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.A plague having preyed upon Rome for some years, andother means of appeasement having failed the older men remembered (so it is said)that at one time an outbreak of plague had been reduced by the Dictator s hammeringthe nail, which used to be done to mark the year.Thereafter, a dictator was alwaysappointed for this purpose, and he would always abdicate immediately afterward.It isinteresting that even in these nonmilitary cases, the dictator would appoint a masterof the horse. This would seem to suggest that the military stature of the dictator waspart of what suggested his dignity and power, and therefore part of what would makehis action pleasing in the eyes of the gods. 126 States of Emergency in Liberal Democraciesfive times.38 The dictator was set a specific task, and then he wouldappoint a deputy, who was called magister equitum, or master of thehorse.39 Generally, the whole preliminary process could be concluded ina day or two.The dictator could then quickly set out to war or tohammering nails, running elections, and so on.The responsibilities of dictators rgc were often confined to a spe-cific geographical area.In the Early Republic, this was almost alwaysoutside Rome but later, the senate occasionally gave an additional,domestic senatus consultum to a dictator in office before he abdi-cated.In any case, a dictator who successfully trounced an enemywould often return to triumph and it was not unusual for a dictatorto continue in his role within Rome s boundaries until these celebra-tions were concluded and his obligations to the gods fulfilled.40 Uponcompletion of his task, or after six months (whichever came first), thedictator would formally set down his powers and resume his civilianlife.41I noted earlier that political thinkers concur that a Dictator s author-ity was bounded only by the requirement that he fulfill his task or laydown his power within a set time, and the requirement that he notchange the constitution.I also suggested that neither of these claimsis accurate.Because of the presence of informal constraints and enable-ments, the dictator s power was both broader and narrower than iscommonly ascribed.It illustrates a smoother transition between nor-mal and exceptional political circumstances.There are records of seven dictators who passed legislation, roughly7.5 percent of all dictators, including those appointed for simple38Furius Camillus served in the years 396, 390, 386, 368, and 367 B.C.He broughtRome a series of spectacular victories, especially against the Gauls.The year 368 wasan exception.In that year, Furius Camillus resigned after one frantic day in officebecause of a debacle.He had attempted to cow rather than coopt the plebeians:a disastrous strategy in this case.39It is interesting to note that the Dictator himself was strictly associated with theinfantry.40A Roman triumph was a special public celebration to glorify a successful militaryleader.A dictator might then repay the gods for victory with things gods were thoughtto enjoy: ceremonial games, statues, temple dedications, etc.41There was at least one case of a dictator staying on for up to a year and then passingpower over to another dictator.But this was extremely rare and dictated by geo-graphical military complications. The Rule of Law and the Roman Dictatorship 127ceremonial tasks.42 Some of the laws in question altered the structure ofthe government significantly and all but one were significant achieve-ments for the plebeians in the face of senatorial opposition.For example,the dictator of 367 B.C., M.Furius Camillus, promulgated a law establish-ing that a plebeian could hold one of the consulships.M.AemiliusMamercinus, appointed Dictator rgc in 434 B.C.to trample an expectedEtruscan uprising which never materialized took the opportunity topass a popular law, the lex Aemilia de censura minuenda or law short-ening the duration of the censorship (from 5 years to 18 months).The lawwas proposed to and overwhelmingly approved by the popular comitiatributa and strongly opposed by the senate.It is noteworthy that noone.complained or hinted that Aemilius acted illegally. 43Thus, it appears that a dictator could and did legislate, and indeedeven alter the constitution, particularly when it served the public in-terest or appeased the people.Such actions both required and cementedpublic support, which might well have been necessary to fulfill broadermilitary tasks.Both show the potential importance of popularity inachieving political as well as military aims, which suggests that thisfunctioned as an informal means of enabling a dictator to engage incircumscribed activities and also of constraining him from engaging incertain others.The dictator could act as a sort of vanguard, as long as hehad reason to expect popular support.44The second claim, that the dictator could do anything related to histask, that indeed, in Rossiter s words, the dictator was as absolutea ruler as could well be imagined, is also untrue.45 This seems a strangeway to describe a man who could not even mount a horse without42The dictators who legislated for plebeian benefit, but not on constitutional matters,included: Valerius Corvus, whose lex Valeria militaris provided mutinous soldiersamnesty and lowered the cavalry s pay, while a further law forbade military tribunesfrom becoming centurion commanders; and Manlius Capitolinus, dictator ss and rgcin 368 B.C.who, according to Plutarch, passed a law that limited the possession of publicland, for purposes of redistribution.See Hartfield, Roman Dictatorship, pp.276 9.43Hartfield, Roman Dictatorship, p.277.44This contradicts Ferejohn and Pasquino s recent claim in The Law of Exception that emergency powers in general and the dictatorship in particular are inherentlyconservative insofar as they aim to restore the status quo.There is no reason, in theoryat least, why the same vaguely vanguardist principles governing restorative emergencypowers could not also govern regime transition.See, e.g., pp.210 12.45Rossiter, Constitutional Dictatorship, p.23. 128 States of Emergency in Liberal Democraciespermission.46 Rossiter lists, startlingly blind to their significance, a widerange of formal and informal restrictions with which the dictator mustcontend.For money he was reliant on the senate, his term was limited, hecould do little without popular support, he had no civil judicial power,and he could not himself decide to launch an offensive war.By 363 B.C., the dictator came under the tribune s veto as surely asany other magistrate,47 and by 300 B.C.the provocatio ad populumjoined the list of restrictions on his power.Indeed, Lintott has arguedfrom evidence in Livy and in extant text of the law itself that the lexrepetundarum allows for a dictator and his magister equitum to becharged on abdication if they overstepped while in office.Furthermore, although other magistrates were held in abeyancewhile the dictator was in Rome, there is no reason to think that thesenate s power was reduced, except voluntarily
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