Page:The Ancient City- A Study on the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome.djvu/524

 518 MUNICIPAL REGIME DISAPPEAES. BOOK, V. raries, and was not remarked by those who then wrote history, it is because the change of which it was the legal expression had been accomplished long before. The inequality between citizens and subjects had been lessened every generation, and had been gradually ef- faced. Tiie decree might pass unperceived under the veil of a fiscal measure ; it proclaimed and caused to pass into the domain of law what was already an ac- complished fact. The title of citizen then began to fall into desuetude ; or, if it was still employed, it was to designate the con- dition of a free man as opposed to that of a slave. From that time all that made a part of the Roman em- pire, from Spain to the Euphrates, formed really one people and a single state. The distinction between cities had disappeared; that between nations still ap- peared, but was hardly noticed. All the inhabitants of this immense empire weie equally Romans. The Gaul abandoned his name of Gaul, and eagerly assumed that of Roman; the Spaniard, the inhabitant of Thrace, or of Syria, did the same. There was now but a single name, a single country, a single government, a single code of laws. We see how the Roman city developed from age to age. At first it contained only patricians and clients; afterwards the plebeian class obtained a place th.ere; then came the Latins, then the Italians, and finally the provincials. The conquest had not sufficed to work this great change ; the slow transformation of ideas, the prudent but uninterrupted concessions of the em- perors, and the eagerness of individual interests had been necessary. Then all the cities gradually disap- emperors, wlio did not wish to be deprived of the tribute which the provincial huids paid into the treasury.