responsibilities, capable of turning anybody’s head. After all, what else had the Republic been founded on if not this single great perception—that the taste of kingly authority was addictive and corrupting? Except, of course, that with Rome now the mistress of the world and the arbiter of nations, the authority of her consuls far exceeded any king’s. All the more reason, then, to insist on the checks that had always hedged about their office.
