of their right to appoint, from among their own body, officers who, under the title of Tribunes, should be expressly charged with the maintenance of the popular privileges. This point also was granted; and a law being passed on Mons Sacer, declaring it sacrilege to injure the person of a tribune, the army dissolved itself, and returned to the city in peace.

In this manner originated the famous office of Tribune ; and this safeguard to the people was a necessary though a remote result of the arbitrary transfer of power consequent on the mode of voting by centuries, which was introduced under Servius Tullius. The authority of the tribunes was at first strictly negative, and was confined to pronouncing the decisive word veto with regard to any proceeding that was obnoxious to the Plebeians: they wore no particular dress; and their only mark of office was the attendance of a single servant, under the humble name of viator: but it was soon found necessary to enlarge their powers. They were then regularly admitted to the meetings of the Senate, and obtained the co-operation of two assistant officers, under the name of Ediles. Some time afterward, they began to lay claim to the right of convening assemblies of the people, and even of procuring laws to be passed without the recommendation of the Senate.

For several years after the secession to Mons Sacer, concord and unanimity prevailed at Rome. The first interruption to this desirable state of things proceeded from the celebrated Coriolanus; who, proud of his birth and elated with the fame of youthful exploits, was impatient to force the Plebeians to surrender the privileges lately wrested from the Patricians. He ventured to go such lengths that the people were provoked, and called so loudly for bringing him to trial, that a day was accordingly appointed; and the passing of sentence on him was prevented only by his voluntary exile. His subsequent history is too well known to be noticed in this place. Though baffled on this occasion, the Senate continued to resist the application of the Plebeians for a re-partition of the newly conquered lands; and, though they had consented to grant a release from former obligations, they would admit no title to an equal participation in future acquisitions. Hence a repetition of dissensions at home, and an encouragement to external enemies to ravage the territories of the republic. In these scenes of popular opposition, the tribunes took the lead: throwing obstacles at one time in the way of military levies; and, at another, instituting prosecutions against the consuls who had retired from office, for not fulfilling their promises to the people. After several years of wrangling, the tribunes succeeded in procuring a law to be passed for holding comitia

tributa

tributa; in other words, a law for taking, on certain occasions, the votes of the people not by centuries but by tribes. From the comitia thus constituted, Patricians were excluded; and it was farther declared lawful to pass plebiscita, or popular resolutions having the force of law, without previous senatus consulta. Important as these concessions seemed, we shall do well to keep in mind that the Patricians relied on still controuling the popular deliberations by the exertion of influence among their numerous dependants; and they were enabled accordingly to persist in refusing to make a general apportionment of the conquered lands. In vain did a few individuals of their own order come forwards, and urge the claim of Plebeian warriors to share in the spoils of victory; a majority, headed by the Claudian family, whose views were always aristocratical, continued obstinately to oppose the measure. Some time afterward, viz. in the year of Rome 291, the city was ravaged by a dreadful pestilence. When recovered from the horror of this visitation, the people called for the formation of a settled code of laws, as the only method of bringing to a close the incessant dissensions which prevailed; and, after some delay on the part of the Senate, commissioners were sent to Greece, at that time the only scene of knowlege or good government, for the purpose of collecting information respecting the laws of Athens and other republics. These commissioners being to return in the course of a year, the Senate and people mutually agreed to suspend the appointment of their respective officers, and to vest the whole power for a season in the hands of new magistrates under the name of Decemvirs.

The date of this unfortunate experiment in government was the year of the city 303. It deserves to be recorded that the men first appointed to the decemvirate acted with great propriety, and that Appius Claudius obtained much credit with the people for an attention to their interest, which had been seldom witnessed on the part of his family: but his countrymen were little aware that all this was assumed for the purpose of obtaining a lead in the second nomination of Decemvirs, and of erecting his own tyranny on the joint degradation of patrician and plebeian. When, in the progress of his usurpation, Appius began to feel himself secure of power, he was observed to direct his tyranny chiefly against the plebeians and in this course he persisted, until the melancholy fate of Virginia effected a revolution similar to that which had been excited sixty years before by the death of Lucretia. Taught by the violent abuse of power, the citizens obtained a law that, in future, no magistrate should exist from whose decision an appeal might not be made to the public assemblies, They

B 4

likewise

likewise obtained a law, passed in due form by the centuries, declaring that any enactment of the plebeians in Comitia tributa should be obligatory on the republic at large.

One of the chief objects of subsequent discussion was the law prohibiting intermarriages between patricians and plebeians; which had originated in the arrogance of the Claudian family, and must appear a highly aristocratic measure, when we consider that many of the plebeians approached, in point of circumstances, to a numerous portion of the dignified class. The tribunes argued for the repeal with a view to popularity, and the feelings of the people were too directly interested to delay the: abrogation of the invidious edict. This point gained, the tribunes followed it up by the important demand that persons. of plebeian family should no longer be accounted ineligible to the consulship. In support of their plea, they referred to the precedents in the election of the kings, several of whom were of humble extraction: but the pride of the patricians strongly resisted this additional demand, and led to a proposition, by way of compromise, for appointing military tribunes with consular power; a new description of officers who were to be eligible out of either branch of the community. The plebeians accepted the offer, and the nomination of the new commanders took place in course: but such was the influence of property, and of family, that the candidates elected were,. for many years, of patrician rank. A similar remark was applicable to the choice of other officers; we mean, the censors and quæstors. The censors were appointed about the time of which we are treating, for the purpose of relieving the consuls from a portion of their duty; and their functions consisted in taking the lustrum, or periodical return of the population, previously to which they divided the people into their proper classes and tribes, according to their property, and sometimes according to their moral character. The quæstors, on the other hand, kept an account of the spoils taken from the enemy, and superintended the expenditure of the public money. În the year of Rome 334, the increasing concerns of the republic led to the nomination of four quæstors instead of two;. and it was in the case of this office that the plebeians at last succeeded in obtaining the actual nomination of individuals of their own order,

