Page:The City-State of the Greeks and Romans.djvu/240

216, and the old prejudice against such alliances lives on only among a few, or in the hearts of patrician matrons.

To sum up: the old social and political inequality has vanished; the laws press equally on all, and can be read by all; the people is clearly sovereign in the legislative assembly of tribes, presided over by the tribunes of the plebs; the executive is under control, each magistrate being liable to impeachment and popular trial after his year of office. This is not, indeed, democracy in the Athenian sense, for the people does not itself do the actual work of government, though its decision is paramount whenever it is called on to legislate, to give sentence, or to decide on peace and war. But it answers fairly well to Aristotle's conception of a moderate democracy, and rests, in fact, upon much the same social conditions which he postulated for that kind of constitution. Aristotle points out that the characteristic drawbacks of democracy are not likely to be present where the mass of the people is occupied with agriculture; for their work in the fields will keep them away from the city, except on certain occasions, and they will thus escape becoming too political — too much interested, that is, in matters which they cannot understand. They may elect their magistrates, and