It is evident that in this view, so long as the presidents were
nominated for life, the distinction between law and edict must have
practically been almost lost sight of, and the legislative activity
of the public assembly could acquire no development. On the other
hand it obtained a wide field of action after the presidents were
changed annually; and the fact was now by no means void of practical
importance, that, if the consul in deciding a process committed a
legal informality, his successor could institute a fresh trial of
the cause.

Civil and Military Authority

It was at this period, finally, that the provinces of civil and
military authority were separated. In the former the law ruled,
in the latter the axe: the former was governed by the constitutional
checks of the right of appeal and of regulated delegation; in the
latter the general held an absolute sway like the king.(15) It was
an established principle, that the general and the army as such should
not under ordinary circumstances enter the city proper. That organic
and permanently operative enactments could only be made under the
authority of the civil power, was implied in the spirit, if not in the
letter, of the constitution. Instances indeed occasionally occurred
where the general, disregarding this principle, convoked his forces
in the camp as a burgess assembly, nor was a decree passed under
such circumstances legally void; but custom disapproved of such
a proceeding, and it soon fell into disuse as though it had been
forbidden. The distinction between Quirites and soldiers became
more and more deeply rooted in the minds of the burgesses.

Government of the Patriciate

Time however was required for the development of these consequences
of the new republicanism; vividly as posterity felt its effects,
the revolution probably appeared to the contemporary world at first
in a different light. The non-burgesses indeed gained by it
burgess-rights, and the new burgess-body acquired in the -comitia
centuriata- comprehensive prerogatives; but the right of rejection on
the part of the patrician senate, which in firm and serried ranks
confronted the -comitia- as if it were an Upper House, legally hampered
their freedom of movement precisely in the most important matters, and
although not in a position to thwart the serious will of the collective
body, could yet practically delay and cripple it. If the nobility in
giving up their claim to be the sole