute, the decrees of the community. The
senate further with tacit consent of the community claimed the right
in urgent cases of absolving from the laws, under the reservation that
the community should ratify the proceeding--a reservation which from
the first was of little moment, and became by degrees so entirely a
form that in later times they did not even take the trouble to propose
the ratifying decree.

Influence on the Elections

As to the elections, they passed, so far as they depended on the
magistrates and were of political importance, practically into the
hands of the senate. In this way it acquired, as has been mentioned
already,(25) the rig