Page:A General Sketch of Political History from the Earlist Times.djvu/87

 THE RISE OF ROME 75 political rights. But before the expulsion of the kings the Commons had also acquired the right of meeting in the Assembly or Comitia called ' Centuriata.' This was constituted primarily for military purposes, and was formed in groups in such a way as to give a great preponderance of voting power to the wealthier classes. When the republic was established, the powers of the king were transferred, as we patres have already seen, to elected magistrates. The and Plebs. citizens assembled in the Comitia Centuriata were the electors, but they could only choose between candidates from Patrician families. Plebeians, however wealthy they might be, were inferior to the nobles, and marriages between the two classes were not recognised. The Plebeians also had an assembly of their own, and for the purposes of this assembly they were distributed into tribes. The Patricians we saw were divided into tribes according to their national descent, each tribe being made up of clans or gentes^ and each clan of families. But the tribes of the Commons were not formed according to descent, but according to districts. The city of Rome was divided into four, and the citizens in each bore the tribal name ; that is, they were enrolled as members of that tribe. Outside the city there were sixteen districts and sixteen tribes. Now the Commons had grievances of two kinds : political and social. They had practically no voice in government, and they were absolutely precluded from entering the ranks of the Patricians and sharing their privileges. Hence, at The a very early stage, there took place what was Tribunate, called a Secession of the Plebeians, who threatened to withdraw from the state altogether unless concessions were made to them. This brought about the creation of the tribunes of the Plebs j officers who had the power of forbidding the actions and the decrees of the magistrates or of the Senate ; the power, that is, of preventing obnoxious action. One very serious grievance of the Plebeians lay in the treat- ment of the public land. Besides the private property in land, which every one had to possess before he was ,_ ' ■_. ., . J " . . . Public Land. entitled to rank as a free citizen, there were common lands which had belonged to the state; and whenever