m 



the law in every human being. This principle of gradual equalization 

 between the conquerors and the conquered has infused that vital 

 strength and durability into modern Europe which could never be 

 imparted to the despotic and slaveholding states of the East and of 

 antiquity. 



Let us now see what position the Romans hold in this respect. We 

 find among them the inequality arising from conquest at the very com- 

 mencement of their history. The institution of slavery was common 

 to the Romans, with all the other nations of antiquity, though in the 

 earlier periods of their history it was less general than it afterwards 

 became. 



The Roman freemen were divided into two classes : they were either 

 Patricians or Plebeians ; both of these were citizens, but at first of very 

 unequal rank. The fulness of citizenship was contained in four rights : 

 that of honours, i. e. the right of filling the high ofi&ces of state ; that 

 of suffrage, i. e. of voting in the popular assembly ; that of intermarriage, 

 i. e. the right of contracting a marriage under the strict Roman law, 

 involving the consequences of patria potestas ; and lastly, the right 

 called commerdum, i. e. the right of acquiring property in the strictly 

 binding forms of the Roman law. 



These rights, at fii-st but very partially enjoyed by the Plebeians, were 

 the objects of their aspirations for many ages, and the constitutional 

 history of Rome is altogether contained in a detail of long but successful 

 struggles for their possession, carried on by the inferior citizens. 



At the outset, the full rights of Roman citizenship were so entirely 

 engrossed by the Patricians that they alone formed legally the Roman 

 people. The name, populus Romanus, applied strictly to the body of 

 the Patricians alone. That the kings necessarily belonged to their body 

 need not be said, as even the republican magistrates were for a long 

 time taken from their ranks alone ; the senate was a deUberative and 

 executive committee of their body ; the only existing popular assemblies, 

 the comitia curiata, were entirely Patrician; in fact, the whole state, 

 in its organization and administration, ignored the Plebeians completely. 

 There was as little concurrence between the two classes for the common 

 administration of their affairs, as between the Lacedsemonian Perioeci, 

 and the Spartan nation. 



To this political superiority of the ruling body of citizens over their 

 subjects, we must subjoin a social and economical superiority of equal 

 importance. It is not likely that the Patricians, having in their hands 

 the disposal of all the good things that could make life enjoyable to 

 them, should have dealt them out with too bountiful a hand to their 

 inferiors. And why should the conqueror endow with comfort and 



