Page:The Ancient City- A Study on the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome.djvu/408

 402 THE REVOLUTIONS. BOOK IV. laws should be written by the plebeians," they said, "choose the legislators in the two orders." By this they thought they were conceding a great deal; but it was little according to the rigorous principles of the patrician religion. The senate replied that it wa? in no way averse to the preparation of a code, but that this code could be drawn up only by patricians. Finally, they found a means of conciliating the interests of the plebs with the religious requirements on which the pa- tricians depended. They decided that the legislators should all be patricians, but that their code, before be- ing promulgated and put in force, should be exhibited to the eyes of the public, and submitted to the appro- bation of all classes. This is not the moment to analyze the code of the decemvirs. It is only necessary at present to remark, that the work of the legislators, primarily exposed in the forum, and freely discussed by all the citizens, was afterwards accepted by the comitia centuriata — the assembly in which the two orders were confounded. In this there was a grave innovation. Adopted by all the classes, the law thenceforth was applied to all. We do not find, in what remains to us of the code, a fiingle word that implies any inequality between the plebeian and the patrician, either in the rights of prop- erty, or in contracts and obligations, or in legal pro- ceedings. From that moment the plebeian appeared before the same tribunal as the patrician, proceeded in the same manner, and was judged according to the same law. Now, there could not have been a more radical revolution ; the daily usages, the manners, the sentiments of man towards man, the idea of personal dignity, the principles of law, all were changed in Rome.