Page:The City-State of the Greeks and Romans.djvu/215

VII as a part of the State. It could not indeed be united in any real social union to the patrician gentes, for it did not share in their religious communion. But Servius Tullius, or some monarch of genius (the name is of little moment), saw that it could be turned to good account. It may be that wars were at this time frequent, and that the king was hard pressed; tradition ascribed the great city-wall to this time, and as surely was the new organisation a military one. The city and its territory were divided into four regions or local tribes, comprising all free men, whether patricians or plebeians, who possessed and occupied a certain amount of land (assidui). The object of this was doubtless to get an administrative basis for military and financial purposes. Following on this there came a division of all those free men into five summonings (classes); the first of these being the largest in number, and comprising those who had most land, and so downwards to the fifth. These were again divided into bodies of a hundred (centuriæ), which formed the tactical unit of the newly-constructed army. Thus the men of the plebs, or all of them who were settled on the land as freeholders, found themselves part of a real working organisation, comprising the whole community (populus), and destined for military purposes. They gained no political advantage; they had no more to do with the auspicia and the imperium