315. The Twelve Tables. At all events the laws did finally get published. They were written in short, crisp sentences, engraved on twelve stone tables, and were set up where all might read them. These "Laws of the Twelve Tables" were the basis of all later Roman law. Like the first written laws at Athens, they were very severe, and were for the most part simply old customs reduced to writing. The new thing about them was that they were now known to all, and that they applied to plebeian and patrician alike.1

Mean

316. The Patrician Attempt at a Counter-revolution. time the patricians seem to have tried to prevent this work by violence. They put Claudius to death, as a traitor to their order. They then restored the consulship, but refused to restore the tribunes, perhaps on the excuse that writing down the laws had made such officers unnecessary.

Later patrician inventions obscure all this, and represent the overthrow of Claudius as the work of a popular rising. Claudius, they said, seized the free maid Virginia as his slave girl; her father, Virginius, a popular officer, to save her from such shame, slew her with his own hand, and then called upon the army to avenge his wrongs; his comrades marched upon the tyrants and overthrew them.

The story of Virginia has become so famous that the student ought to know it. We cannot tell whether or not there is any truth in it. Possibly Claudius did put the cause of the people in danger by selfish tyranny, and gave the patricians a handle against him; but in any case we may be sure this was not the real cause of his overthrow. See Ihne, Early Rome, 175, or, more fully, History, I, 192–199.

317. Another Plebeian Secession and New Gains. —A popular revolt did take place, but it was directed, not at Claudius, but at the usurping patricians who had overthrown him and were trying to cheat the people out of their previous victory. Once more (449 B.c.), to secure their rights, the plebeians rose in

1 On the Twelve Tables, read Mommsen, I, 364, or Tighe, 96-98. Study the extracts in Munro's Source Book, 54, 55.

arms and withdrew to the Sacred Hill across the Anio. The patricians were forced to yield. The tribunes were restored with enlarged powers,' and two new gains were made by the people. (1) The old Valerian right of appeal (§ 295) was extended to plebeians; and (2) the Assembly of Tribes was reorganized (§ 318) and made a ruling Assembly of the Roman people. Thereafter its plebiscites bound patricians as well as plebeians; though of course, like the Centuriate Assembly, it was legally subject to the veto of the Senate.

318. The reorganized Comitia Tributa was soon to become the most important of the popular assemblies. At this time it was made to consist of all landowners, - patricians and plebeians. Each tribe voted as a unit, and, in determining its vote, each man within it had an equal voice, so that the plebeians held an overwhelming control.3

The plebeian state had now won an equal standing with the patrician state. The next work was to fuse the two into one state (§§ 319-324).

D. SOCIAL FUSION.

319. Mixed Marriages. The plebeians used their new powers to win further victories. Four years after the recognition of the Assembly of Tribes, that Assembly decreed that plebeians should have the right to marry with patricians. At first the Senate refused to approve this plebiscite, but, by the threat of another secession, the point was carried.

From this time the two orders began to mix in social matters, and of course this prepared the way for political fusion.

1 It was at this time that the tribunes were increased to ten, and were given seats just outside the Senate door, so that they could shout their veto upon any action by that body.

2 These new gains were embodied in the Valerio-Horatian Law of 449, so called from the consuls of that year.

The old Tribal Assembly, of plebeians only, is known after this as the "Council of the Plebs": it contained all plebeians, landowners or not, but it ceased now to have any political importance.

Those patricians who had plebeian relatives were not likely to oppose bitterly the demands of that class for political honors. Still the final contest was a long one. In this same year (445 B.C.) the plebeians began an eighty-eight-year struggle for admission to the office of consul (§ 320 ff.).

E. ADMISSION TO THE CONSULATE.

320. Consular Tribunes and Censors. In 445 the tribes voted that the people should be allowed to choose a plebeian for one of the consuls. The Senate refused to allow the "religious" office of consul to be "polluted," but they offered a compromise. Accordingly it was decided to have no consuls in some years, but instead to elect military tribunes with consular power; and this office was to be open to both patricians and plebeians.

