Page:The Ancient City- A Study on the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome.djvu/404

 898 THE REVOLUTIONS. BOOK IV, zens, if only to incorporate them into the legiuns. They had taken care, too, that the inviolability of the tribunes should not extend outside of Rome, and for this purpose had decided that a tribune should never go out of the city. In the army, therefore, the plebs were under control ; there was no longer a double power; in presence of the enemy Rome became one. Then, thanks to the custom, begun after the expuL sion of the kings, of assembling the array to consult on public interests and on the choice of magistrates, there were mixed assemblies, where the plebeians appeared by the side of the patricians. Now we see clearly in history that the comitia by centuries became more and more important, and became insensibly what were called the great comitia. Indeed, in the conflict which sprang up between the assembly by curies and the assembly by tribes, it seemed natural that the comitia centuriata should become a sort of neutral ground, where general interest would be debated. The plebeian was not always poor. Often he be- longed to a family which was originally fiom another city, which was there rich and influential, and whom the fate of war had transported to Rome without taking away his wealth, or the sentiment of dignity that ordi- narily accompanies it. Sometimes, too, the jdebeian liad become rich by his labor, especially in the time of the kings. When Servius had divided the population into classes according to their fortunes, some plebeians belonged to the first class. The patricians had not dared, or had not been able, to abolish this division into classes. There was no want of plebeians, therefore, who fought by the side of the patricians in the foremost ranks of the legion, and who voted with them in the first centuries.