Page:The Ancient City- A Study on the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome.djvu/407

 CHAP. VII. THE PLEBS ENTER THE CITY. 401 only to the members of the religious city. The plebe- ians had no right to know them; and we may believe that they had no right to claim their protection. These laws existed for the curies, for the gentes. for the pa- tricians and their clients, but not for others. They did not recognize the right to hold property in one who had no sacra ; they granted justice to no one who had not a patron. It was the exclusively religious character of the law that the plebs wished to abolish. They de- manded not only that the laws should be reduced to writing and made public, but that there should be lawa that should be equally applicable to the patricians and themselves. The tribunes wished at first, it appears, that the laws should be drawn up by the plebeians. The patricians replied, that apparently the tribunes were ignorant of what a law was, for otherwise they would not have made such a claim. " It is a complete impossibility," said they, "for the plebeians to make laws. You who have no auspices, you who do not perform religious acts, what have you in common with sacred things, among which the laws must be counted?"' This notion of the plebeians appeared monstrous to the pa- tricians; and the old annals, which Livy and Dionys- ius of Halicarnassus consulted in this part of tlieir his- tories, mention frightful prodigies — the heavens on fire, spectres leaping in the air, and showers of blood,"'* The real prodigy was that the plebeians thought of making laws. Between the two orders, each of which was astonished at the persistence of the other, the republic remained eight years in suspense. Then the tribunes made a compromise. " Since you are unwilling that the ' Livy, III. 31. Dionysius, X. 4. * Julius Obsequens, 16. 26