42 



chance employment, or charity. Thus it was, that by degrees a consoli- 

 dated mass of Plebeians was collected together, no longer overawed by 

 their individual lords, but made bold by honest independence, or 

 desperate by poverty and the feeling of revenge. This body of Plebeians 

 might often be reinforced by many clients, who sympathised with them 

 as fellow-plebeians, and were anxious to shake off their predial subjection. 

 Nothing in relation to the clients is dark or unintelligible on this 

 supposition. A great many clients indeed, nay the majority perhaps, 

 would for a long time side with the Patricians, influenced by their social 

 dependence, just as we see tenants and tradesmen vote on the side of 

 their landlords or employers ; and thus it might appear, at fii-st sight, 

 that the clients formed a body of men entirely distinct from the 

 Plebeians, opposed to them, and intimately connected in their interests 

 with the Patricians ; but a closer attention soon dispells this illusion. 

 Niebuhr unfortunately was misled by the familiar narratives of Livy and 

 Dionysius, who thus represent in the civil commotions the clients as 

 opposed to the plebs ; he thought there must be a radical difference 

 between them, and he built up his theory accordingly. He supposes 

 that the Roman state consisted originally of Patricians and Clients only, 

 and that the plebs, as a third element, was afterwards added ; but he 

 has neither estabUshed a difference in political rights between the two, 

 nor has he shown why a plebs was superadded to the clients, nor can he 

 satisfactorily assign an epoch for the introduction of the plebs, nor one 

 for the abolition of the clientship ; and yet he sets aside the unanimous 

 testimony of all our authorities which testify to the identity of Clients 

 and Plebeians. 



