embly
has voted, it dissolves. The people are sovereign, but accustomed to
obey their chiefs.

=The Magistrates.=--Every year the people elect officials to govern
them and to them they delegate absolute power. These are called
magistrates (those who are masters). Lictors march before them bearing
a bundle of rods and an axe, emblems of the magisterial powers of
chastising and condemning to death. The magistrate has at once the
functions of presiding over the popular assembly and the senate, of
sitting in court, and of commanding the army; he is master everywhere.
He convokes and dissolves the assembly at will, he alone renders
judgment, he does with the soldiers as he pleases, putting them to
death without even taking counsel with his officers. In a war against
the Latins Manlius, the Roman general, had forbidden the soldiers
leaving camp: his son, provoked by one of the enemy, went forth and
killed him; Manlius had him arrested and executed him immediately.

According to the Roman expression, the magistrate has the power of a
king; but this power is brief and divided. The magistrate is elected
for but one year and he has a colleague who has the same power as
himself. There are at once in Rome two consuls who govern the people
and command the armies, and several praetors to serve as subordinate
governors or commanders and to pronounce judgment. There are other
magistrates, besides--two censors, four aediles to supervise the
public ways and the markets, ten tribunes of the plebs, and quaestors
to care for the state treasure.

=The Censors.=--The highest of all the magistrates are the censors.
They are charged with taking the census every five years, that is to
say, the enumeration of the Roman people. All the citizens appear
before them to declare under oath their name, the number of their
children and their slaves, the amount of their fortune; all this is
inscribed on the registers. It is their duty, too, to draw up the list
of the senators, of the knights, and of the citizens, assigning to
each his proper rank in the city. They are charged as a result with
making the lustrum, a great ceremony of purification which occurs
every five years.[122]

On that day all the citizens are assembled on the Campus Martius
arranged in order of battle; thrice there are led around the assembly
three expiatory victims, a bull, a ram, and a swine; these are killed
and their blood sprinkled on the people; the city is purified and
re