The appointment of the dictator by the curies is a step backward from the constitution of Servius, evincing a settled plan to rob the plebeians of its advantages and honours, while its burthens were still to remain with them. The encroachments of the patricians went further: the election of the consuls was also withdrawn from the centuries: that it was so will be proved in the sequel of this history, at the period when the plebeians recovered a part of their rights. If this was a sheer usurpation, and not a compulsory bargain, it must have occurred before the secession of the commonalty.

What are we to think of a history which contains not a word of such changes! And deep as is the obscurity lying over this period, no less gloomy is everything belonging to it that our researches can discover. After the banishment of the Tarquins the government had behaved with kindness to the commonalty: it is related that all duties were then done away with; that the city took the salt-trade into its own hands, to put a stop to the extortion of the retail-dealers: the statement that the plebs was exempted from tribute, must be understood to mean, either that the whole charge of paying the troops was thrown upon the ærarians, or that the system of arbitrary taxation introduced under the last Tarquinius was abolished.