Page:Regal Rome, an Introduction to Roman History (1852, Newman, London, regalromeintrodu00newmuoft).djvu/185

Rh In consequence, the plebeians were suddenly left without legal representatitves. No man of their body was capable of holding office, because he was essentially inadmissible to patrician religion. It was soon manifested, that while excluded from executive government, possession of legislative power was a mockery: unfortunate war forced them to incur debt, and the penalties of debt were rigorously enforced. Art and skill migrated from Rome, when her arms could no longer defend the industrious, and rudeness so great came on the city of the Tarquins, that sheep and oxen became the current coint of a community which but a little before had made a treaty of commerce with Carthage. Under an exclusive patrician caste Rome sank more rapidly than she had risen; until tyrannical power vested in tumultuous tribunes became an elleviation of the intolerable evils caused by the loss of the elective king.

For the destruction of the monarchy did not come in the ripeness of time, when monarchy had finished its work, and the lower people had gained power of self-defence. It was the explosion of rage against an institution, because of personal iniquity; and it became the prelude to a century and a half of suffering to the plebeians.