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Is it because he is not a magistrate at all? For tribunes have no lictore, nor do they transact business seated on the curule chair, nor do they enter their office at the beginning of the yearThey entered upon their office December 10th; Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities, vi. 89. 2; Livy, xxxix. 52. as all the other magistrates do, nor do they cease from their functions when a dictator is chosen: but although he transfers every other office to himself, the tribunes alone remain, as not being officials but as holding some other position. Even as some advocates will not have it that a demurrer is a suit, but hold that its effect is the opposite of that of a suit; for a suit brings a case into court and obtains a judgement, while a demurrer takes it out of court and quashes it; in the same way they believe that the tribuneship is a check on officialdom and a position to offer opposition to magistracy rather than a magistracy. For its authority and power consist in blocking the power of a magistrate and in the abrogation of excessive authority.