Note 111 — LIFE OF CAIUS GRACCHUS.

The form of the decree was, Videant consules ne quid respublica detrimenti capiat (Livius, 3, c. 4), which empowered the consuls or consul, as the case might be, to provide that the commonwealth sustained no damage. The word detrimentum, which signifies damage caused by rubbing off, had a tacit reference to the majestas of the Populus Romanus. The majestas (majesty) of the state is its integrity, its wholeness, any diminution of which was an offence; and under the Emperors the crime of majestas, that is majestas impaired, was equivalent to high treason. The decree here alluded to was only adopted, as Livius expresses it, in the utmost extremity, when the state was in danger; its effect was to proclaim martial law, and to suspend for the time all the usual forms of proceeding.