But it was not merely in so far as the idea of a perpetual kingdom found its living expression in this assembly, that it was an essential member of the Roman constitution.  The council of elders, indeed, had no title to interfere with the official functions of the king.  The latter doubtless, in the event of his being unable personally to lead the army or to decide a legal dispute, took his deputies at all times from the senate; for which reason subsequently the highest posts of command were regularly bestowed on senators alone, and senators were likewise employed by preference as jurymen.  But the senate, in its collective capacity, was never consulted in the leading of the army or in the administration of justice; and therefore there was no right of military command and no jurisdiction vested in the senate of the later Rome.  On the other hand the council of elders was held as called to the guardianship of the existing constitution against encroachments by the king and the burgesses.  On the senate devolved the duty of examining every resolution adopted by the burgesses at the suggestion of the king, and of refusing to confirm it if it seemed to violate existing rights; or, which was the same thing, in all cases where a resolution of the community was constitutionally requisite—­as on every alteration of the constitution, on the reception of new burgesses, on the declaration of an aggressive war—­the council of elders had a right of veto.  This may not indeed be regarded in the light of legislation pertaining jointly to the burgesses and the senate, somewhat in the same way as to the two chambers in the constitutional state of the present day; the senate was not so much law-maker as law-guardian, and could only cancel a decree when the community seemed to have exceeded its competence—­to have violated by its decree existing obligations towards the gods or towards foreign states or organic institutions of the community.  But still it was a matter of the greatest importance that—­to take an example—­when the Roman king had proposed a declaration of war and the burgesses had converted it into a decree, and when the satisfaction which the foreign community seemed bound to furnish had been demanded in vain, the Roman envoy invoked the gods as witnesses of the wrong and concluded with the words, “But on these matters we shall consult the elders at home how we may obtain our rights;” it was only when the council of elders had declared its consent, that the war now decreed by the burgesses and approved by the senate was formally declared.  Certainly it was neither the design nor the effect of this rule to occasion a constant interference of the senate with the resolutions of the burgesses, and by such guardianship to divest them of their sovereign power; but, as in the event of a vacancy in the supreme office the senate secured the continuance of the constitution, we find it here also as the shield of legal order in opposition even to the supreme power—­the community.