Minturnæ, Sinue'ssa, Cap'ua, Can'dium, Beneven'tum, Equotu'ticum, Herdo'nia, Canu'sium, Ba'rium, and Brundu'sium. Between Fo'rum Ap'pii and Terraci'na, lie the celebrated Pomptine marshes, formed by the overflowing of some small streams. In the flourishing ages of Roman history these pestilential marshes did not exist, or were confined to a very limited space; but from the decline of the Roman empire the waters gradually encroached, until the successful exertions made by the Pontiffs in modern times to arrest their baleful progress. Before the drainage of Pope Sixtus, the marshes covered at least thirteen thousand acres of ground, which in the earlier ages was the most fruitful portion of the Italian soil.

Questions for Examination.

1. When was Rome founded?

2. What ceremonies were used in determining the pomoerium? 3. How was the comitium consecrated?

4. What was the first addition made to Rome?

5. What was the next addition?

6. Into what tribes were the Romans divided?

7. What were the hills added in later times to Rome?

8. Had the Romans any buildings north of the Tiber?

9. When did Rome become a magnificent city?

10. What was the extent of the city?

11. How was the city divided?

12. Which was the most remarkable of the seven hills? 13. What buildings were on the Capitoline hill?

14. What description is given of the forum?

15. Where was the senate-house and comitium ? 16. What use was made of the Campus Martius? 17. What was the Pantheon?

18. Were the theatres and circi remarkable?

19. Had the Romans public baths?

20. How was the city supplied with water?

21. Were the cloaca remarkable for their size?

22. Which was the chief Italian road?

23. What were the most remarkable places on the Appian road?

Rome.

CHAPTER IV.

THE ROMAN CONSTITUTION.

By virtue built,

It touch'd the skies, and spread o'er shelter'd earth
An ample roof: by virtue too sustain'd,
And balanc'd steady, every tempest sung,
Innoxious by, or bade it firmer stand.

But when, with sudden and enormous change,
The first of mankind sunk into the last,
As once in virtue, so in vice extreme,
This universal fabric yielded loose,

Before ambition still; and thundering down,

At last beneath its ruins crush'd a world.-THOMSON.

1. Immigration, s. the removal of a people from their native place into a new land.

3. Intes'tate, adj. without having made a will.

6. Legi'slative, adj. having the power of making laws.

9. Remod'elled, v. altered to a different form.

12. Aristocrat'ic, adj. belonging to the
nobility.

14. Metropolitan, adj. having the seat
of government.
Equalization, s. the establishment
of equality.

20.

1. THE most remarkable feature in the Roman constituion is the division of the people into Patricians and Plebeians, and our first enquiry must be the origin of this separation. It is clearly impossible that such a distinction could have existed from the very beginning, because no persons would have consented, in a new community, to the investing of any class with peculiar privileges. We find that all the Roman kings, after they had subdued a city, drafted a portion of its inhabitants to Rome, and if they did not destroy the subjugated place, garrisoned it with a Roman colony. The strangers thus brought to Rome were not admitted to a participation of civic rights; they were like the inhabitants of a corporate town who are excluded

from the elective franchise; by successive immigrations, the number of persons thus disqualified became more numerous than that of the first inhabitants, or old freemen, and they naturally sought a share in the government, as a means of protecting their persons and properties. On the other hand, the men who possessed the exclusive power of legislation, struggled hard to retain their hereditary privileges, and when forced to make concessions, yielded as little as they possibly could to the popular demands. Modern history furnishes us with numerous instances of similar struggles between classes, and of a separation in interests and feelings between inhabitants of the same country, fully as strong as that between the patricians and plebeians at Rome.

