XXI - FROM CONSULS TO POTESTA

Summary

As the century grew older, the associated families which constituted the Commune gradually ceased to be the natural and inevitable representatives of their fellow-citizens. The merchants on terra firma, the Arti, the landed proprietors, had other ideals and other aspirations than those of the sea-captains and armatori; and, little by little, even the holy of holies of the Consulship was, as we have seen, invaded by men of a different class. Having lost its homogeneity, the ruling aristocracy was torn by conflicting interests; and, in order to enable the Consular College to govern at all, it seems to have become necessary to elect a president or “primus consul,” a kind of ἄρχων ἐπώνυμος, invested with authority to take action on his own initiative in the name of his colleagues. In time of war, one, and rarely more than one, of the Consuls was appointed head of the army, and exercised almost unlimited jurisdiction both within and without the city; the numbers of the College tended to decrease; and the way was opened for the coming of the Potestk. Meanwhile, the great feudal families of the contado began to aspire to a share in the government; and, after the descent of Barbarossa into Italy, we find the Gherardesca taking an everincreasing part in public affairs.