Dictātor

, a magistrate at Rome, invested with regal authority. This officer, whose magistracy seems to have been borrowed from the customs of the Albans or Latins, was first chosen during the Roman wars against the Latins. The consuls being unable to raise forces for the defence of the state, because the plebeians refused to enlist, if they were not discharged from all the debts they had contracted with the patricians, the senate found it nece ary to elect a new magistrate, with absolute and incontrollable power to take care of the state. The dictator remained in office for six months, after which he was again elected, if the affairs of the state seemed to be desperate; but if tranquillity was re-established, he generally laid down his power before the time was expired. He knew no superior in the republic, and even the laws were subjected to him. He was called dictator, because dict us , named by the consul, or quoniam dict is ejus parebat populus , because the people implicitly obeyed his command. He was named by the consul in the night, vivâ voce , and his election was confirmed by the auguries, though sometimes he was nominated or recommended by the people. As his power was absolute, he could proclaim war, levy forces, conduct them against an enemy, and disband them at pleasure. He punished as he pleased; and from his decision there was no appeal, at least till later times. He was preceded by 24 lictors, with the fasces : during his administration, all other offices, except the tribunes of the people, were suspended, and he was the master of the republic. But amidst all his independence he was not permitted to go beyond the borders of Italy, and he was always obliged to march on foot in his expeditions; and he never could ride in difficult and laborious marches, without previously obtaining a formal leave from the people. He was chosen only when the state was in imminent dangers from foreign enemies or inward seditions. In the time of a pestilence, a dictator was sometimes elected, as also to hold the comitia , or to celebrate the public festivals, to hold trials, to choose senators, or drive a nail in the Capitol, by which superstitious ceremonies the Romans believed that a plague could be averted, or the progre of an enemy stopped. This office, so respectable and illustrious in the first ages of the republic, became odious by the perpetual usurpations of Sylla and Julius Cæsar; and after the death of the latter the Roman senate, on the motion of the consul Antony, pa ed a decree, which for ever after forbade a dictator to exist in Rome. The dictator, as soon as elected, chose a subordinate officer, called his master of horse, magister equitum . This officer was respectable, but he was totally subservient to the will of the dictator, and could do nothing without his expre order, though he enjoyed the privilege of using a horse, and had the same insignia as the pretors. This subordination, however, was some time after removed; and during the second Punic war the master of the horse was invested with a power equal to that of the dictator. A second dictator was also chosen for the election of magistrates at Rome, after the battle of Cannæ. The dictatorship was originally confined to the patricians, but the plebeians were afterwards admitted to share it. Titus Lartius Flavus was the first dictator, A.U.C. 253. Dionysius of Halicarna us. — Cicero , de Legibus , bk. 3 .— Dio Ca ius. — Plutarch , Fabius Maximus .— Appian , bk. 3 .— Polybius , bk. 3 .— Paterculus , bk. 2 , ch. 28 .— Livy , bk. 1 , ch. 23 ; bk. 2 , ch. 18 ; bk. 4 , ch. 57 ; bk. 9 , ch. 38 .