At the same time, with their old stronghold threatened, the patricians prepared an inner fortress for defense of their privileges. A new office, the censorship, was created, to take over the religious part of the consul's duty and his most important powers. To this office, only patricians could be elected. Every fifth year two censors were chosen, with power to revise the lists of the citizens and of the Senate. By their simple order they could deprive any man of citizenship, or degrade a senator. They also exercised a general moral oversight over the state.1

321. Patrician Maneuvers. The patricians had not intended to surrender even the military powers of the consulship; and they now tried to snatch back with one hand what they had pretended to grant with the other. It had been left to the Senate to decide each year whether consuls or consular tribunes should be elected. The Senate used this authority to secure the

1 On the censors, read Ihne, Early Rome, 184-189. Either censor, quite in accord with Roman genius, could veto action by the other. Their tremendous power was used with moderation and not to any considerable degree for party ends.

election of consuls (who of course had to be patricians) twenty times out of the next thirty-five years. And even when consular tribunes were chosen, the patrician influence in the Assembly of Centuries, together with their advantages in controlling the auspices,' kept that office for their own order every time for almost half a century.

322. The Licinian Rogations, 367 B.C. In 400, 399, and 396, however, the plebeians won in the election of the consular tribunes, and thereafter they never lost ground. An invasion by the Gauls in 390 (§ 325) almost ruined Rome and thrust aside party conflict for a time; but in 377 the final campaign began. Under the wise leadership of the tribune Licinius Stolo, the whole body of plebeians united firmly on a group of measures. These were proposed to the Assembly by Licinius, and are known as the Licinian Rogations.

The three most important of these demands were:—

(1) that the office of consul should be restored, and that at least one consul each year should be a plebeian;

(2) that no citizen should hold more than 500 jugera of the public lands (an acre is nearly two jugera);

(3) that payment of debts might be postponed for three years, and that the interest already paid should be deducted from the amount of the debt.

The first measure was what the leaders, like Licinius, cared most for. The second and third secured the support of the masses. These measures, also, seem to have been wise and helpful. The one regarding debts had been made necessary by the distress that followed the invasion by the Gauls. The land acts were not acts of confiscation, from any point of view. Like the early attempt of Spurius Cassius (§ 312), they were a righteous effort to recover from wealthy patrician squatters what was legally and morally the property of all.

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323. The Struggle and the Final Victory of the Plebs. The proposal of these reforms was followed by ten years of bitter wrangling. Each year the plebeians reelected Licinius and

1 Read Mommsen, I, 377.

passed the Rogations anew in the Assembly of the Tribes. Each time the Senate vetoed the measures. The tribunes, by their veto power, prevented the election of magistrates, and so left the state without any regular government.1

At last the patricians tried to buy off the masses, by offering to yield on the matters of debts and lands if they would. drop the demand regarding the consulship. But Licinius succeeded in holding his party together for the full program of reform; and, in 367, the Senate gave way and the Rogations became law.

324. Political Fusion completed, 367-300 B.C.-The long struggle was practically over, and the body of the patricians soon accepted the result with good grace. Just at first, to be sure, they tried again to save something from the wreck by creating a third, and patrician, consul— called the praetor for supreme judicial control in the city. But all such devices were in vain. Plebeian consuls could nominate other plebeian officers. Plebeians had already won admission to the quaestorship (§ 295). Now they secured the office of dictator in 356, of censor in 351, and of praetor in 337. In 300 even the sacred colleges of pontiffs and augurs were thrown open to them.

Appointments to the Senate were now commonly made from those who had held office, and so that body, also, gradually became plebeian. By the year 300, the old distinction between patricians and plebeians had practically died out, and, in political matters at least, it is no more heard of, except that tribunes could not be chosen from families of patrician descent.

1 During the peril of a foreign attack, however, they withdrew from this extreme ground and permitted consuls to be chosen. Read Livy's account of the long contest (Munro's Source Book, 57-59).

2 The consul had had three functions, religious, civil, and military. As the plebs gained ground, the patricians first gave the religious duties to the censor, and now the chief civil powers to the praetor, intending to share with the plebs only the military office.