ation but also the name
of the nominee. After the nomination, the imperium of the dictator was
confirmed by a _lex curiata_ (see COMITIA). To emphasize the superiority
of this imperium over that of the consuls, the dictator might be
preceded by twenty-four lictors, not by the usual twelve; and, at least
in the earlier period of the office, these lictors bore the axes, the
symbols of life and death, within the city walls.

Tradition represents the dictatorship as having a life of three
centuries in the history of the Roman state. The first dictator is said
to have been created in 501 B.C.; the last of the "administrative"
dictators belongs to the year 216 B.C. It was an office that was
incompatible both with the growing spirit of constitutionalism and with
the greater security of the city; and the epoch of the Second Punic War
was marked by experiments with the office, such as the election of Q.
Fabius Maximus by the people, and the co-dictatorship of M. Minucius
with Fabius, which heralded its disuse (see PUNIC WARS). The emergency
office of the early and middle Republic has few points of contact,
except those of the extraordinary position and almost unfettered
authority of its holder, with the dictatorship as revised by Sulla and
by Caesar. Sulla's dictatorship was the form taken by a provisional
government. He was created "for the establishment of the Republic." It
is less certain whether the dictatorships held by Caesar were of a
consciously provisional character. Since the office represented the only
supreme _Imperium_ in Rome, it was the natural resort of the founder of
a monarchy (see SULLA and CAESAR). Ostensibly to prevent its further use
for such a purpose, M. Antonius in 44 B.C. carried a law abolishing the
dictatorship as a part of the constitution.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.--Mommsen, _Romisches Staatsrecht_, ii. 141 foll. (3rd
ed., Leipzig, 1887); Herzog, _Geschichte und System der romischen
Staatsverfassung_, i. 718 foll. (Leipzig, 1884); Pauly-Wissowa,
_Realencyclopadie_, v. 370 foll. (new edition, Stuttgart. 1893, &c.);
Lange, _Romische Alterthumer_, i. 542 foll. (Berlin, 1856, &c.);
Daremberg-Saglio, _Dictionnaire des antiquites grecques et romaines_,
ii. 161 foll. (1875, &c.); Haverfield, "The Abolition of the
Dictatorship," in _Classical Review_, iii. 77. (A. H. J. G.)

DICTIONARY.

Definition and history.

In its proper and most usual meaning a dictionary is a book containing a