rank and pay than the other Phalangitæ. They were all called and really were Lochagi, that is, each commanded the entire file which he headed. Now these were evidently the original Principes. Soldiers of superior bodily strength in the bloom of life, and of great military prowess, were selected for Lochagi; even so were the Principes in later times distinguished by more beautiful armour. They were still esteemed the flower of the army, as the Triarii were its strength; though according to the later tactics, being drawn up in the second line, they occupied a station to which the verbal import of their name no longer conformed. Thus also the title of Centurions has no correspondence whatever with the system of Manipuli, though it is accurately significant when applied to the phalanx.

The idle hypothesis of Dionysius, adopted from him by later authors, will now no longer be entertained, viz. that the first class paid very dearly for their precedence and political influence, by being continually under arms, and in much greater proportion than the others; constituting in fact nearly onehalf of the whole army. We dare not ascribe to the Roman legislator a regulation so absurd, which could only have been introduced with the design of extirpating the leading citizens. Those ancient wars were not indeed very sanguinary, not more so than those of the Greeks in general before they assumed a wholly different character in the expedition to Sicily. But such as they were, they must have introduced a wild democracy, if, year after year, the flower of the distinguished citizens was devoted to

death. It is not immaterial to shew, by other than moral proofs, by many to which little attention has been paid, that this institution formed the basis of a system entirely different,-one equally wise and just.

How this system possessed within itself the means of independent preservation, is worthy of remark, and perfectly primitive. The sixth class, which, as already observed, must have included nearly all the clients of the Patricians, was wholly without arms or accoutrements, consequently its numbers could never have been formidable to the king or freemen of the people. The imperfect equipment of the classes to which the rear ranks of the phalanx were allotted, neither injured themselves nor the main body, as they found themselves covered by a firm breast-work of the dense front ranks. But within the city, in case of an insurrection, if these classes had risen against the privileges of the first, the advantage of full armour was exceedingly important to the latter, and was participated by those who occupied the next ranks; yet so that, in the event of a contest between them and the first, they never engaged on equal terms. One half of the troops were without any defensive armour, (o); they were enabled to dispense with it in the field without injury, and could not have worn it without failing in their object.

It is evident, and generally acknowledged, that, according to this constitution, the ninety-eight votes of the knights and of the first class, (contained in the aggregate of one hundred and ninety-three, according to Dionysius, or one hundred and eighty-nine,

as more probably assumed), were always decisive. The centuries of the artillerists and musicians, which Dionysius reckons separately, were certainly included in the enumeration of the classes; but the difference between his statement and that of Livy upon this point, should never have induced the idea, not long since, that they treated of institutions which had ceased to exist.

In the course of the developement of the constitution the assembly of the centuries, as representing the nation at large, was the body from which, together with the senate, the laws regularly emanated. But it certainly did not possess this privilege originally; if indeed L. Brutus abrogated the monarchy by a law of the curiæ 59, and if a law respecting the quæstorship, adopted by them at his suggestion, were not probably an old law of the curiæ, renewed under him by the centuries 60. On the contrary, it seems that, until the laws of the twelve tables, the assembly of the curiæ continued to be of importance; and then, for the first time, did the centuries obtain the exclusive right of legislating and sitting in judgment; but in whatever manner they existed and could continue, concurrently with the other comitia, new laws were at that time very sparingly enacted. During the commonwealth, the right of war and peace long remained with the senate, and the centuries seldom assembled for elections under the monarchy. It certainly was the intention of Servius Tullius,

59 Dionysius, IV. c. 84.

60 Tacitus Annal. XI. c. 22.

when he instituted them, to introduce the consular office, and annual elections; but while the king of their choice lived, they could only nominate the criminal judges, or the chief officers of the army.

CHAPTER XXIV.

HISTORY OF SERVIUS TULLIUS.

(CONTINUED).

THE story relates, that the Patricians received with dissatisfaction and resentment the wise and benevolent institutions of a king, whom they already despised for his lowly birth, because those institutions were partly prejudicial to their interests, partly invasions of their privileges. This is highly credible, for even their descendants were seldom inspired with the wisdom of King Theopompus, who consoled his mortified queen with the remark, "that limited power was always the more durable." The fortified houses of the nobility, in the strong-holds of the city, excited in Ancient Rome, as in the middle ages, apprehension for the cause of liberty; in the same manner as the people looked with suspicion on the buildings of the consul Valerius; and the earlier kings are said to have ordered the Tuscans to quit the Mons Cœlius. It is told also of Servius, that he compelled the Patricians to reside in one quarter, in