Tiber covered the bridge, is utterly mistaken: the bridge was out of the city 955: its wall stretched from the Tarpeian rock along the Aventine, between the Circus and the river, and may still be traced where a continuous ridge of rubbish cuts across all the allies in the Velabrum.

These works and the building of the Capitoline temple declare with an irresistible voice that Rome under her later kings was the capital of a great state.

955 The proofs for these assertions, which are by no means newly taken up, will be given in another place.

THE SIX EQUESTRIAN CENTURIES.

THE increase of the senate, whereby the number of senators was raised to three hundred, is ascribed to the first Tarquinius by every writer, with the exception of one who mistakes the character of the lesser houses 956. On the other hand, there are great discrepancies in the statements as to the number he introduced; with respect to which, and to my opinion that this increase was effected by admitting the third class, it would be an idle repetition for me to speak again57.

The most difficult point however in the whole earlier history of the constitution is the formation of the three new centuries attributed to the same king: an innovation which, inasmuch as it confines itself to an extension of the Romulean constitution, is placed, in consonance to the spirit of such personifications, before the time of Servius Tullius; while it is later than the calling up of the Luceres into the senate, by which act that constitution received its complete developement. If the Ramnes, Tities, and Luceres, were in fact centuries and tribes of the houses, although the troops of horsemen were also called by the name of the tribe they belonged to; then the centuries formed by Tarquinius and named after the old ones, but as secondary to them, were likewise tribes of houses: and nothing less

956 Tacitus, XI. 25; with regard to whose statement see the text to note 1158.

57 See above p. 296.

than the design of creating new centuries out of new houses, to stand alongside of the old ones, could give occasion to the extreme violence with which Navius opposed him, and to the miracle wrought in support of it: a mere change in military arrangements would never have met with such unbending resistance, even from the most stiff-neckt of augurs. Thus much is clear, that the soverain wished to form three new tribes of houses, partly out of his own retainers, partly from among the commons, and to name them after himself and his friends; so that there would have been six of them: nor is it less clear that Attus Navius, acting in the spirit of the old citizens, withstood the king to the utmost, and even called in heaven to his aid. Was the prince who conceived this project, really Tarquinius? or was he an Etruscan? If he yielded to the resistance of the nation, he certainly cannot be regarded as a conqueror. But in what sense are we to understand that he yielded? since he still formed three new centuries; which, being united with the old ones under the name of the six suffragia, outlived the constitution of the classes such as it came from the hands of Servius Tullius. And again how came it that the number of the curies still continued to be thirty, as in the original three centuries or tribes? When Tarquinius purposed to create three new tribes, he must have intended to divide these like the former three into thirty curies, and to establish that number of new ones: this however did not take place.

There are, it seems to me, only two suppositions which can help us to solve this enigma. We may assume that the original three hundred houses still existed in their full complement; and that the same number of new ones were either formed, or, being already in existence among the commons, were admitted into the body of burghers; so as to assign ten new houses to every cury, the number of the curies remaining as before, but, inasmuch as each cury was now twice as numerous, only five curies

instead of ten being reckoned to a century, which even in this manner would still consist of a hundred houses.

958

It is much more probable however that, when the alteration took place, the original number of the houses had long since fallen short: for every exclusive aristocracy, which omits to replace such houses as become extinct, dies away; and that too with precipitous rapidity, if it be strict in insisting on purity of descent; so that it must sink into an oppressive and hateful oligarchy' Now supposing that some half of the houses were become extinct, that every cury on an average no longer contained more than five, then, if the remainder amounting to about a hundred and fifty were collected together into half the number of the original curies, and the vacant fifteen were filled with newly adopted houses, the ancient proportion of ten houses to a cury remained undisturbed.

And this latter hypothesis is confirmed, and almost establisht, by the statement that Tarquinius doubled the senate, raising the number from 150 to 300; just as the doubling the cavalry and the centuries is ascribed to him. Only here two changes are confounded, between which a

958 Let any one compare lists of the families of freeholders in any German province several hundred years ago and at present. Formerly they were a considerable portion of the whole free rustic population: how many in a hundred are there now in the same province? where a part of the gaps has not been filled up by families of strangers settling amongst them, or by the rise of new families from among the old inhabitants. And after all what has been filled up has been no more than a small part. Among the ancients in the common course of things a replenishment of this sort was impossible.

There are oligarchs who regard the share of the aristocracy in the administration of government as a tontine, where the total property belonging to the survivors continues unchanged, and every individual finds himself all the better off, the more of his comrades have died away.

In Zealand the nobles were become wholly extinct; in Holland they were so within four or five families; the free peasantry in northern Holland were not admitted into the states: hence the towns of necessity acquired exclusive possession of the government.

considerable interval would probably elapse. If every house had a member to represent it, the senate of the first two estates, after many of the houses had become extinct, can no longer have amounted to two hundred; and the third estate also must have been unable to depute a hundred senators, long before its council was incorporated with the supreme one. The calling up of the Luceres therefore would be far from raising the senate to three hundred, as would have been the case if the complement of houses had been full: and, without weighing the numbers too minutely, we may combine the two statements, which represent the senate, the one as having been increased by a hundred, the other as having been doubled: the former being effected in conformity to the original plan of the constitution, the latter by creating the three new centuries. The first of these measures must have been the earlier, but the second too must have preceded the legislation of Servius.

One might strain ones ingenuity in considering whether the new equestrian centuries were not more likely than those of the third estate to be called the lesser ones. In such dim twilight all appearances are deceptive: I rather incline however to believe that each of the additional centuries shared in the honours of its elder namesake; because the colleges of priests continued to be filled exclusively from the two superior estates, each of which appointed two, corresponding to its two centuries. In like manner all the six centuries were represented by the six Vestals*.

The

Instances are not proofs, but in history are scarcely of less force; above all where they exhibit a parallel in the progressive developement of institutions. following is the history of a constitution consisting of curies and houses, which will shew that the changes and developements pointed out in the foregoing remarks

* See above, p. 297.