celebration of games (Dio Cassius lvi. 46, lix. 20) that the tenure was progressively shortened. In the early principate the consuls hold office for six months, later for four to two months (Mommsen, Staatsrecht, ii. pp. 84-87). The consuls appointed for the 1st of January were called ordinarii, the others suffecti; and the whole year was dated by the names of the former.

This distinction continued in the Empire that was founded by Diocletian and Constantine. The ordinarii were nominated by the emperor, the suffecti were nominated by the senate, and their appointment was ratified by the emperor. The consulship | was still the greatest dignity which the Empire had to bestow; and the pomp and ceremony of the office increased in proportion to the decline in its actual power. The entry of the consuls on office was celebrated by a great procession, by games given to the people, by a distribution of gifts, such as the ivory diptychs, a long series of which has been preserved. But the senate, over which they presided until the time of Justinian, was little more than the municipal council of the city of Rome; and the justice which they meted out had dwindled down to the formal and uncontested acts of manumission and the granting of guardians. Sometimes there was a consul of the West at Rome and a consul of the East at Constantinople; at other times both consuls might be found in either capital. The last consul born in a private station was Basilius in the East in A.D. 541. But the emperors continued to bear the title for some time longer.

AUTHORITIES.-Mommsen, Römisches Staatsrecht, ii. pp. 74-140 (3rd ed., Leipzig, 1887); Herzog, Geschichte und System der römischen Staatsverfassung, i. p. 688 foll., 827 foll. (Leipzig, 1884, &c.); Lange, Römische Alterthümer, i. p. 524 foll. (Berlin, 1856, &c.); Schiller, Staats- und Rechtsaltertümer, p. 53 foll. (Munich, 1893, Handbuch der klassischen Altertums-Wissenschaft, von Dr Iwan von Müller); Daremberg-Saglio, Dictionnaire des antiquités grecques et romaines, i. 1455 foll. (1875, &c.); De Ruggiero, Dizionario epigrafico di antichità Romane, ii. 679 foll., 868 foll. (Rome, 1886, &c.); Pauly-Wissowa, Realencyclopädie, iv. 1112 foll. (new edition, Stuttgart, 1893, &c.). For the consular diptychs, cf. besides Daremberg-Saglio, l.c., Gori, Thesaurus veterum diptychorum (Florence, 1759), and Labarte, Histoire des arts industriels au moyen âge, i. p. 10 foll., 190 foll. (1st ed., Paris, 1864). (A. H. J. G.)

CONSUL, a public officer authorized by the state whose commission he bears to manage the commercial affairs of its subjects in a foreign country, and formally permitted by the government of the country wherein he resides to perform the duties which are specified in his commission, or lettre de provision. (For the are specified in his commission, or lettre de provision. (For the ancient magisterial office of consul see separate article above.) A consul, as such, is not invested with any diplomatic character, and he cannot enter on his official duties until a rescript, termed an exequatur (sometimes a mere countersign endorsed on the commission), has been delivered to him by the authorities of the state to which his nomination has been communicated by his own government. This exequatur, called in Turkey a barat, may be revoked at any time at the discretion of the government where he resides. The status of consuls commissioned by the Christian powers to reside in Mahommedan countries, China, Korea, Siam, and, until 1899, in Japan, and to exercise judicial functions in civil and criminal matters between their own countrymen and strangers, is exceptional to the common law, and is founded on special conventions or capitulations (q.v.). The title of consul, in the sense in which it is used in international law, is derived from that of certain magistrates, in the cities of medieval Italy, Provence and Languedoc, charged with the settlement of trade disputes whether by sea or land (consules mercatorum, consules artis maris, &c.).1 With the growth of trade it early became convenient to appoint agents with similar powers in foreign parts, and these often, though not invariably, were styled consuls (consules in partibus ultramarinis).2 The 1 The title of consul was borne by the chief municipal officers of several cities of the south of France during the middle ages and up to the Revolution. The name was not due to their being the successors of the chiefs of the Roman municipia. They were members of the governing body known as the consulat, and in Latin documents are sometimes styled consiliarii, i.e. councillors. The consulat itself is not traceable beyond the 12th century.

