Page:The City-State of the Greeks and Romans.djvu/229

VII defence, and brought out their best qualities. Such a period of wars must have wrought slowly but surely a great social revolution which prepared the way for the completion of the political one. Individuals among the plebs must have become noted for their prowess and for their wealth. Patrician families may have died out under the stress of war. The great holders of land, increasing in number as the territory increased, were now plebeian as much as patrician, and they came thus to have an identical interest, and the same way of looking at public questions. More and more it became visible that the real material of the State was plebeian, and that the old families could no longer be thought of as the only true-born cives. New worships began to gain ground associated chiefly with the plebs. When the Gauls had retired, and the State was once more free from immediate danger, it became obvious that the time was at hand when this slow revolution in ideas must take shape in a final victory of the plebs.

In the year 367, after a struggle of ten years, this final victory was won. There was no revolution, no bloodshed, only persistent attack on the one side and obstinate resistance on the other. The Tribunate, in later times the instrument of passion and violence, here served the State well, and at last secured the necessary constitutional reform by reducing the machinery of the constitution to a deadlock. The tribunes Licinius and Sextius in this year passed a law restoring the Consulship in place of the military Tribunate, and enacting that