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But this limitation was not sufficient. The unrestricted military jurisdiction of the magistrate was felt not to be in harmony with the new régime. A law was passed by P. Valerius, the first of the consuls, allowing an appeal to the people in their centuries against every sentence of a magistrate which was pronounced against the life of a Roman citizen. This lex Valeria (509 B.C.) completed the popular jurisdiction which had been growing up during the monarchy,[321] and from this time no power but the people has the right to pronounce the final death sentence within the walls;[322] outside this sphere the military jurisdiction of the consul can be asserted without appeal—hence the distinction between the imperium at home (domi) and abroad (militiae); the limit between the spheres being originally the pomerium, later the first milestone from the city.[323] Without this limit the axes are borne within the fasces, within it they are laid aside. Tradition adds that it was this final recognition of popular sovereignty which led to the custom of the consul lowering the fasces before the people when he addressed them.[324] It does not appear that this great change was forced on the higher organs of the state by any popular agitation. It is no part of a distinctively plebeian movement. Senate and People, Patricians and Plebeians must have equally accepted as inevitable the doom of a power which had been dwindling to a shadow during the monarchy.

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