Book contents
- Frontmatter
- TO HIS MAJESTY FREDERIC WILLIAM THE THIRD, KING OF PRUSSIA
- PREFACE
- Contents
- INTRODUCTION
- ANCIENT ITALY
- THE PRELIMINARY HISTORY OF ROME
- ROME
- Various Traditions about the Origin of the City
- Romulus and Numa
- Beginning and Nature of the Earliest History
- The Era from the Foundation of the City
- On the Secular Cycle
- The Beginning of Rome and its Earliest Tribes
- The Patrician Houses and the Curies
- The Senate, the Interrexes, and the Kings
- Tullus Hostilius and Ancus
- The Lay of L. Tarquinius Priscus and Servius Tullius
- Examination of the Stories of L. Tarquinius and Servius Tullius
- The Completion of the City of Rome
- The Six Equestrian Centuries
- The Commonalty and the Plebeian Tribes
- The Centuries
- L. Tarquinius the Tyrant and the Banishment of the Tarquins
- Commentary on the Story of the Last Tarquinius
- The Beginning of the Republic and the Treaty with Carthage
- The War with Porsenna
- The Period down to the Death of Tarquinius
- The Dictatorship
- The Commonalty before the Secession, and the Nexi
The Centuries
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2011
- Frontmatter
- TO HIS MAJESTY FREDERIC WILLIAM THE THIRD, KING OF PRUSSIA
- PREFACE
- Contents
- INTRODUCTION
- ANCIENT ITALY
- THE PRELIMINARY HISTORY OF ROME
- ROME
- Various Traditions about the Origin of the City
- Romulus and Numa
- Beginning and Nature of the Earliest History
- The Era from the Foundation of the City
- On the Secular Cycle
- The Beginning of Rome and its Earliest Tribes
- The Patrician Houses and the Curies
- The Senate, the Interrexes, and the Kings
- Tullus Hostilius and Ancus
- The Lay of L. Tarquinius Priscus and Servius Tullius
- Examination of the Stories of L. Tarquinius and Servius Tullius
- The Completion of the City of Rome
- The Six Equestrian Centuries
- The Commonalty and the Plebeian Tribes
- The Centuries
- L. Tarquinius the Tyrant and the Banishment of the Tarquins
- Commentary on the Story of the Last Tarquinius
- The Beginning of the Republic and the Treaty with Carthage
- The War with Porsenna
- The Period down to the Death of Tarquinius
- The Dictatorship
- The Commonalty before the Secession, and the Nexi
Summary
With regard to the purpose of the Servian constitution to impart an equal share in the consular government to the plebeians, every one may frame surmises at his pleasure: that it granted them the right of taking part in elections and in legislation, is known to all.
Servius, as for the sake of brevity I will call the lawgiver in accordance with the writers of antiquity, would have communicated these rights in the simplest manner by following the same method whereby in feudal states the commons obtained a station alongside of the barons, and by ordaining that all national concerns should be brought both before the council of the burghers and that of the commonalty, and that the decree of the one should not have force without the approval of the other, and should be made null by its rejection. This was the footing the plebeian tribes subsequently stood on for some time in relation to the curies: not however until the ties of an amicable intercourse between the two orders had already become so manifold, that their tranquillity was no longer troubled except by a few very wrongheaded incendiaries; not until all had recognized the necessity of labouring for the good of their common country, conformably to the institutions which actually existed.
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- Information
- The History of Rome , pp. 373 - 425Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010First published in: 1828