The comitia were free, but the Senate had at its disposal either the veto of the tribunes or the religious scruples of the people. A consul could prevent the meeting of these assemblies, or cut short all their deliberations, either by declaring that he was observing the sky, or that a clap of thunder or some other celestial manifestation had occurred;[155] and it depended upon the declaration of the augurs to annul the elections. Moreover, the people in reality were satisfied with naming the persons on whom they wished to confer the magisterial offices, for, to enter upon their functions, the consuls and the prætors had to submit their powers to the sanction of the curiæ (_lex curiata de imperio_).[156] It was thus in the power of the nobility to reverse the elections which displeased them, a fact which Cicero explains in the following terms, while presenting this measure in a light favourable to the people: “Your ancestors required the suffrages twice for all magistracies, for, when a curiate law was proposed in favour of the patrician magistrates, they voted in reality a second time for the same persons, so that the people, if they repented of their choice, had the power of abandoning it.”[157]
The dictatorship was also a lever left in the hands of the nobility to overthrow oppositions and influence the comitia. The dictator was never elected, but appointed by a consul.[158] In the space of only twenty-six years, from 390 to 416, there were eighteen dictators.
The Senate remained, therefore, all powerful in spite of the victory of the plebeians, for, independently of the means placed at its disposal, it was in its power to elude the plebiscita, the execution of which was entrusted to it. If the influence of a predominant class sobered the use of political liberty, the laws presented a still greater curb on individual liberty. Thus, not only all the members of the family were subjected to the absolute authority of the head, but each citizen was obliged further to obey a multitude of rigorous obligations.[159] The censor watched over the purity of marriages, the education of children, the treatment of slaves and clients, and the cultivation of the lands.[160] “The Romans did not believe,” says Plutarch, “that each individual ought to be allowed the liberty to marry, to have children, to choose his walk in life, to give festivities, or even to follow his desires and tastes, without undergoing a previous inspection and judgment.”[161]