2 Particular quarters of mercantile cities were assigned to foreign traders and were placed under the jurisdiction of their own magistrates, variously styled syndics, provosts (praepositi), échevins

earliest foreign consuls were those established by Genoa, Pisa, Venice and Florence, between 1098 and 1196, in the Levant, at Constantinople, in Palestine, Syria and Egypt. Of these the Pisan agent at Constantinople bore the title of consul, the Venetian that of baylo (q.v.). In 1251 Louis IX. of France arranged a treaty with the sultan of Egypt under which French consuls were established at Tripoli and Alexandria, and Du Cange cites a charter of James of Aragon, dated 1268, granting to the city of Barcelona the right to elect consuls in partibus ultramarinis, &c. The free growth of the system was, however, hampered by commercial and dynastic rivalries. The system of French foreign consulships, for instance, all but died out after the crushing of the independent life of the south and the incorporation of Provence and Languedoc under the French crown; while, with the establishment of Venetian supremacy in the Levant, the baylo developed into a diplomatic agent of the first class at the expense of the consuls of rival states. The modern system of consulships actually dates only from the 16th century. Early in this century both England and Scotland had their conservators" with "jurisdiction to do justice between merchant and merchant beyond the seas "; but France led the way. The alliance between Francis I. and Suleiman the Magnificent gave her special advantages in the Levant, of which she was not slow to take advantage. Her success culminated in the capitulations signed in 1604, under the terms of which her consuls were given precedence over all others and were endowed with diplomatic immunities (e.g. freedom from arrest and from domiciliary visits), while the traders of all other nations were put under the protection of the French flag. It was not till 1675 that, under the first capitulations signed with Turkey, English consuls were established in the Ottoman empire. Ten years earlier, under the commercial treaty between England and Spain, they had been established in Spain.

The frequent wars of the succeeding century hindered the development of the consular system. Thus, though the system of consuls was regularly established in France by the ordinance of 1661, in 1760 France had consuls only in the Levant, Barbary, ment of foreign consuls in her own ports as tending to infringe Italy, Spain and Portugal, while she discouraged the establishher own jurisdiction. It was not till the 19th century that the system developed universally. Hitherto consuls had, for the most part, been business men with no special qualification as regards training; but the French system, under which the consular service had been long established as part of the general civil service of the country, a system that had survived the Revolution unchanged, was gradually adopted by other nations; though, as in France, consuls not belonging to the regular service, and having an inferior status, continued to be appointed. In Great Britain the consular service was organized in 1825 (see below); in France the series of ordinances and laws by which its modern constitution was fixed began in 1833. In Germany progress was hindered by the political conditions of the country under the old Confederation; for the Hanse cities, which practically monopolized the oversea trade, lacked the means to establish a consular system on the French model. The present magnificently organized consular system of Germany is, then, united empire. It was initiated by an act of the parliament of the North German Confederation (Nov. 8, 1867), subsequently incorporated in the statutes of the Empire, which laid down the principle that the German consulates were to be under the immediate jurisdiction of the president of the Confederation (later the emperor). The functions, duties and privileges of French and German consuls do not differ materially from those of British consuls; but there is a great difference in the organization and personnel of the consular service. In France, apart from the consuls élus or consuls marchands, who are mere consular agents, selected by the government from among the traders of a (scabini), &c., who had power to fine or to expel from the quarter. The Hanseatic League (q.v.), particularly, had numerous settlements of this kind, the earliest being the Steelyard at London, established in the 13th century.

one of the most remarkable outcomes of the establishment of the

town where it desires to be represented, and unsalaried, the consular body proper was, by the decrees of July 10, 1880, and April 27, 1883, practically constituted a branch of the diplomatic service. It is recruited from the same sources, and its members are free to exchange into the corps diplomatique, or vice versa. Candidates for the diplomatic and consular services have to undergo the same training and pass the same examinations, i.e. in the constitutional, administrative and judicial organization of the various powers, in international law, commercial law and maritime law, in the history of treaties and in commercial and political geography, in political economy, and in the German and English languages. They have to serve three years abroad or attached to some ministerial department before they can enter for the examination which entitles them to an appointment as attaché or as consul suppléant. This assimilation of the consular to the diplomatic service remains peculiar to France.1