The siege of Veii, commencing in the year of the city 350, opened, as we shall soon perceive, a new era in the military history of Rome: but, confining ourselves at present to its effect on the civil proceedings of the republic, we shall merely remark that the acquisition of a well-built city and a rich ter ritory revived the contentions between the senate and the

people,

people. The latter demanded that the conquered lands should be divided among the citizens, in conformity to the original usage of Rome; while the former insisted on adhering to the principle of lodging the disposal of captured property in the hands of the executive power. In the midst of these debates, occurred one of the greatest calamities in Roman history; we mean, the capture and burning of the city by the Gauls.. Very powerful reasons now subsisted, for exchanging the desolated habitations of Rome for the comfortable buildings of: Veii; yet an attachment to the seats of their ancestors, and the influence of the patricians, who were desirous of appropriating the chief part of the Veijentian lands, proved superior to every other consideration. However, the interruption of cultivation during the invasion of the Gauls, and the expence of rebuilding the city, again plunged the middling classes into debt; and, on the occurrence of this fresh experience of the imperfection of Roman institutions, the resource of the plebeians was, as formerly, to refuse to take the field against the Volsci, the Æqui, or other enemies, who came to ravage the territory of the republic. The tribunes were accustomed to urge the people to stand firm to their refusal: but the patricians, partly by appeals to patriotism, partly by exertions of influence, and, in some cases, by an actual distribution of a tract of conquered land, were generally successful in prevailing on them to take up arms.

To form an adequate idea of the distress of the plebeians of respectable families, we must remember that the opportunities of employing a small capital in Rome were much more limited than they are in this country. There, the lands of the rich were cultivated by slaves; and all trades and manufactures were, in like manner, carried on by slaves for the account of their masters. The consequence was that the plebeians, depending in general on wealthy patricians, were seldom disposed to go such lengths as their tribunitian advocates. A reduction of the rate of interest, and a partial allotment of land, formed the limits of the ambition of the former; while the latter looked higher, and reiterated their demand for a recognition of the eligibility of plebeians to the rank of consul: a demand which was in fact no more unreasonable than would be that of a British commoner to be deemed admissible to a seat in the cabinet. The acknowlegement of the right was, as the patricians were well aware, very different from the actual nomination of a plebeian; and the probability was that the former would lead in a very few instances to the latter. Still, the pride of the aristocracy gave way with reluctance; and when, in the year 389, the tribunes at last carried their point, the

senate insisted on the creation of a new magistracy, the prætor ship, to which patricians alone should be eligible. Mr. Brodie, who is always favourable to the effect of popular influence, declares (p.443.) that the admission of the plebeians to the consulship constituted a new era in the history of Rome. During the long period of 150 years, which had elapsed since the expulsion of Tarquin, the acquisition of territory, and: even the progress of population, had been tardy: but, from the date of the cessation of exclusive rights, the power of the state was displayed in all its energy, and the progress of her arms became rapid. The stability of the Roman power, after the fatal blow dealt by the talents of Hannibal, affords to the friends of liberty a memorable subject of exultation. Nothing but the cordial concurrence of all the citizens could have saved Rome from the efforts of this destructive adversary; and, wherever a nation is governed by magistrates of her own choice, we need be under no doubt of the attachment of the people.

"This view of the Roman constitution," (says the author of Thoughts on Public Trusts,")" seems sufficient to account for the numerous instances of wonderful disinterestedness and patriotism, recorded by the Roman historians, which have been looked upon as fabulous by the generality of readers. Even philosophers, who could not disbelieve facts so well attested, seem to have thought them above nature, and have endeavoured to account for them by supposing, that the ancient Romans were of more innate virtue than other nations."

Military progress of Rome. We now turn aside from the civil history of the republic, to assign a few paragraphs to the progress of her tactics. Until the siege of Veii, in the middle of the fourth century of Rome, the campaigns (if such they can be called) had consisted of little else than a repulsion of the successive incursions of the Volsci, the Aqui, and other predatory neighbours. The city of Veii, large indeed and strongly fortified, continued an independent and frequently a hostile state, at the distance of only ten miles from Rome. The senate, therefore, partly with the view of reducing a troublesome neighbour, and partly perhaps from a wish to obtain tranquillity at home by giving the military some permanent occupation, determined on undertaking this laborious siege; and, as the prosecution of the enterprise evidently required a protracted service, they resolved on a measure hitherto unknown among the Romans, that of granting regular pay to the troops. This provision was received with great thankfulness by the military; and we cannot help being surprised that so plain and so equitable an arrangement should not have been sooner introduced. The poor, it is true, formed no part of the Roman armies, but