Page:The Ancient City- A Study on the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome.djvu/412

 406 THE REVOLUTIONS. BOOK IV. ian marriage had degraded her by placing her in a house where dignities and honors could never enter. Her father guessed her cause of trouble, and consoled her by promising that she should see at her own house what she had seen at her sister's. He planned with his son-in-law, and both worked with the same object in view." This legend teaches us two things — one, that the plebeian aristocracy, by living with the patri- cians, shared their ambitions, and aspired to their dig- nities ; the other, that there were patricians who encour- aged and excited the ambition of this new aristocracy, which was united with them by the closest ties. It appears that Liciuius and Sextius, who was joined with him, did not calculate that the plebs would make great efforts to gain the right of being consuls; for they thought it necessary to propose three laws at the same time. The one, the object of which was to make it imperative that one of the consuls should be chosen from the plebs, was preceded by two others, one of which diminished the debts, and the other granted lands to the people. The two first, it is evident, were intended to warm up the zeal of the plebs in favor of the third. For a moment the plebs were too clear- sighted ; ihcy fell in with the laws that were for them, — the reduction of debts, and the distribution of lands, — and gave little heed to the consulship. But Liciui- us reijlied that the three laws were inseparable, and that they must be accepted or rejected together. The Roman constitution authorized this course. Very natu- rally the plebs preferred to accept all, rather than to lose all. But it was not enough that the plebs wished to make these laws. It was also necessary at that time that the senate should convoke the great comitia, and should