Page:The Ancient City- A Study on the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome.djvu/395

 CHAP. Cn. THE PLEBS EXTER THE CITY. 389 energy to free themselves from this precarious state, in which the fall of the royal government had placed them. They wished to have laws and rights. But it does not appear that these men aspired at first to share the laws and rights of the patricians. Perhaps they thought, with the patricians themselves, that there could be nothing in common between the two orders. No one thought of civil and political equality. That the plebeians could raise themselves to the level of the patricians, never entered the minds of the plebeian of the first centuries any more than it occurred to the patrician. Far, therefore, from claiming equality of rights and laws, these men seem to have preferred, at first, com- plete separation. In Rome they found no remedy for their sufferings; they saw but one means of escaping from their inferiority — this was to depart from Rome. The historian has well expressed their thoughts when he attributes this language to them : " Since the j)atri- cians wish to possess the city alone, let them enjoy it at their ease. For us Rome is nothing. We have neither hearths, nor sacrifices, nor countiy. We only leave a foreign city ; no hereditary religion attaches us to this place. Every land is good for us ; where we find liberty, there shall be our country." • And they went to take up their abode on the SacreJ Mount, beyond the limits of the ager Momanus. In view of such an act the senate was divided in opinion. The more ardent of the patricians showed clearly that the departure of the plebs was far from afflicting them. Thenceforth the patricians alone would remain at Rome with the clients that were ftill ' Dionysius, VI 45, 79.