freedmen to all the tribes, but allowed themselves to be guided by principles of policy and expediency, not by mere chance or caprice. It is not known on what principles the censors had hitherto acted in distributing the new citizens among the tribes. Perhaps Appius Claudius and his successors entered each freedman into the tribe to which his former master belonged; perhaps they portioned them out to the different tribes in equal numbers. Nothing is reported on this subject before we arrive at the censorship of Lepidus and Fulvius, 179 B.C. Of these, however, Livy tells us that they distributed the voters among the tribes according to rank (generibus hominum), legal claims (causis), and occupation (quæstibus). Hence we may conclude that Terentius Culleo had proposed to admit the freedmen to all the tribes, but that the censors Lepidus and Fulvius, conforming to this law in general, had made the admission to a country tribe dependent on certain conditions (cause), such as a fixed amount of landed property. Whoever could not comply with these or similar conditions was probably not admitted by the censors to the country tribes. Whoever carried on a craft, business or trade, was placed in a town tribe. Such regulations of course did not affect those Roman citizens whose rights dated from an earlier period. We are prevented from speaking with absolute certainty of the measure taken by the censors in 179 B.C., by the brevity and obscurity of the notice which we have received on this point; but that it related to the disputed question of the distribution of new citizens among the tribes is evident, not only from the words themselves, but also from the historical connection in which they appear. Liv. xl. 51, 9: Mutarunt suffragia regionatimque generibus hominum causisque et quæstibus tribus descripserunt. This passage, on the proper interpretation of which so much depends, is by no means clear, and has puzzled every commentator of Livy. By quæstus he could only have understood trade or profession; but the other two terms, genera hominum and causæ, are very vague, and admit of a variety of explanations. Perhaps Livy simply copied the words from an older writer, and purposely avoided more precise expressions because he was in doubt of the exact meaning himself. CHAP. I. BOOK Censor ship of 169 B.C. But this arrangement by no means settled the longdisputed question. Ten years later, in 169 B.C., we find the censor Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus, the father of Gracchus, the two great popular leaders, attempting to overthrow entirely the policy which had been adhered to for so long a time with regard to the admission of freedmen to the citizenship. He actually meditated refusing the rights of citizenship to those who had gained their freedom since the last census, and even tried to take it away from those who had obtained it before. On this subject he engaged in a dispute with his colleague, Appius Claudius, a worthy descendant of the great statesman of the Samnite wars, who was the first to perceive the necessity of an amalgamation of old and new citizens. After a violent quarrel, the two censors came to an understanding that every freedman who had a son of more than five years of age should remain in the tribe in which he had been entered by the last censors; that the owners of landed property of upwards of 30,000 sesterces in value should be entered in the country tribes; all other freedmen, however, in one of the four city tribes-namely, the tribus Esquilina, which was decided upon by lot. The old principle of the Servian constitution of centuries was thus acknowledged in the arrangement of the tribes. The influence of the poorest class of people was restricted to a minimum, and those freedmen who gave proofs of thoroughly conservative sentiments and of attachment to Rome, either by owning larger portions of land or by marrying and establishing families, were ranked with the best class of citizens. Census of 164 B.C. In the census of Lucius Æmilius and Quintus Marcius, in the year 164 B.C., the lists of Roman citizens show an increase of about 25,000 citizens, in spite of a plague, a war, and a famine. It is, therefore, not improbable that 1 Liv. xlv. 15. This passage also is obscure and perhaps corrupt or defective. Cicero, De Or. i. 9, and Aurel. Victor, 57, differ from Livy in stating that the new citizens were on this occasion received into the four city tribes, thus ignoring the restriction to one. As Livy's account is more detailed, and no doubt drawn from an old annalist that lay before him when he wrote, it must be preferred to Cicero's, who evidently wrote from memory. the above-named censors were rather liberal in the reception of new citizens. Nothing, however, is reported of the principles according to which they acted in this matter.' CHAP. I. of the Up to the civil disturbances caused by the Gracchi, The claim our sources remain silent on the subject of the conflicting Italians to opinions which no doubt continued to divide rival poli- the franticians as to the principles to be adopted on the reception A short time after the death of the of new citizens. chise. Working of the Roman re constitu If we survey the working of the Roman popular assemblies as a whole, we come to the conclusion that their influence could not be other than beneficial to a small publican state confined to a single city, for which they were intended. tion. As soon, however, as the state spread beyond moderate bounds, as soon as public business became more important, complicated, and absorbing, it was no longer possible for the citizens who lived at a distance to take part regularly in the assemblies. The inevitable result was that the Liv. epit. 46. Plutarch, Em. Paull. 