law-guardian

Updated: May 6, 2025

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.

Theodor Mommsen - The History of Rome, Book I : The Period Anterior to the Abolition of the Monarchy

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.

Theodor Mommsen - The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5)