interposed directly, and by isolated acts, to
avenge itself on the author of the evil which it had suffered. This is
the point from which we start; each indictment is now a bill of pains
and penalties, a special law naming the criminal and prescribing his
punishment. A _second_ step is accomplished, when the multiplicity of
crimes compels the legislature to delegate its powers to particular
Quaestiones or Commissions, each of which is deputed to investigate a
particular accusation, and if it be proved, to punish the particular
offender. Yet _another_ movement is made when the legislature, instead
of waiting for the alleged commission of a crime as the occasion of
appointing a Quaestio, periodically nominates Commissioners like the
Quaestores Parricidii and the Duumviri Perduellionis, on the chance of
certain classes of crimes being committed, and in the expectation that
they _will_ be perpetrated. The _last_ stage is reached when the
Quaestiones from being periodical or occasional become permanent
Benches or Chambers--when the judges, instead of being named in the
particular law nominating the Commission, are directed to be chosen
through all future time in a particular way and from a particular
class--and when certain acts are described in general language and
declared to be crimes, to be visited, in the event of their
perpetration, with specified penalties appropriated to each
description.

If the Quaestiones Perpetuae had had a longer history, they would
doubtless have come to be regarded as a distinct institution, and
their relation to the Comitia would have seemed no closer than the
connection of our own Courts of Law with the Sovereign, who is
theoretically the fountain of justice. But the Imperial despotism
destroyed them before their origin had been completely forgotten, and,
so long as they lasted, these Permanent Commissions were looked upon
by the Romans as the mere depositaries of a delegated power. The
cognisance of crimes was considered a natural attribute of the
legislature, and the mind of the citizen never ceased to be carried
back from the Quaestiones, to the Comitia which had deputed them to put
into exercise some of its own inalienable functions. The view which
regarded the Quaestiones, even when they became permanent, as mere
Committees of the Popular Assembly--as bodies which only ministered to
a higher authority--had some important legal consequences which left
their mark on the criminal law to t