38. 2 Aurel. Vict. 72. VI. BOOK popular assemblies sank to mere formalities, and became a tool in the hands of the ruling class. This change besides being inevitable was also fortunate for Rome. The management of public affairs remained in the firm hands of those men who possessed the requisite knowledge and experience; and at the same time the sovereignty of the people, which continued to exist by law, formed a barrier against arbitrary encroachments on the part of the aristocracy. But it was this continued nominal sovereignty of the people which contained a latent danger for the government of the aristocracy and the continuance of the republic. If the popular assemblies should ever come to be applied, not in the service of the aristocracy, but in the interest of ambitious demagogues against the will and against the policy of the nobles, a conflict was sure to arise between formal right and existing usage, a conflict which would necessarily lead to a revolution, and to the remodelling of the forms of public law. This process fills up the period from the Gracchi till the time when the Roman state was established on a new foundation, when a single ruler as the representative of the whole population took the place of the sovereign assembly of the people. But up to this time the undisputed rule in Rome belonged to the senate, that body to which its development and glory are principally due. The comitia and the We should have a very mistaken and inadequate conception of the share taken by the people in the governcontiones. ment of Rome, if we looked upon it as being limited to the formal decrees of the comitia by which laws (leges and plebiscita), elections and administrative measures were resolved upon. The direct influence of the comitia must It is strange that the Romans had no technical term for 'election,' though it would have been easy to form a verbal substantive from the words creare, facere, or eligere, to be used for this purpose. This is an illustration of the poverty of the Latin language in the domain of public law, which is the cause of so much uncertainty and so many conjectures as to the precise meaning of patres, populus, quæstor, lex, concilium, and other terms. The wonderful fertility of the Greek language in this respect forms a marked contrast to the Latin, have been of limited extent for this reason, that they were called upon merely to answer yes or no to questions formally laid before them. The people would have had no influence on the form in which these questions were put, had they not had a special organ for the purpose, an organ in some way corresponding to the public press of our day and the right of meeting and forming associations for political objects. Such associations were always regarded with distrust by the Romans, who suspected in them conspiracy and treason. Their place was taken by a kind of assemblies of the people, less formal than the comitia, called 'contiones,' in which no binding resolutions could be passed, but public questions could be freely discussed. It is true that even these 'contiones' were far from being altogether exempt from restricting formalities. They could not be called together by anybody except the magistrates, neither had every man the liberty of speaking in them, of making proposals or of declaring his opinion, but only the magistrates who had assembled them or those to whom the magistrates granted the permission to do so; but even in this limited manner public questions could be discussed and the people could be enlightened on the purport and the bearings of the questions laid before them for final decision in the comitia. CHAP. of the The custom of discussing public questions in the Increasing 'contiones' became general after the comitia of tribes influence had obtained full legislative competency, and it was espe- contiones. cially the tribunes of the people who made use of them. It was in the contiones' that the policy of the ruling aristocracy was explained and made palatable to the mass of the people, who were then persuaded that they gave their legislative decisions with perfect freedom and after due consideration. As long as perfect harmony prevailed in the ranks of the nobility, the 'contiones' obstacle to the undisturbed aristocratic government. But a change necessarily took place when this harmony was disturbed, when demagogues appeared and endeavoured to engage public opinion for their reformatory were no |