Page:Roman Constitutional History, 753-44 B.C..djvu/49

Rh extend beyond the consular term; and its advice was not lightly disregarded.

Closing of the Patriciate. — In the early years of the republic the Claudian clan is said to have migrated to Rome, and to have been admitted into the patriciate. It is the only instance on record of the admission of a clan during the republic. Perhaps it was formally enacted that henceforth no new members should be admitted. This policy, in connection with the exclusion of the plebeians from the right of intermarriage with the patricians, no doubt seemed at the time to guarantee to the old citizens a privileged position, to constitute them in fact an order of nobility; but in the end it weakened them and spurred the leading plebeians on to obtain for the entire plebeian class the equality of rights which otherwise they might have sought only for themselves.

III. The Assemblies of Curies and Centuries.

Membership of the Curiate Assembly. — The curiate assembly included as members all Roman citizens, but the plebeians and clients did not as yet possess the right of suffrage in the curies. They obtained it at some later epoch, and must have had it at any rate in the year 209, when a plebeian was elected general director (curio maximus) of the curies. When the patricians no longer formed the sole voters of this assembly, they could constitutionally neither meet alone nor pass any measures. On the other hand, the plebeians were permitted to organize themselves legally into families and clans (stirpes, gentes), perhaps because the curies were based on clans.

Powers of the Curiate Assembly. — The curiate assembly had been one of the three chief constitutional organs.