Page:The Ancient City- A Study on the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome.djvu/402

 396 THE DEVOLUTIONS. HOOK TV. As soon as the plebs thus had their chiefs, they did not wait long before they had deliberative assemblies. These did not in any manner resemble those of the patricians. The plebs, in their comitia, yere distrib- uted into tribes; the domicile, not religion or wealth, regulated the place of each one. The assembly did not commence with a sacrifice; religion did not appear there. They knew nothing of presages, and the voice of an augur, or a pontiff, could not compel men to sep- arate. It was really the comitia of the })lebs, and they had nothing of the old rules, or of the religion of the patricians. True, these assemblies did not at first occupy them- selves with the general interests of the city; they named no magistrates, and passed no laws. They de- liberated only on the interests of their own order, named the plebeian chiefs, and carried plebiscita. There was at Rome, for a long time, a double series of decrees — senatusconsulta for the patricians, pie- hiscita for the plebs. The plebs did not obey the sen- atusconsulta, nor the patricians the plebiscita. There were two peoples at Rome, These two peoples, always in presence of each other, and living witliin the same walls, still had almost noth- ing in common. A plebeian could not be consul of the city, nor a patrician tribune of the plebs. The ple- bei* did not enter the assembly by curies, nor the patrician the assembly of the tribes.' They were two peoples that did not even understand ' Livy, II. GO. Dionysius, VII. IG. Festus, v. Scita plebis. We speiik only of the earliest times. The patricians were en- rolled in the tribes, but certainly took no part in assemblies which met without auspices and without a religious ceremonj', and in which for a long time they recognized no legal authority.