the general principle of law that, where two equal authorities differ,
the veto prevails over the command. Moreover the original number
(which indeed was soon augmented), and the annual duration of the
magistracy, which in the case of the tribunes changed its occupants
on the 10th of December, were common to the tribunes and the consuls.
They shared also the peculiar collegiate arrangement, which placed the
full powers of the office in the hands of each individual consul and
of each individual tribune, and, when collisions occurred within the
college, did not count the votes, but gave the Nay precedence over
the Yea; for which reason, when a tribune forbade, the veto of the
individual was sufficient notwithstanding the opposition of his
colleagues, while on the other hand, when he brought an accusation,
he could be thwarted by any one of those colleagues. Both consuls and
tribunes had full and co-ordinate criminal jurisdiction, although the
former exercised it indirectly, and the latter directly; as the two
quaestors were attached to the former, the two aediles were associated
with the latter.(7) The consuls were necessarily patricians, the
tribunes necessarily plebeians. The former had the ampler power, the
latter the more unlimited, for the consul submitted to the prohibition
and the judgment of the tribunes, but the tribune did not submit
himself to the consul. Thus the tribunician power was a copy of the
consular; but it was none the less a contrast to it. The power of
the consuls was essentially positive, that of the tribunes essentially
negative. The consuls alone were magistrates of the Roman people, not
the tribunes; for the former were elected by the whole burgesses, the
latter only by the plebeian association. In token of this the consul
appeared in public with the apparel and retinue pertaining to state-
officials; the tribunes sat on a stool instead of the "chariot seat,"
and lacked the official attendants, the purple border, and generally
all the insignia of magistracy: even in the senate the tribune had