Page:The Ancient City- A Study on the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome.djvu/375

 ■CHAP. VII. THE PLEBS ENTEK THE CITY. 369 means less violent. Without an armed struggle, and merely by the moral force which their last step had given them, they constrained the great to make con- cessions. They then appointed a legislator, and the constitution was changed. This was the course of events at Athens. Sometimes the inferior class arrived by degrees, and without any shock, at its object. Thus, at Cumae, the number of members of the city, very few in the begin- ning, was increased at first by the admission of those of the people who were rich enough to keep a horse. Later the number of citizens was raised to one thousand, and by degrees the city reached a democratic form of government.' In a few cities, the admission of the plebs among the citizens was the work of the kings; this was the ■case at Rome. In others it was the work of popular tyrants, as at Corinth, at Sicyon, and at Argos. When the aristocracy regained the supremacy, they generally had the good sense to leave to the lower orders the rights of citizens which the kings or tyrants had given them. At Samos the aristocracy did not succeed in its struggle with the tyrants until it had freed the lower classes. It would occupy us too long to enumerate all the different forms under which this great revolution appeared. The result was everywhere the same ; the inferior class entered the city, and became a part of the body jiolitic. Tiie poet Theognis has given us a very clear idea of this revolution, and of its consequences. He tells us that in Megara, his country, there were two sorts of men. He calls one the class of the good^ hyaOol ^' this, ' Heracleidcs of Pontus. Fragm., coll. Didot, t. 11, p. 217. 24