Note 1168 — Chapter IX · THE COMITIA CURIATA

Cf. Herzog, Röm. Staatsverf. i. 679. It is not to be assumed, however, that the senatus consultum had to be repeated at every such case of transition. Lange, Röm. Alt. ii. 175, 704 f., who gives the measure a wider constitutional scope, assumes that it was a plebiscite. Mommsen, Röm. Forsch. ii. 413, supposes that the two consuls on entering office in 214 simply omitted the curiate sanction on the ground that they already held the imperium, which was unlimited in duration, and that the jurists accepted this procedure as constitutional. The specific motive for this action, Mommsen asserts, was the fact that they were absent from Rome at the opening of their official year. But the truth is that they were both present (Livy xxiv. 10 f.), and had accordingly no occasion for establishing such precedent on their own responsibility. All they did in the matter, then, was to take advantage of a measure already enacted.