b. The kings as judges had possessed power of life and death, without appeal unless they themselves chose to consult the people. The consuls kept this power in the field, but, in theory, not in the city. One of the early consuls, Valerius Publicola, carried a law that an appeal must be allowed to the centuries in cases of condemnation to death. This Valerian Law, when observed, was the great safeguard of the citizens against consular tyranny; but it was frequently a dead letter and had to be many times reënacted before it became unquestioned practice. At first, moreover, it applied only to patricians.

304. The Final Check: the Political Temperance of the People and Leaders. - All these restrictions upon consular power were valid only through the force of public opinion and the self-control of the consuls. While in office the consuls were legally responsible to no one; and neither of them could be lawfully checked by any one save the other, even if he broke all customs and laws.

This held good, indeed, as to the term of office. At first, in legal theory, the consuls voluntarily abdicated at the end of the year; if they refused to lay down office, their acts continued to be valid. Like the old kings, too, they themselves. nominated their successors. By proposing only two names to the centuries, they could compel the election of their nominees. Later, the centuries secured greater freedom of election, but their choice had still to be ratified: the old curiate assembly alone could confer the imperium, and the consuls could refuse to place before it the choice of the centuries. Commonly they felt constrained to submit to the popular will, but at crises they sometimes resumed their older power and even refused to permit the centuries to vote for undesirable candidates, or declined to record votes given for them. Such usurpation, however, was very rare; and, in the few cases when the consuls did resort to extreme measures of this kind, the deliberate judgment of the people seems usually to have indorsed

them. The fact is a striking evidence of political moderation and capacity.

305. The Dictatorship: a Revival of the Kingship to meet a Crisis. In time of peril, the divided consular power, with its possibility of a deadlock, might easily be fatal. The escape was found in temporary revivals of the old kingship under a new name. Either consul, after consulting the senate, without popular vote, might appoint a dictator. This officer was absolute master of Rome, save that his term of office could not exceed six months. The Valerian Law became invalid against his decisions; he had power of life and death in the city as in the army; and at the expiration of his term he was not legally responsible for his acts. He could not, however, nominate a successor. Except for this and for the limit of time, he was a close copy of the old king.

VIII. EFFECT OF THE REVOLUTION UPON THE SENATE.

306. The Senate, so far as we know, was not directly affected by the expulsion of the kings; but of course it held a very different relation to a one-year consul, whose highest ambition would be to get finally into its ranks, from that it had held to a life-king jealous of its power. Its advice grew more constant and imperative, until it became the real directing body in the state, however much this fact was obscured by the imposing imperium of the consuls.

IX. THE DEBT TO REGAL ROME.

307. The contributions of earlier Rome to the republic may be summed up :

a. The Roman city, with its principle of absorption and federation.

b. The Roman character-dignified, legal-minded, heroically devoted to the state.

c. A religion shaped into an admirable political instrument. d. The family, with its peculiar patria potestas.

e. The corresponding imperium of the two annual consuls. f. The basing of political privilege upon wealth in the comitia centuriata.

The political democracy was imperfect, and the plebeians had still much to desire in social, economic, and political equality. This is the key to the history of the early republic.

FOR FURTHER READING.

- References for the more important or difti

cult points have been given in footnotes or by Divisions.

1. For Divisions L.-V. (Oldest Roman Society), students should read also Tighe, chs. ii. and iii., and Fowler's City State, chs. ii. and iii., which was referred to at a like stage in Greek history. Granrud's Roman Constitutional History is an excellent handbook for all constitutional details, and should be accessible to all students. Advanced students will wish to compare in full the complete treatments in Mommsen, bk. i. chs. v., xi., xii., and index, and in Ihne's Early Rome, chs. v.-ix., and History, I. ch. xiii. 2. For Division VI. (the Early Revolutions): On the centuriate organization, Ihne, Early Rome, 132-140. Advanced students will consult Ihne's and Mommsen's histories, and note the difference between their views. As usual, there is a brilliant treatment in Coulanges, 360-371 and 379-387. Coulanges (324-330) has also an interesting chapter showing how the legends of the expulsion of the kings may be rationalized. The discussion in Ihne's History is more scientific.

3. For Division VII., advanced students may compare Mommsen, bk. ii. ch. i., and Ihue's History, bk. ii. ch. i., or Early Rome, ch. x.-xii.

CHAPTER III.

CLASS STRUGGLES IN THE REPUBLIC, 510-367 B.C.

I. CHARACTER OF THE PERIOD.

308. The First Century and a Half of the Republic was a period of stern internal conflict between patricians and plebeians. Torn and distracted by the struggle, Rome made little gain externally, and indeed, until toward the close of the epoch, lost much territory she had held under the kings.

The peculiar mark of the long internal struggle was the absence of extreme violence. Compared with the vehement class conflicts in Greek cities, with their frequent bloody revolutions and counter-revolutions, the contest in Rome was carried on" with a calmness, deliberation, and steadiness that corresponded to the firm, persevering, sober, practical Roman character"; and when the victory of the plebs was once won, the result was correspondingly complete and permanent.

II. THE POSITION OF THE CLASSES AFTER 510 B.C.

309. Rome becomes a Patrician Oligarchy. The overthrow of the kings was in no sense a democratic movement. It left Rome an oligarchy, and depressed the plebs. The later kings had leaned upon the lower orders. In consequence, they had sought to strengthen the plebeians by grants of public land, by securing them justice, and possibly by aiding them in the development of political power. The aristocratic revolutionists may have bought popular support at first by some superficial concessions,' but the plebeians soon found themselves the losers by the change, politically and economically.

1 Livy says that plebeians were admitted to the senate to fill the vacancies created by the tyrants. Mommsen adopts this view, and speaks as if they

310. Political Loss to the Plebs. No direct attack was made upon their political rights, it is true; but none was needed. The plebeians could control only a small minority of votes in the assembly of the centuries, they could hold no office, and they had no way even to get a desired measure considered. They could vote at best only upon laws proposed by patrician magistrates, and they could help elect only patrician officers who had been nominated by other patricians. The patrician senate, too, had a final veto upon any election or vote of the mixed centuries, and, in the last resort, the patrician consuls could always fall back upon the patrician augurs to prevent a possible plebeian victory by an appeal to religious superstition. Thus the immediate political loss to the plebs was very real, though it was wholly indirect. So far as the multitude were concerned, the selfish despotism of a jealous class had taken the place of the enlightened despotism of a paternal king.

311. Loss of Standing at Law. - A like result followed in cases at law. The kings had found it to their interest to see justice done the plebs, but now law became again exclusively a patrician possession, guarded by religion. It was unwritten, and to the plebs almost unknown; and it was easy, therefore, in any dispute with a plebeian, for a patrician, before patrician judges, to take shameful advantage of its intricacies and "fictions."

312. Economic Loss and Danger to the Plebs. The proof as to economic conditions is not so clear; but it appears probable that the victorious patricians, with their tremendous political advantages, sought to reduce the mass of free but poor plebeians to economic slavery - to bring them back again to the position of clients dependent upon patrician patrons.

The

continued to sit there, but Ihne successfully controverts any such theory (History, I. 136-138, and, better, Early Rome, 127-130).

1 Coulanges, 387-389.