the republican arrangements, that at this time (before 542), while
election into the colleges themselves was left on its former footing,
the designation of the presidents--the -curiones- and -pontifices-
--from the ranks of those corporations was transferred from the
colleges to the community. In this case, however, with a pious regard
for forms that is genuinely Roman, in order to avoid any error, only a
minority of the tribes, and therefore not the "people," completed the
act of election.

Interference of the Community in War and Administration

Of greater importance was the growing interference of the burgesses in
questions as to persons and things belonging to the sphere of military
administration and external policy. To this head belong the
transference of the nomination of the ordinary staff-officers from the
general to the burgesses, which has been already mentioned;(63) the
elections of the leaders of the opposition as commanders-in-chief
against Hannibal;(64) the unconstitutional and irrational decree of
the people in 537, which divided the supreme command between the
unpopular generalissimo and his popular lieutenant who opposed him in
the camp as well as at home;(65) the tribunician complaint laid before
the burgesses, charging an officer like Marcellus with injudicious and
dishonest management of the war (545), which even compelled him to
come from the camp to the capital and there demonstrate his military
capacity before the public; the still more scandalous attempts to
refuse by decree of the burgesses to the victor of Pydna his
triumph;(66) the investiture--suggested, it is true, by the senate--of
a private man with extraordinary consular authority (544;(67)); the
dangerous threat of Scipio that, if the senate should refuse him the
chief command in Africa, he would seek the sanction of the burgesses
(549;(68)); the attempt of a man half crazy with ambition to extort
from the burgesses, against the will of the government, a declaration
of war in every respect unwarranted against the Rhodians (587;(69));
and the new constitutional axiom, that every state-treaty acquired
validity only through the ratification of the people.

Interference of the Community with the Finances

This joint action of the burgesses in governing and in commanding was
fraught in a high degree with peril. But still more dangerous was
their interference with the finances of the state; not only because
any attack on the oldest and