administer justice in person, they were considered
as the supreme guardians of law, equity, and the public peace. Such was
their ordinary jurisdiction; but whenever the senate empowered the first
magistrate to consult the safety of the commonwealth, he was raised by
that decree above the laws, and exercised, in the defence of liberty,
a temporary despotism. [13] The character of the tribunes was, in every
respect, different from that of the consuls. The appearance of the
former was modest and humble; but their persons were sacred and
inviolable. Their force was suited rather for opposition than for
action. They were instituted to defend the oppressed, to pardon
offences, to arraign the enemies of the people, and, when they judged it
necessary, to stop, by a single word, the whole machine of government.
As long as the republic subsisted, the dangerous influence, which
either the consul or the tribune might derive from their respective
jurisdiction, was diminished by several important restrictions. Their
authority expired with the year in which they were elected; the former
office was divided between two, the latter among ten persons; and,
as both in their private and public interest they were averse to
each other, their mutual conflicts contributed, for the most part, to
strengthen rather than to destroy the balance of the constitution. [131]
But when the consular and tribunitian powers were united, when they were
vested for life in a single person, when the general of the army was, at
the same time, the minister of the senate and the representative of the
Roman people, it was impossible to resist the exercise, nor was it easy
to define the limits, of his imperial prerogative.

[Footnote 11: Cicero (de Legibus, iii. 3) gives the consular office the
name of egia potestas; and Polybius (l. vi. c. 3) observes three powers
in the Roman constitution. The monarchical was represented and exercised
by the consuls.]

[Footnote 12: As the tribunitian power (distinct from the annual office)
was first invented by the dictator Caesar, (Dion, l. xliv. p. 384,) we
may easily conceive, that it was given as a reward for having so nobly
asserted, by arms, the sacred rights of the tribunes and people. See his
own Commentaries, de Bell. Civil. l. i.]

[Footnote 13: Augustus exercised nine annual consulships without
interruption. He then most artfully refused the magistracy, as well as
the dictatorship, absented himself from Rome, and wait