time that this unity was effected that the name _Italia_
began to be applied to the whole of the peninsula and the term _Italici_
was employed, at first by foreigners, but later by themselves, to
designate its inhabitants.(1)

CHAPTER VI

THE CONSTITUTIONAL DEVELOPMENT OF ROME TO 287 B. C.

I. THE EARLY REPUBLIC

While the Romans were engaged in acquiring political supremacy in Italy,
the Roman state itself underwent a profound transformation as the result
of severe internal struggles between the patrician and the plebeian
elements.

*The constitution of the early republic: the magistrates.* Upon the
overthrow of the monarchy, the Romans set up a republican form of
government, where the chief executive office was filled by popular
election. At the head of the state were two annually elected magistrates,
or presidents, called at first praetors but later consuls. They possessed
the _auspicium_ or the right to consult the gods on behalf of the state,
and the _imperium_, which gave them the right of military command, as well
as administrative and judicial authority. Both enjoyed these powers in
equal measure and, by his veto, the one could suspend the other's action.
Thus from the beginning of the Republic annuality and collegiality were
the characteristics of the Roman magistracy. Nevertheless, the Romans
recognized the advantage of an occasional concentration of all power in
the state in the hands of a single magistrate and so, in times of
emergency, the consuls, acting upon the advice of the senate, nominated a
dictator, who superseded the consuls themselves for a maximum period of
six months. The dictator, or _magister populi_, as he was called in early
times, appointed as his assistant a master of the horse (_magister
equitum_).

*The Senate.* At the side of the magistrates stood the Senate, a body of
three hundred members, who acted in an advisory capacity to the officials,
and possessed the power of sanctioning or vetoing laws passed by the
Assembly of the People. The senators were nominated by the consuls from
the patrician order and held office for life.

*The comitia curiata.* During the early years of the Republic, the popular
Assembly, which had the power of electing the consuls and passing or
rejecting such measures as the latter brought before it, was probably the
old _comitia curiata_. But, as we shall see, it was soon s