Page:The City-State of the Greeks and Romans.djvu/239

VIII last two or three books of Livy's first decade, we shall see no apparent reason why the Roman constitution should not develop in the direction of democracy. All the preliminary steps seem to have been taken. The old idea of the prestige of patrician kinship is gone past recall, and every department of government is open to plebeians. If any class is under disabilities, it is the patrician. The plebeian assembly is becoming the chief legislative body, and has also no small judicial power. The executive seems to be under the control of the people, for a form of popular trial has come into vogue, by which the tribunes frequently impeach an ex-magistrate, examining the case at informal meetings in the forum, and calling for a final condemnation in the assembly of centuries. In this assembly, which also elects the chief magistrates, it is not birth, but property, that preponderates in the voting; and the acquisition of property, landed or other, has long been as much open to plebeians as to patricians. The territory of the State has been immensely enlarged, new tribes have been added, new communities received into citizenship; and thus the plebs has continually been strengthened by absorption, while the patrician body must have as steadily dwindled in number. Patrician families, in order to survive, strengthen themselves by plebeian