In Germany it was enacted by the law of February 28, 1873, that German consuls must be either trained jurists, or must have passed special examinations. The result of this system has been the establishment throughout the world of an elaborate network of trained commercial experts, directly responsible to the central government, and charged as one of their principal duties with the task of keeping the government informed of all that may be of interest to German traders. These annual consular reports were from the first regularly and promptly published in the Deutsche Handelsarchiv, and have contributed much to the wonderful expansion of German trade. The right to establish consuls is now universally recognized by Christian civilized states. Jurists at one time contended that according to international law a right of "ex-territoriality" attached to consuls, their persons and dwellings being sacred, and themselves amenable to local authority only in cases of strong suspicion on political grounds. It is now admitted that, apart from treaty, custom has established very few consular privileges; that perhaps consuls may be arrested and incarcerated, not merely on criminal charges, but for civil debt; and that, if they engage in trade or become the owners of immovable property, their persons certainly lose protection. This question of arrest has been frequently raised in Europe:-in the case of Barbuit, a tallow-chandler, who from 1717 to 1735 acted as Prussian consul in London, and to whom the exemption conferred by statute on ambassadors was held not to apply; in the case of Cretico, the Turkish consul in London in 1808; in the case of Begley, the United States consul at Genoa, arrested in Paris in 1840; and in the case of De la Fuente Hermosa, Uruguayan consul, whom the Cour Royale of Paris in 1842 held liable to arrest for debt. In the same way consuls are often exempt from all kinds of rates and taxes, and always from personal taxes. They are exempt from billeting and military service, but are not entitled (except in the Levant, where also freedom from arrest and trial is the rule) to have private chapels in their houses. The right of consuls to exhibit their national arms and flag over the door of the bureau is not disputed.

Until the year 1825 British consuls were usually merchants engaged in trade in the foreign countries in which they acted as consuls, and their remuneration consisted entirely of fees. An act of that year, however, organized the consular service as a branch of the civil service, with payment by a fixed salary instead of by fees; consuls were forbidden also to engage in trade, and the management of the service was put under the control of a separate department of the foreign office, created for the purpose. In 1832 the restriction as to engaging in trade was withdrawn, except as regards salaried members of the British consular service.

1i.e. as regards the organization of the system. Consuls, or consuls-general, of other countries have sometimes a diplomatic or quasi-diplomatic status. Consuls-general chargés d'affaires, e.g., rank as diplomatic agents. Of these the most notable is the British agent and consul-general in Egypt, whose position is unique. The diplomatic agent of Belgium at Buenos Aires, e.g., is minister-resident and consul-general, and the minister of Ecuador in London is consulgeneral chargé d'affaires.

The duty of consuls, under the General Instructions to British Consuls," is to advise His Majesty's trading subjects, to quiet their differences, and to conciliate as much as possible the subjects of the two countries. Treaty rights he is to support in a mild and moderate spirit; and he is to check as far as possible evasions by British traders of the local revenue laws. Besides assisting British subjects who are tried for offences in the local courts, and ascertaining the humanity of their treatment after sentence, he has to consider whether home or foreign law is more appropriate to the case, having regard to the convenience of witnesses and the time required for decision; and, where local courts have wrongfully interfered, he puts the home government in motion through the consul-general or ambassador. He sends in reports on the labour, manufacture, trade, commercial legislation and finance, technical education, exhibitions and conferences of the country or district in which he resides, and, generally, furnishes information on any subject which may be desired of him. He acts as a notary public; he draws up marine and commercial protests, attests documents brought to him, and, if necessary, draws up wills, powers of attorney, or conveyances. He celebrates marriages in accordance with the provisions of the Foreign Marriage Act 1892, and, where the ministrations of a clergyman cannot be obtained, reads the burial service. At a seaport he has certain duties to perform in connexion with the navy. In the absence of any of His Majesty's ships he is senior naval officer; he looks after men left behind as stragglers, or in hospital or prison, and sends them on in due course to the nearest ship. He is also empowered by statute to advance for the erection or maintenance of Anglican churches, hospitals, and places of interment sums equal to the amount subscribed for the purpose by the resident British subjects.