2. The first tribes were divided by Ro'mulus into thirty cu'riæ, and each cu'ria contained ten gentes or associations. The individuals of each gens were not in all cases, and probably not in the majority of instances, connected by birth1; the attributes of the members of a gens, according to Cicero, were, a common name and participation in private religious rites; descent from free ancestors; the absence of legal disqualification. 3. The members of these associations were united by certain laws, which conferred peculiar privileges, called jura gentium; of these the most remarkable were, the succession to the property of every member who died without kin, and intestate, and the obligation. imposed on all to assist their indigent clansmen under any extraordinary burthen 2. 4. The head of each gens was regarded as a kind of father, and possessed a paternal authority over the members; the chieftaincy was both

The same remark may be applied to the Scottish clans and the ancient Irish septs, which were very similar to the Roman gentes. When the plebeians endeavoured to procure the repeal of the laws which prohibited the intermarriage of the patricians and plebeians, the principal objection made by the former was, that these rights and obligations of the gentes (jura gentium) would be thrown into confusion.

elective and hereditary 1; that is, the individual was always selected from some particular family.

5. Besides the members of the gens, there were attached to it a number of dependents called clients, who owed submission to the chief as their patron, and received from him assistance and protection. The clients were generally foreigners who came to settle at Rome, and not possessing municipal rights, were forced to appear in the courts of law, &c. by proxy. In process of time, this relation assumed a feudal form, and the clients were bound to the same duties as vassals in the middle ages.

2

6. The chiefs of the gentes composed the senate, and were called "fathers," (patres.) In the time of Romulus, the senate at first consisted only of one hundred members, who of course represented the Latin tribe Ramne'nses; the number was doubled after the union with the Sabines, and the new members were chosen from the Titienses. The Tuscan tribe of the Lu'ceres remained unrepresented in the senate until the reign of the first Tarquin, when the legislative body received another hundred from that tribe, Tarquin the elder was, according to history, a Tuscan lucumo, and seems to have owed his elevation principally to the efforts of his compatriots settled at Rome. It is to this event we must refer, in a great degree, the number of Tuscan ceremonies which are to be found in the political institutions of the Romans.

7. The gentes were not only represented in the senate, but met also in a public assembly called "comitia curiata." In these comitia the kings were elected, and invested with royal authority. After the complete change of the consti

This was also the case with the Irish tanists, or chiefs of septs; the people elected a tanist, but their choice was confined to the members of the ruling family.

2 See Historical Miscellany, Part III. Chap. I.

3 They were called " patres minorum gentium," the senators of the inferior gentes.

tution in later ages, the "comitia curiata 1" rarely assem bled, and their power was limited to religious matters; but during the earlier period of the republic, they claimed and frequently exercised the supreme powers of the state: and were named emphatically, The People.

8. The power and prerogatives of the kings at Rome were similar to those of the Grecian sovereigns in the heroic ages. The monarch was general of the army, a high priest 2, and first magistrate of the realm; he administered justice in person every ninth day, but an appeal lay from his sentence, in criminal cases, to the general assemblies of the people. The pontiffs and augurs, however, were in some measure independent of the sovereign, and assumed the uncontrolled direction of the religion of the state.

9. The entire constitution was remodelled by Servius Tullius, and a more liberal form of government introduced. His first and greatest achievement was the formation of the plebeians into an organized order of the state, invested with political rights. He divided them into four cities and twenty-six rustic tribes, and thus made the number of tribes the same as that of the curiæ. This was strictly a geographical division, analogous to our parishes, and had no connection with families like that of the Jewish tribes.

10. Still more remarkable was the institution of the census, and the distribution of the people into classes and

The "comitia curiata," assembled in the comi'tium, the general assemblies of the people were held in the forum. The patrician curiæ were called, emphatically, the council of the people (concilium populi); the third estate was called plebeian (plebs). This distinction between populus and plebs was disregarded after the plebeians had established their claim to equal rights. The English reader will easily understand the difference, if he considers that the patricians were precisely similar to the members of a close corporation, and the plebeians to the other inhabitants of a city. In London, for example, the common council may represent the senate, the livery answer for the populus, patricians, or comitia curiata, and the general body of other inhabitants will correspond with the plebs.

2 There were certain sacrifices which the Romans believed could only be offered by a king; after the abolition of royalty, a priest named the petty sacrificing king, (rex sacrificulus) was elected to perform this duty.