Page:Roman Constitutional History, 753-44 B.C..djvu/132

118 case (bulla aurea) and their sons gold rings. Probably all the members of the class dressed their children in the toga with the purple border (toga praetexta), and by an easy transition later assumed the gold ring and other distinctions. As a matter of convenience, this class may be called the equestrian order (ordo equester) and its members Roman knights (equites Romani), although the former term should strictly designate the eighteen equestrian centuries, and the latter those who were, or had been, Roman horsemen.

Civil equality had now perished; and in place of one class, equal before the law, the citizens were divided into the nobility, the equestrian order, and the middle and lower classes.

III. The Reform of the Assembly of Centuries by Flaminius.

Enrollment of Citizens. — When the character of Flaminius and the political conditions of the time are considered, it seems probable that he was the one who reorganized the assembly of centuries.

During the first Punic war the freedmen and their sons (libertini) had been needed for the naval service, and had, perhaps for this reason, been permitted to register in considerable numbers in the country districts (tribus rusticae) and to enter the Servian classes. Since then they had remained there, either through the leniency of the censors or because the nobility was already willing to retain this pernicious but efficient political support. Flaminius showed his political insight by confining them once more to the city districts (tribus urbanae). He may have assigned to these districts also all others who were not freeholders.

Flaminius retained the old census, or amount of property, required for admission to each class, except that he probably reduced the requirement for entrance to the fifth class from