Page:Roman Constitutional History, 753-44 B.C..djvu/51

Rh more than a majority and decided every issue. The wealthy classes enjoyed also another advantage: the lower classes, or the poor, increased relatively much faster in number than the rich; hence the centuries of the lower classes came to contain each a larger and larger number of voters than a century of the rich, and the value of the suffrage of the poor decreased accordingly.

Powers of the Centuriate Assembly. — Such was the aristocratic and plutocratic assembly which preëminently exercised the powers of the sovereign people. It elected the consuls, enacted laws, passed the declaration of war against states in alliance or treaty, and decided all cases on appeal — an important power now that appeal was not a matter of grace but of right, and was granted to plebeians as well as to patricians. The centuriate assembly was, however, subject to the same limitations as the assembly of curies, — the magistrates had the initiative in legislation, and the patrician senators possessed the right to sanction or reject.

General Results of the Revolution. — The patricians were the chief gainers by the revolution. They restricted the powers of the supreme magistrates and made them in large measure dependent on the senate, they closed the ranks of the patriciate, monopolized all the offices, and controlled the government in all its departments. It was a patrician revolution, and it resulted in the establishment of a patrician, or aristocratic, republic.

The plebeians secured the right of appeal in cases involving corporal or capital punishment; but were yet at the mercy of the consul, because of his power to impose fines, to arrest, and to imprison. They were admitted to the senate, but were the least respected and influential members of that body. They were conceded the right of suffrage in the centuries, but probably formed only a minority in each of