There were four things that
greatly prejudiced the liberty of Rome. The patricians had engrossed to
themselves all public employments whatever; an exorbitant power was
annexed to the consulate; the people were often insulted; and, in fine,
they had scarcely any influence at all left in the public suffrages.
These four abuses were redressed by the people.
1st. It was regulated that the plebeians might aspire to some
magistracies; and by degrees they were rendered capable of them all,
except that of Inter-rex.
2nd. The consulate was dissolved into several other magistracies;
[31]
prætors were created, on whom the power was conferred of trying private causes;
quæstors
[32]
were nominated for determining those of a criminal nature; diles were established
for the civil administration; treasurers
[33]
were made for the management of the public money; and, in fine, by the creation
of censors the consuls were divested of that part of the legislative power which
regulates the morals of the citizens and the transient polity of the different
bodies of the state. The chief privileges left them were to preside in the great meetings
[34]
of the people, to assemble the senate, and to command the armies.
3rd. The sacred laws appointed tribunes, who had a power of checking
the encroachments of the patricians, and prevented not only private but
likewise public injuries.
In fine, the plebeians increased their influence in the general
assemblies. The people of Rome were divided in three different manners
-- by centuries, by curi, and by tribes; and whenever they gave their
votes, they were convened in one of those three ways.
In the first the patricians, the leading men, the rich and the
senate, which was very nearly the same thing, had almost the whole
authority; in the second they had less; and less still in the third.
The division into centuries was a division rather of estates and
fortunes than of persons The whole people were distributed into a
hundred and ninety-three centuries,
[35]
which had each a single vote. The patricians and leading men composed the
first ninety-eight centuries; and the other ninety-five consisted of the
remainder of the citizens. In this division therefore the patricians were
masters of the suffrages.
In the division into curi,
[36]
the patricians had not the same advantages; some, however, they had, for it was
necessary to consult the
augurs, who were under the direction of the patricians; and no proposal
could be made there to the people unless it had been previously laid
before the senate, and approved of by a senatus-consultum. But, in the
division into tribes they had nothing to do either with the augurs or
with the decrees of the senate; and the patricians were excluded.
Now the people endeavoured constantly to have those meetings by curi
which had been customary by centuries, and by tribes, those they used to
have before by curi; by which means the direction of public affairs soon
devolved from the patricians to the plebeians.
Thus when the plebeians obtained the power of trying the patricians
-- a power which commenced in the affair of Coriolanus,
[37]
they insisted upon assembling by tribes,
[38]
and not by centuries; and when the new magistracies
[39]
of tribunes and diles were established in favour of the people, the latter
obtained that they should meet by curi in order to nominate them; and after
their power was quite settled, they gained.
[40]so far their point as to assemble by tribes
to proceed to this nomination.