As the powers and duties of consuls vary with the particular commercial interests they have to protect, and the civilization of the state in whose territory they reside, instead of abstract definition, we summarize the provisions on this subject of the British Merchant Shipping Acts.2 Consuls are bound to send to the Board of Trade such reports or returns on any matter relating to British merchant shipping or seamen as they may think necessary. Where a consul suspects that the shipping or navigation laws are being evaded, he may require the owner or master to produce the log-book or other ship documents (such as the agreement with the seamen, the account of the crew, the certificate of registration); he may muster the crew, and order explanations with regard to the documents. Where an offence has been committed on the high seas, or aboard ashore, by British seamen or apprentices, the consul makes inquiry on oath, and may send home the offender and witnesses by a British ship, particulars for the Board of Trade being endorsed on the agreement for conveyance. He is also empowered to detain a foreign ship the master or seamen of which appear to him through their misconduct or want of skill to have caused injury to a British vessel, until the necessary application for satisfaction or security be made to the local authorities. Every British mercantile ship, not carrying passengers, on entering a port gives into the custody of the consul to be endorsed by him the seamen's agreement, the certificate of registry, and the official log-book; a failure to do this is reported to the registrar-general of seamen. The following five provisions are also made for the protection of seamen. If a British master engage seamen at a foreign port, the engagement is sanctioned by the consul, acting as a superintendent of Mercantile Marine Offices. The consul collects the property (including arrears of wages) of British seamen or apprentices dying abroad, and remits to H.M. paymaster-general. He also provides for the subsistence of seamen who are shipwrecked, discharged, or left behind, even if their service was with foreign merchants; they are generally sent home in the first British ship that happens to be in want of a complement, and the expenses thus incurred form a charge on the parliamentary fund for the relief of distressed seamen, the consul receiving a

2 See also instructions to consuls prepared by the Board of Trade and approved by the secretary of state for foreign affairs.

"CONSULATE OF THE SEA," a celebrated collection of maritime customs and ordinances (see also SEA LAWS) in the Catalan language, published at Barcelona in the latter part of the 15th century. Its proper title is The Book of the Consulate, or in Catalan, Lo Libre de Consolat, the name being derived from the fact that it embodied the rules of law followed in the maritime cities of the Mediterranean coast by the commercial judges known generally as consuls (q.v.). The earliest extant edition of the work, which was printed at Barcelona in 1494, is without a title-page or frontispiece, but it is described by the abovementioned title in the epistle dedicatory prefixed to the table of contents. The only known copy of this edition is preserved in the National Library in Paris. The epistle dedicatory states that the work is an amended version of the Book of the Consulate, compiled by Francis Celelles with the assistance of numerous shipmasters and merchants well versed in maritime affairs. According to a statement made by Capmany in his Codigo de los costumbras maritimas de Barcelona, published at Madrid in 1791, there was extant to his knowledge in the last century a more ancient edition of the Book of the Consulate, printed in semiGothic characters, which he believed to be of a date prior to 1484. This is the earliest period to which any historical record of the Book of the Consulate being in print can be traced back. There are, however, two Catalan MSS. preserved in the National Library in Paris, the earliest of which, being MS. Espagnol 124, contains the two first treatises which are printed in the Book of the Consulate of 1494, and which are the most ancient portion of its contents, written in a hand of the 14th century, on paper of that century. The subsequent parts of this MS. are on paper of the 15th century, but there is no document of a date more recent than 1436. The later of the two MSS., being MS. Espagnol 56, is written throughout on paper of the 15th century, and in a hand of that century, and it purports, from a certificate on the face of the last leaf, to have been executed under the superintendence of Peter Thomas, a notary public, and the scribe of the Consulate of the Sea at Barcelona.

The edition of 1494, which is justly regarded as the editio princeps of the Book of the Consulate, contains, in the first place, a code of procedure issued by the kings of Aragon for the guidance of the courts of the consuls of the sea, in the second place, a collection of ancient customs of the sea, and thirdly, a body of ordinances for the government of cruisers of war. A colophon at the end of these ordinances informs the readers that "the book commonly called the Book of the Consulate ends here"; after which there follows a document known by the title of The Acceptations, which purports to record that the previous chapters and ordinances had been approved by the Roman people in the 11th century, and by various princes and peoples in the 12th and 13th centuries. Capmany was the first person to question the authenticity of this document in his Memorias historicas sobre la marina, &c., de Barcelona, published at Madrid in 1779-1792. Pardessus and other writers on maritime law followed up the inquiry in the 19th century, and have conclusively shown that the document, whatever may have been its origin, has no proper reference to the Book of the Consulate, and is, in fact, of no historical value whatsoever. The paging of the edition of 1494 ceases with this document, at the end of which is the printer's colophon, reciting that" the work was completed on the 14th of July 1494, at Barcelona, by Père Posa, priest and printer." The remainder of the volume consists of what may be regarded as an appendix to the original Book of the Consulate. This appendix contains various maritime ordinances of the kings of Aragon and of the councillors of the city of Barcelona, ranging over a period from 1340 to 1484. It is printed apparently in the same type with the preceding part of the volume. The original Book of the Consulate, coupled with this appendix, constitutes the work which has obtained general circulation in Europe under the title of The Consulate of the Sea, and which in the course of the 16th century was translated into the Castilian, the Italian, and the French languages. The Italian translation, printed at Venice in 1549 by Jean Baptista Pedrezano, was the version which obtained the largest circulation in the north of Europe, and led many

