While the choice of candidates was thus partly in the hands of the senate, bribery and corruption still influenced the elections, though the name of "ambitus" was, strictly speaking, no longer applicable. But in a short time, the appointment to public offices was entirely in the power of the emperors; and the magistrates of Rome, as well as the "populus", were merely the shadow of that which had once a substantial form. A Roman jurist, of the imperial period (Modestinus), in speaking of the Julia Lex de Ambitu, observes, "This law is now obsolete in the city, because the creation of magistrates is the business of the "princeps", and does not depend on the pleasure of the "populus"; but if any one in a "municipium" should offend against this law in canvassing for a "sacerdotium" or "magistratus", he is punished, according to a "senatus consultum", with infamy, and subjected to a penalty of 100 "aurei"".