Aulus Gellius, Attic Nights
John C. Rolfe, Ed.

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[p. 49] pianus, contained in the fourth book of his Investigations in Epistolary Form, says ¹ that this notebook which he made for Pompey on that subject was lost; and since what he had previously written was no longer in existence, he repeats in those letters a good deal bearing upon the same subject. ²

First of all, he tells us there by what magistrates the senate was commonly convened according to the usage of our forefathers, naming these: “the dictator, consuls, praetors, tribunes of the commons, interrex, and prefect of the city.” No other except these, he said, had the right to pass a decree of the senate, and whenever it happened that all those magistrates were in Rome at the same time, then he says that the first in the order of the list which I have just quoted had the prior right of bringing a matter before the senate; next, by an exceptional privilege, the military tribunes also who had acted as consuls, ³ and likewise the decemvirs, ⁴ who in their day had consular authority, and the triumvirs ⁵ appointed to reorganize the State, had the privilege of bringing measures before the House. Afterwards he wrote about vetoes, and said that the right to veto a decree of the senate belonged only to those who had the same authority ⁶ as those who wished to pass the decree, or greater power. He then added a list of the places in which a decree of the senate might lawfully be made, and he showed and maintained that this was regular only