CHAPTER XXIII.

THE EARLY ROMAN REPUBLIC: CONQUEST OF ITALY,
(509-264 B.C.)


THE FIRST CONSULS.--With the monarchy overthrown and the last king and his
house banished from Rome, the people set to work to reorganize the
government. In place of the king, there were elected (by the _comitia
centuriata_, in which assembly the plebeians had a place) two patrician
magistrates, called consuls, [Footnote: That is, _colleagues_. Each
consul had the power of obstructing the acts or vetoing the commands of
the other. In times of great public danger the consuls were superseded by
a special officer called a _dictator_, whose term of office was limited to
six months, but whose power during this time was as unlimited as that of
the kings had been.] who were chosen for one year, and were invested with
all the powers, save some priestly functions, that had been held by the
monarch during the regal period.

In public each consul was attended by twelve servants, called lictors,
each of whom bore an axe bound in a bundle of rods (_fasces_), the
symbols of the authority of the consul to flog and to put to death. Within
the limits of the city, however, the axe must be removed from the
_fasces_, by which was indicated that no Roman citizen could be put
to death by the consuls without the consent of the public assembly.

Lucius Junius Brutus and Tarquinius Collatinus were the first consuls
under the new constitution. But it is said that the very name of
Tarquinius was so intolerable to the people that he was forced to resign