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The noble art, which had once been preserved as the sacred inheritance of the patricians, was fallen into the hands of freedmen and plebeians, who, with cunning rather than with skill, exercised a sordid and pernicious trade.
The more the younger patricians strove to insinuate themselves into favour with the plebeians, the more strenuously did the tribunes strive on the other hand to render them suspicious in the eyes of the commons by alleging that a conspiracy had been formed; that Cæso was in Rome; that plans had been concerted for assassinating the tribunes, for butchering the commons.
II. In the change of manners and language the patricians of Rome were far removed from the senate of Romulus, on the palace of Constantine, from the free nobles of the republic, or the fictitious parents of the emperor.
All regretted their families, and their houses; the poor their hive-shaped huts, with the shells on the threshold and the hanging net, and the patricians their large halls filled with bluish shadows, where at the most indolent hour of the day they used to rest listening to the vague noise of the streets mingled with the rustling of the leaves as they stirred in their gardens; to go deeper into the thought of this, and to enjoy it more, they would half close their eyelids, only to be roused by the shock of a wound.
They pleaded, in excuse, the combination of the patricians by which the privileges of the commons were attempted to be undermined by the affronts of the consuls. What would be the consequence, when the laws were as yet not firmly established, if they attacked the new tribunes through consuls of their own party?
"Of you, the other tribunes," said Fabius, "we beg that you will first of all consider that that power was appointed for the aid of individuals, not for the ruin of the community; that you were created tribunes of the commons, not enemies of the patricians.
I admit you generally thrash them. Still, you know they have sometimes got the better of you, even when the force was equal." The captain grunted. He could not deny the fact. "Sometimes our captains don't do their duty," he said. "They put a lot of young patricians in command of the galleys, men that don't know one end of a ship from the other, and then, of course, we get the worst of it.
Brutus establishes the republic A conspiracy to receive the kings into the city Death of Brutus Dedication of the Capitol Battle of Lake Regillus Secession of the commons to the Sacred Mount Five tribunes of the people appointed First proposal of an agrarian law Patriotism of the Fabian family Contests of the plebeians and patricians
Before we proceed to present subsequent conquests or domestic revolutions, it would be well to glance at the political and social structure of the State, as it was two hundred years before the Christian era, and also at the progress which had been made in literature and art. The patricians, when they lost the exclusive control of the government, did not cease to be a powerful aristocracy.
Both consuls and tribunes had full and co-ordinate criminal jurisdiction, although the former exercised it indirectly, and the latter directly; as the two quaestors were attached to the former, the two aediles were associated with the latter. The consuls were necessarily patricians, the tribunes necessarily plebeians.
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