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.