, in the time of Ulpian. (See the fragments
of Ulpian.) Bach has clearly demonstrated that the senate had the
same power in the time of the Republic. It is natural that the
senatus-consulta should have been more frequent under the emperors,
because they employed those means of flattering the pride of the
senators, by granting them the right of deliberating on all affairs
which did not intrench on the Imperial power. Compare the discussions of
M. Hugo, vol. i. p. 284, et seq.--W.]

The silence or ambiguity of the laws was supplied by the occasional
edicts [3211] of those magistrates who were invested with the honors
of the state. [33] This ancient prerogative of the Roman kings was
transferred, in their respective offices, to the consuls and dictators,
the censors and praetors; and a similar right was assumed by the
tribunes of the people, the ediles, and the proconsuls. At Rome, and
in the provinces, the duties of the subject, and the intentions of the
governor, were proclaimed; and the civil jurisprudence was reformed by
the annual edicts of the supreme judge, the praetor of the city. [3311]
As soon as he ascended his tribunal, he announced by the voice of the
crier, and afterwards inscribed on a white wall, the rules which he
proposed to follow in the decision of doubtful cases, and the relief
which his equity would afford from the precise rigor of ancient
statutes. A principle of discretion more congenial to monarchy was
introduced into the republic: the art of respecting the name, and
eluding the efficacy, of the laws, was improved by successive praetors;
subtleties and fictions were invented to defeat the plainest meaning of
the Decemvirs, and where the end was salutary, the means were frequently
absurd. The secret or probable wish of the dead was suffered to prevail
over the order of succession and the forms of testaments; and the
claimant, who was excluded from the character of heir, accepted with
equal pleasure from an indulgent praetor the possession of the goods
of his late kinsman or benefactor. In the redress of private wrongs,
compensations and fines were substituted to the obsolete rigor of the
Twelve Tables; time and space were annihilated by fanciful suppositions;
and the plea of youth, or fraud, or violence, annulled the obligation,
or excused the performance, of an inconvenient contract. A jurisdiction
thus vague and arbitrary was exposed to the most dangerous abuse: the
substance, as well as the form,