Page:The City-State of the Greeks and Romans.djvu/212

188 classes, reproduce exactly the policy of the tyrant; but it would be going too far to assume that they were ascribed without any reason to a certain Servius and a certain Tarquinius. We may, however, leave the stories to the critics, and turn our attention for a moment to two facts which stand out clearly in this period — facts which all Romans connected with the name of Servius Tullius, and which may beyond doubt be attributed to the last age of the monarchy. These are (1) the organisation of the army in classes and centuries, and (2) the division of the city and its territory into four local tribes. The two are closely connected with each other, and they begin the story which we have to tell in this chapter.

What was the nature of the change which these two facts indicate ? We may think of the earlier form of Roman State as a union of small communities retaining in some degree the tie of kinship, or at least the idea of it. But the influence of the land (see p. 42) had long been felt, disintegrating the original force of this tie. Alongside of the gentes, which formed the basis of the original union, there had grown up, as in Attica, another population which stood to these in a position of inferiority and dependence. The gentes had the prestige of high descent, of religious knowledge, of wealth and prowess in war; they were the true citizens, cives optimo jure, ingenui, patricii. The others were