jurists to suppose the work to have been of Italian origin. In the next following century the work was translated into Dutch by Westerven, and into German by Engelbrecht, and it is also said to have been translated into Latin.

An excellent translation into French of "The Customs of the Sea," which are the most valuable portion of the Book of the Consulate, was published by Pardessus in the second volume of his Collection des lois maritimes (Paris, 1834), under the title of " La Compilation connue sous le nom de consulat de la mer.' See introduction, by Sir Travers Twiss, to the Black Book of the Admiralty (London, 1874), which in the appendix to vol. iii. contains his translation of "The Customs of the Sea," with the Catalan text. (T. T.) CONSUMPTION (Lat. consumere), literally, the act of consuming or destroying. Thus the word is popularly applied to phthisis, a "wasting away " of the lungs due to tuberculosis (q.v.). In economics the word has a special significance as a technical term. It has been defined as the destruction of utilities, and thus opposed to “ production," which is the creation of utilities, a utility in this connexion being anything which satisfies a desire or serves a purpose. Consumption may be either productive or unproductive; productive where it is a means directly or indirectly to the satisfaction of any economic want, unproductive when it is devoted to pleasures or luxuries. Its place in the science of economics, and its close relation with production, are treated of in every text-book, but special reference may be made to W. Roscher, Nationalökonomie, 1883, and G. Schönberg, Handbuch d. polit. Ökonomie, 1890-1891.

CONSUS, an ancient Italian deity, originally a god of agriculture. The time at which his festival was held (after harvest and seed-sowing), the nature of its ceremonies and amusements, his altar at the end of the Circus Maximus always covered with earth except on such occasions, all point to his connexion with the earth. In accordance with this, the name has been derived from condere (= Condius, as the "keeper" of grain or the "hidden "" god, whose life-producing influence works in the depths of the earth). Another etymology is from conserere ("sow," cf. Ops Consiva and her festival Opiconsivia). Amongst the ancients (Livy i. 9; Dion. Halic. ii. 31) Consus was most commonly identified with Пooedŵv "ITIOя (Neptunus Equester), and in later Latin poets Consus is used for Neptunus, but this idea was due to the horse and chariot races which took place at his festival; otherwise, the two deities have nothing in common. According to another view, he was the god of good counsel, who was said to have "advised " Romulus to carry off the Sabine women (Ovid, Fasti, iii. 199) when they visited Rome for the first celebration of his festival (Consualia). In later times, with the introduction of Greek gods into the Roman theological system, Consus, who had never been the object of special reverence, sank to the level of a secondary deity, whose character was rather abstract and intellectual.

His festival was celebrated on the 21st of August and the 15th of December. On the former date, the flamen Quirinalis, assisted by the vestals, offered sacrifice, and the pontifices presided at horse and chariot races in the circus. It was a day of public rejoicing; all kinds of rustic amusements took place, amongst them running on ox-hides rubbed with oil (like the Gr. ȧσкоλaσμós). Horses and mules, crowned with garlands, were given rest from work. A special feature of the games in the circus was chariot racing, in which mules, as the oldest draught beasts, took the place of horses. The origin of these games was generally attributed to Romulus; but by some they were considered an imitation of the Arcadian iπокрÁTELA introduced by Evander. There was a sanctuary of Consus on the Aventine, dedicated by L. Papirius Cursor in 272, in early times wrongly identified with the altar in the circus.

See W. W. Fowler, The Roman Festivals (1899); G. Wissowa, Religion und Kultus der Römer (1902); Preller-Jordan, Römische Mythologie (1881).

CONTANGO, a Stock Exchange term for the rate of interest paid by a "bull" who has bought stock for the rise and does not intend to pay for it when the Settlement arrives. He arranges to carry over or continue his bargain, and does so by entering into a fresh bargain with his seller, or some other party,