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10 undoubtedly attract many strangers to the city. These newcomers, as we have already observed, were in some cases admitted to the full rights of citizenship, and it would not have been an extremely difficult thing for one of these naturalized citizens, if he were a leader of skill and ability, to gain the throne. Such a leader the first of the Tarquins seems to have been, and there is no sufficient reason for refusing to accept the tradition of Tarquinius Priscus at its face value.

13. Political Changes. The form of government underwent a noteworthy change under the Tarquins in the substitution of an hereditary for an elective monarchy, and in the subordination of the senate to the king. The first of these two changes is indicated plainly enough by the kinship existing between the last three kings, and by the passage of the scepter to Servius Tullius and to Tarquinius Superbus without the observance of the interregnum. The fact just mentioned illustrates also the autocratic attitude which the reigning family assumed toward the senate. On the death of the king under the old régime the auspicia reverted to the senate, and that body, through representatives chosen from its own number, exercised the supreme executive power. The assumption of power by Servius Tullius and Tarquinius Superbus, (Liv. I. 49. 3), made a serious breach in the theory that the senate was the ultimate depository of supreme power, gave a dangerous continuity to the king's office and prevented the choice by the senate of a monarch satisfactory to it.

The jealousy which the patricians felt at this usurpation of power by the king led to the overthrow of the monarchy. There are some indications of a rapprochement between the