who of course represented the Latin tribe Ramnen ses; 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 hundred1 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.

66

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 constitution in later ages, the "comitia curiata "" 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.

3

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 3, 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

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

2 The "comitia curiata" assembled in the comit'ium, the genera 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.

3 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.

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 city 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 connexion 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 centuries proportionate to their wealth. The census was a periodical valuation of all the property possessed by the citizens, and an enumeration of all the subjects of the state; there were five classes, ranged according to the estimated value of their possessions, and the taxes they consequently paid. The first class contained eighty centuries out of the hundred and seventy; the sixth class, in which those were included who were too poor to be taxed, counted but for one. We shall hereafter have occasion to see that this arrangement was also used for military purposes; it is only necessary to say here, that the sixth class were deprived of the use of arms, and exempt from serving in war.

11. The people voted in the comitia centuriata by centuries, that is, the vote of each century was taken separately and counted only as one. By this arrangement a just influence was secured to property, and the clients of the patricians in the sixth class prevented from outnumbering the free citizens.

12. Servius Tullius undoubtedly intended that the comitia centuriata should form the third estate of the realm; and during his reign they probably held that rank; but when, by an aristocratic insurrection, he was slain in the senatehouse, the power conceded to the people was again usurped by the patricians, and the comitia centuriata did not recover the right of legislation before the laws of the twelve tables were established.

1

2

1 Perhaps it would be more accurate to say the exclusive right of legislation, for it appears that the comitia centuriata were sometimes summoned to give their sanction to laws which had been previously enacted by the curiæ.

13. The law which made the debtor a slave to his creditor was repealed by Ser'vius, and re-enacted by his successor; the patricians preserved this abominable custom during several ages, and did not resign it until the state had been brought to the very brink of ruin.

14. During the reign of Servius, Rome was placed at the head of the Latin confederacy, and acknowledged to be the metropolitan city. It was deprived of this supremacy after the war with Porsen'na, but soon recovered its former greatness.

15. The equestrian rank was an order in the Roman state from the very beginning. It was at first confined to the nobility, and none but the patricians had the privilege of serving on horseback. But in the later ages, it became a political dignity, and persons were raised to the equestrian rank by the amount of their possessions.

16. The next great change took place after the expul sion of the kings; annual magistrates, called consuls, were elected in the comitia centuriata, but none but patricians could hold this office. 17. The liberties of the people were soon after extended, and secured by certain laws traditionally attributed to Vale'rius Public'ola, of which the most important was that which allowed' an appeal to a general assembly of the people from the sentence of a magistrate. 18. To deprive the plebeians of this privilege was the darling object of the patricians, and it was for this purpose alone that they instituted the dictatorship. From the sentence of this magistrate there was no appeal to the tribes or centuries, but the patricians kept their own privilege of being tried before the tribunal of the curiæ. The power of the state was now usurped by a factious oligarchy, whose oppressions were more grievous than those of the worst tyrant; they at last became so intolera ble, that the commonalty had recourse to arms, and fortified that part of the city which was exclusively inhabited by the plebeians, while others formed a camp on the Sacred Mount at some distance from Rome. A tumult of this kind was called a secession; it threatened to terminate in a civil war, which would have been both long and doubtful, for the patricians and their clients were probably as nume

19.

1 The Romans were previously acquainted with that great principle of justice, the right of trial by a person's peers. In the earliest ages the patricians had a right of appeal to the curiæ; the Valerian laws extended the same right to the plebeians.

rous as the people. A reconciliation was effected, and the plebeians placed under the protection of magistrates chosen from their own body, called tribunes of the people.

20. The plebeians, having now authorized leaders, began to struggle for an equalization of rights, and the patricians resisted them with the most determined energy. In this protracted contest the popular cause prevailed, though the patricians made use of the most violent means to secure their usurped powers. The first triumph obtained by the people was the right to summon patricians before the comitia tributa, or assemblies of people in tribes; soon after they obtained the privilege of electing their tribunes at these comitia, instead of the centuria'ta; and finally, after a fierce opposition, the patricians were forced to consent that the state should be governed by a written code.

21. The laws of the twelve tables did not alter the legal relations between the citizens; the struggle was renewed with greater violence than ever after the expulsion of the decem'viri, but finally terminated in the complete triumph of the people. The Roman constitution became essentially democratical, the offices of the state were opened to all the citizens, and although the difference between the patrician and plebeian families still subsisted, they soon ceased of themselves to be political parties. From the time that equal rights were granted to all the citizens, Rome advanced rapidly in wealth and power; the subjugation of Italy was effected within the succeeding century, and that was soon followed by foreign conquests.

22. In the early part of the struggle between the patricians and plebeians, the magistracy named the censorship was instituted. The censors were designed at first merely to preside over the taking of the census, but they after.. wards obtained the power of punishing, by a deprivation of civil rights, those who were guilty of any flagrant immorality. The patricians retained exclusive possession of the censorship long after the consulship had been opened to the plebeians.

23. The senate, which had been originally a patrician council, was gradually opened to the plebeians; when the free constitution was perfected, every person possessing a competent fortune, that had held a superior magistracy, was enrolled as a senator at the census immediately suc. ceeding the termination of his office'.

1 The senators were called conscript fathers, (patres conscripti,) either

Questions for Examination.

1. What is the most probable account given of the origin of the distinction between the patricians and the plebeians at Rome?

2. How did Romulus subdivide the Roman tribes?

3. By what regulations were the gentes governed?

4. Who were the chiefs of the gentes?

5. What was the condition of the clients?

6. By whom were alterations made in the number and constitution of the senate?

7. What assembly was peculiar to the patricians ?

8. What were the powers of the Roman kings?

9. What great change was made in the Roman constitution by Servius Tullius?

10. For what purposes was the census instituted?

1. How were votes taken in the comitia centuriata?

12. Were the designs of Servius frustrated?

13. What was the Roman law respecting debtors?

14. When did the Roman power decline?

15. What changes were made in the constitution of the equestrian rank?

16. What change was made after the abolition of royalty?

17. How were the liberties of the people secured?

18. Why was the office of dictator appointed?

19. How did the plebeians obtain the protection of magistrates chosen from their own order?

20. What additional triumphs were obtained by the plebeians? 21. What was the consequence of the establishment of freedom? 22. For what purpose was the censorship instituted?

23. What change took place in the constitution of the senate?

CHAPTER V.

THE ROMAN TENURE OF LAND.-COLONIAL GOVERNMENT.

Each rules his race, his neighbour not his care,
Heedless of others, to his own severe.

HOMER.

[As this chapter is principally designed for advanced students, it has not been thought necessary to add a vocabulary or questions for examination.]

THE Contests respecting the agrarian laws occupy so large a space in Roman history, and are so liable to be misunderfrom their being enrolled on the censor's list, or more probably from the addition made to their numbers after the expulsion of the kings, in order to supply the places of those who had been murdered by Tarquin. The new senators were at first called conscript, and in the process of time the name was extended to the entire body.