Livy[1] and Cicero[2] call him _praetor maximus_; Seneca[3] calls him _magister populi_; what he decreed was looked upon as a fiat from above.

Livy[4] says: _pro numine observatum_.
In those times of incomplete civilisation, the rigidity of the ancient laws not having foreseen all cases, his function was to provide for the safety of the people; he was the product of this text: _salus populi suprema lex esto_.

He caused to be carried before him the twenty-four axes, the emblems of his power of life and death.

He was outside the law, and above the law, but he could not touch the law.

The dictatorship was a veil, behind which the law remained intact.