Page:The Ancient City- A Study on the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome.djvu/366

 360 THE EEVOLUTIONS. BOOK IV. CHAPTER VII. Third Revolution. The Plebs enter the City. 1. General History of this Itevolution. The changes which, in the course of time, had taken place in the constitution of the family, brought Avith th€m others in the constitution of the city. The old aristocratic and sacerdotal family became weakened. The right of priuiogeniture liaving disappeared, this family lost its unity and vigor ; the clients having been for the most part freed, it lost the greater part of its subjects. The people of the lower orders were no longer dis- tributed among the gentes, but lived apart, and formed a body by themselves. Thus the city assumed quite another aspect. Instead of being, as at an earlier date, a fully united assemblage of as ranny little states as there were families, a union was formed on the one side among the patrician members of the gentes, and on the other side between men of the lower orders. There were thus two great bodies, two hostile socie- ties, placed face to face. It was no longer, as in a pre ceding period, an obscure struggle in each family ; there was open war in each city. One of these classes wished to maintain the religious constitution of the city, and to continue the government and the priesthood in the hands of the sacred ftimilies. The other wished to bi-eak down the barriers that placed it beyond the pale of the law, of religion, and of politics.