question to be decided by a vote of the tribal assembly, the speakers turned their backs to the multitude and their faces to the senators on the opposite side of the forum, and this habit was maintained until the beginning of the disorders which filled the last century of the republic with almost continuous confusion and frequent civil

war.

Polybius, who wrote only a few years before that period of disaster, who had resided in Rome for twenty years as the companion of the second Scipio, who by his capacity and official experience was far better qualified than Livy or Dionysius to understand the Roman constitution, whose history of Rome is the only one written in the IInd century B. C. and preserved to our time,— Polybius leads us to believe that during the century and a half of which he wrote, the most prosperous period of the republic, the senate controlled the legislation and the administration. He tells us that the consuls" convene general assemblies," to which they "submit the resolutions of the senate for ratification;" and he adds that "to the people belongs the power of approving or rejecting bills," thus clearly conveying the idea that no popular body or bodies had general legislative authority independent of the senate.

The predominance of aristocratic influence showed itself in the foreign as well as in the domestic policy of the republic. No city under the control of Rome, in any period of her career, was permitted to maintain a democratic government. So soon as the Romans could dictate terms, they required the establishment of an aristocracy. The Roman consuls made friends with the nobles in the allied cities and not unfrequently with those in neutral and hostile cities. Such a policy would not have been pursued under plebeian control.

If the commoners had ever obtained peaceful and secure control in the legislation of Rome, they would have lost no time in abolishing the aristocratic features of the constitution. They would have commenced by superseding the centuries, and reorganizing the popular assembly in such a manner that the vote of every citizen should have an equal weight in the passage of laws and the election of magistrates. They would have taken from the senate all its independent authority, all its control over the finances of the state, and all its privileges in suspending laws, in enforcing its resolutions as laws, and declaring martial law. The majority of the commoners everywhere want democratic government, and they never fail to establish it when they obtain political control. As they did not establish it in Rome, we know that they did not have the power, which they could not have exercised with credit to themselves or benefit to the state. They did acquire enough influence to throw Rome into the most disastrous period of anarchy known to history.

The republican government of Rome had passed through all the stages of its peaceful growth, and had reached its most complete development in the dimness of the legendary period. No material modification was made between 280 and 130 B. C., in which latter year began the century of anarchy, in which there was no peaceful political progress.

The long contemporaneous existence of the two rival popular assemblies-the centuriate and the tribal-both possessing and occasionally exercising the power of enacting laws, without any known attempt by either to abolish or to co-operate with the other, cannot be understood without the aid of the suppositions that ordinarily both were under the influence of the senate, and that

there was such political discord between the different classes of citizens that the leading statesmen did not consider it advisable to propose reforms that might have brought the different parts of the constitution into harmony with one another.

We have now reached the end of the legendary period of Rome. Most of the leading events and dates in it, as handed down to us by tradition, may be true, but we must not forget that the evidences to support them are unsatisfactory, that the connections between them are doubtful, and that many of the incidents accompanying them are improbable.

CHAPTER XXIX.

HISTORICAL REPUBLIC.

SECTION 448. Mythical Virtue. It is necessary to divide history into definite chronological periods, the boundary lines of which, in many cases, must be drawn arbitrarily; and such a case occurs here. Fabius Pictor, the earliest historian of Rome, whose book though now lost was known to later writers including Livy, may have written about 230 B. C., and may have obtained information from men who had a personal knowledge of public affairs in 280 B. C., which date is therefore fixed as the beginning of the historical period of Rome.'

With the close of the legendary era the character of Roman history changed. The supernatural gave way to the natural; probability succeeded to improbability. The gods ceased to take an active and prominent part in Roman life. They were no longer responsible for the paternity of the children of vestal virgins; they did not lead the Roman armies in battle; they did not come instantaneously from distant fields to announce victories; they did not command Roman heroes to save the republic by leaping into yawning chasms or by offering their lives in sacred sacrifice; and they did not dictate Roman laws. The time had passed when all the plebeians were in debt to the money lenders; when they seceded peaceably until their debts were canceled; when

they abandoned fortifications to strengthen their military position and to exact political concessions; when they did not take all the privileges within their easy reach; when, to spite the patricians, they allowed themselves to be defeated in battle by alien enemies; when the women were all chaste; when all the great patricians were honest and many of them were poor.

The stern consuls who had executed their valiant sons for violating petty rules of camp discipline had disappeared. Junius Brutus and Manlius Torquatus had no successors in historical times. Poverty and extreme simplicity of life had ceased to give luster to the most successful generals and the most influential statesmen. The hovel and the humility of Cincinnatus were succeeded by the palace and the pride of Scipio.

The wonderful displays of Roman magnanimity to enemies were limited to the legendary era. When in 390 B. C. a schoolmaster of Fidenæ delivered all his pupils, the sons of leading citizens, to Camillus, the latter tied the hands of the traitor behind his back, liberated the boys, supplied them with sticks, and told them to drive the villain back to their town. The citizens of Fidenæ, overcome by the generosity of Camillus, surrendered to Rome. The Volscian city of Privernum was treated, according to the legend, in 330 B. C., with an indulgence unknown in historical times. Having been conquered by the Romans, it revolted, and was taken a second time, whereupon it was ordered to send deputies to Rome to hear the order of the senate. The consul said to them, "What do you deserve?" They replied, "The treatment due to people who love freedom." Again the consul said, "If we spare you, what can we expect?" The reply was, "If you treat us well, peace; if not, war." The