Page:The Ancient City- A Study on the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome.djvu/390

 384 THE EEVOI.UTIONS. BOOK ir comitia centuriata, where every soldier had the right of suffrage, and where the plebeian and the patrician were hardly distinguished.* All these reforms made a singular change in the ap- pearance of the Roman city. The patricians remained, with their hereditary worship, their curies, their senate. But the plebeians became accustomed to indepen- dence, wealth, arras, and religion. The plebs were not confounded with the patricians, but became strong by the side of them. The patricians, it is true, took their revenge. They commenced by killing Servius; later, they banished ' It appears to us incontestable that the comitia by centuries were identical with the Roman army. "What proves this is, first, that this assembly is often called the army by Latin writers : urbanus exercitus (Varro, VI. 93) ; quum comitiorum causa exer- citus edudus esset (Livy, XXXIX. 15) ; miles ad svffragia voca- iur et comitia centuriatcudicuntur (Anipelius, 48) : second, that these comitia were convoked exactly as the army was when it entered on a campaign — that is to say, at the sound of a trum- pet (Varro, V. 91) ; two standards floated from the citadel, one red, to call the infantry, the other dark -green for the cavalry : third, that these comitia were alwaj's held in the Campus Martius, because the army could not assemble within the city (Aulus Gellius, XV. 27) : fourth, that every voter went with his arms (Dion Cassius, XXXVII.) : fifth, that the voters were dis- tributed by centuries, the infantry on one side, and the cavalry on the other : sixth, that every century had at its head its cen- turion and its ensign, wontQ it 7ro>.j/iq)(Dionysius, VII. 59) : sev- enth, that men more than sixty years of age, not being a part of the army, had not the right to vote in these comitia (Macrobius, I. 5; Festus, v. Depontani) . Then, in the ancient language, the word classis signified a military body, and the word centuria de- signated a military company. The proletarii did not appear in this assembly at first; still, as it was a custom in the army to form a century of laborers, they might form a century in the con itia.