And over all the consuls exercised a power--in time, indeed, only annual, but in nature and prerogative completely royal.
The consuls maintained, with the greatest energy, that rule which so much conduces to the power of our nobles and great men, that the acts of the commons of the people shall not be binding, unless the authority of the patricians has approved them.

About the same period, and scarcely ten years after the first consuls, we find the appointment of the dictator in the person of Titus Lartius.

And this new kind of power--namely, the dictatorship--appears exceedingly similar to the monarchical royalty.

All his power, however, was vested in the supreme authority of the senate, to which the people deferred; and in these times great exploits were performed in war by brave men invested with the supreme command, whether dictators or consuls.
XXXIII.

But as the nature of things necessarily brought it to pass that the people, once freed from its kings, should arrogate to itself more and more authority, we observe that after a short interval of only sixteen years, in the consulship of Postumus Cominius and Spurius Cassius, they attained their object; an event explicable, perhaps, on no distinct principle, but, nevertheless, in a manner independent of any distinct principle.