Page:The Ancient City- A Study on the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome.djvu/389

 CHAP, VII. THE PLEBS ENTER THE CITY. 385 the sword, formed the three first lines of the legion. The fourth and the fifth, being light-armed, made up the body of skirmishers and slingers. Each class was divided into companies, called centuries. The first of these consisted, we are told, of eighty men; the four others twenty or thirty each. The cavalry was a separate body, and in this arm also Servius made a great innovation. Whilst up to that time the young patricians alone made up the centuries of the knights, Servius admitted a certain number of plebeians, chosen from the wealthiest, to fight on horseback, and formed of these twelve new centuries.

Now, the army could not be touched without at the same time modifying the political constitution. The plebeians felt that their importance in the state had increased: they had arms, discipline, and chiefs; every century had its centurion and its sacred ensign. This military organization was permanent; peace did not dissolve it. The soldiers, it is true, on their return from a campaign, quitted their ranks, as the law forbade them to enter the city in military order. But afterwards, at the first signal, the citizens resumed their arms in the Campus Martius, where each returned to his century, his centurion, and his banner. Now, it happened, twenty-five years after Servius Tullius, the army was called together without any intention of making a military expedition. The army being assembled, and the men having taken their ranks, every century having its centurion at its head, and its ensign in the centre, the magistrate spoke, proposed laws, and took a vote. The six patrician centuries and the twelve of the plebeian knights voted first; after them the centuries of infantry of the first class, and the others in turn. Thus was established in a short time the