3d 



now is, whether the cultivators of the land held it of the state directly or 

 indirectly. The decision is not very difficult. 



Where we can discern such strongly marked differences of rank and 

 political privileges in the members of a community — as in the Athenian 

 Eupatridae and Thetes, in the Spartan freemen and their helots, in the 

 ThessaHan knights and the Penestae, in the Roman Patricians and the 

 suffering Plebeians — we shall be a priori inclined to find in the ruling 

 class a body of landlords, and in the other a body of tenants. With 

 respect to the Athenian Thetes, this is proved to be correct, by a state- 

 ment of Plutarch, who tells us that they paid one-sixth of the produce 

 to the nobles, whence arose their name of tjer»;;i6ptoi. The Spartan 

 helots were not only domestic slaves, but, for the most part, predial 

 bondmen, more in the position of Sclavonic or Teutonic serfs than the 

 Thetes of Attica. As for the Roman Plebeians, their condition is the 

 chief subject of our inquiry, and we must therefore enter into this 

 matter a little more fully. 



Of the origin of the Roman state and nation, indeed, we cannot say 

 that we know anything for certain ; but so much may be affirmed confi- 

 dently, that the Roman empire formed no exception to the general rule, 

 but was founded on conquest. Traces of this truth have been preserved 

 in the ancient traditions of the Roman people, though it is easily per- 

 ceived that national pride has been at work to obliterate them ; for that 

 the invincible and eternal Roma should have been subdued by a hostile 

 army, even in her infancy, would have been considered too humbling an 

 acknowledgment in a patriotic Roman annalist. Nevertheless we hear 

 of a war of the aboriginal Romans, under Romulus, with their powerful 

 neighbours, the Sabines ; in which war the latter take possession not 

 only of the Quirinal hill,»but even of the Capitol and the citadel. The 

 possession of this place implies not only the independence but the 

 superiority of the Sabine immigrants or invaders, and we consequently 

 hear of a Sabine king, Tatius, sharing the government with Romulus ; 

 of an equal number of Sabines added to the old Roman senate ; of the 

 state, in short, being divided between the two nations ; and after the 

 death of the mythical founder of Rome, we hear of kings of Sabine 

 extraction introducing Sabine institutions, civil and religious. Nor is 

 this advance of the Sabine race upon Rome an isolated fact. Several 

 traditions, in perfect unison with one another, concur in making it 

 almost certain, that at an early period of history the population of the 

 mountain tracts in the centre of the Italian peninsula extended them- 

 selves as conquerors in every direction, and occupied successively the 

 more level and fertile districts between the Apennines and the sea, 

 expelling or subduing the less warlike inhabitants of the plains. One of 

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