Page:The Ancient City- A Study on the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome.djvu/401

 CQAT. VII, THE PLEBS ENTER THE CITY. 395 centuries. He could make no proposition in the sen- ate ; it was not supposed, in the beginning, that he could appear there. He had nothing in common with the real city — that is to say, with the patrician city, where men did not recognize any authority of his. He was not the tribune of the people; he was the tribune of the plebs. There were then, as previously, two societies in Rome — the city and the plebs ; the one strongly organ- ized, having laws, magistrates, and a senate; the other a multitude, which remained without rights and laws, but which found in its inviolable tribunes protectors and judges. In succeeding years we can see how the tribunes took courage, and what unexpected powers they as- sumed. They had no authority to convoke the peo- ple, but they convoked them. Nothing called them to the senate ; they sat at fii'st at the door of the cham- ber ; later they sat within. They had no power to judge the patricians; they judged them and con- demned them. This w-as the result of the inviolability attached to them as sacrosancti. Every other power gave way before them. The patricians were disarmed the day they had pronounced, with solemn rites, that whoever touched a tribune should be impure. The law said, "Nothing shall be done against a tribune." If, then, this tribune convoked the plebs, the plebs assembled, and no one could dissolve this assembly, which the presence of the tribune placed beyond the power of the patricians and the laws. If the tribune entered the senate, no one could compel him to retire. If he seized a consul, no one could take the consul from his hand. Nothing could resist the boldness of a tribune. Against a tribune no one had any power, <.'xcept another tribune.