Читать книгу Roman Public Life онлайн

62 страница из 145

The people, therefore, possessed certain sovereign rights, but each right was limited by the vast authority of their personal representative, who wielded the whole of the executive, and so much of the legislative power as is implied in the sole right of initiative. We cannot even speak of the people as vesting this power in their king; for their right of election was, as we shall see, probably as limited as their power of legislation.

This personal head possessed a variety of titles which marked the various aspects of his rule—titles which survived into the Republic, and, on the differentiation of the functions which he united, were applied to various magistrates. As supreme judge he was judex, as leader and commander in war praetor,[160] dictator, and magister populi.[161] The most general title which marked him out as universal head of the state, in religious as in civil matters, was that of rex, the “regulator” of all things human and divine—a title which survived in the rex sacrorum, the heir of the king in sacrifice and in ritual. The powers on which this position was based were summed up in the word imperium.[162]