Page:The Ancient City- A Study on the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome.djvu/520

 514 MUXICIPAI- EEGIME DISAPPEAES. BOOK V. cient Italy. Novs', this municipal system, thus estab- lished, did not prevent men from arriving at the Romaa citizenship ; on the contrary, it prepared them for it. A gradation, skilfully arranged among these cities, marked the steps by which they were insensibly to approach Rome, and finally to become assimilated with it. There were distinguished, first, the allies, who had a government and laws of their own, and no legal bond with Roman citizens ; second, the colonies, which en- joyed the civil rights of the Romans, without having political rights ; third, the cities of the Italian right, — that is to say, those to whom, by the favor of Rome, the complete right of property over their lands had been granted, as if these lands had been in Italy; fourth, the cities of the Latin right, — that is to say, those whose inhabitants could, following the custom formerly established in Latium, become Roman citizens after having held a municipal office. These distinctions were so deep, that between j^ersons of two different classes no marriage or other legal relation was possible. But the emperors took care that the cities should rise in the course of time, and one after another, from tht- condition of subjects or allies, to the Italian right, from the Italian right to the Latin right. When a city had arrived at this point, its principal families became Romans one after another. Greece entered just as little into the Roman state. At first every city preserved the forms and machinery of the municipal government. At the moment of the conquest, Greece showed a desire to preserve its au- tonomy ; and this was left to it longer, perhaps, than it would have wished. At the end of a few generations it aspired to become Roman ; vanity, ambition, and interest worked for this.