ex-magistrates, and of excluding such as were unworthy. The consuls
could remain in office but a year, and could be called to account when
their terms of office had expired. The tribunes of the people ultimately
could prevent a consul from convening the senate, could seize a consul
and imprison him, and could veto an ordinance of the senate itself. The
nobles had no exclusive privilege like the feudal aristocracy of
mediaeval Europe, although it was their aim to secure the high
magistracies to the members of their own body. The term _nobilitas_
implied that some one of a man's ancestors had filled a curule
magistracy. A patrician, long before the reforms of the Gracchi, had
become a man of secondary importance, but the nobles were aristocrats to
the close of the republic, and continued to secure the highest offices;
they prevented their own extinction by admitting into their ranks those
who distinguished themselves,--that is, exercising their influence in
the popular elections to secure the magistracies from among themselves.

The Roman constitution then, as gradually developed by the necessities
and crises that arose, which I have not space to mention, was a
wonderful monument of human wisdom. The nobility were very powerful from
their wealth and influence, but the people were not ground down. There
were no oppressive laws to reduce them to practical slavery; what rights
they gained they retained. They constantly extorted new privileges,
until they were sufficiently powerful to be courted by demagogues. It
was the demagogues, generally aristocratic ones, like Catiline and
Caesar, who subverted the liberties of the people by buying votes. But
for nearly five hundred years not a man arose whom the Roman people
feared, and the proud symbol "SPQR," on the standards of the armies of
the republic, bore the name of the Roman Senate and People to the ends
of the earth.