producing a partial and temporary cessation of class contests at Rome, nevertheless sufficiently healed the internal wounds of the state to enable it to rapidly advance from a city-republic to a world power.

"The results of this great change were singularly happy and glorious. Two centuries of prosperity, harmony, and victory followed the reconciliation of the orders. Men who remembered Rome engaged in waging petty wars almost within sight of the Capitol lived to see her the mistress of Italy. While the disabilities of the plebeians continued, she was scarcely able to maintain her ground against the Volscians and Hernicans. When those disabilities were removed, she rapidly became more than a match for Carthage and Macedon." (Macaulay.)

The republic created at Rome in the course of the sixth century before Christ was distinctively an undemocratic republic. The benefits to the plebeians resulting from the overthrow of the kingdom were of slight, if any importance. The political power of the state remained almost entirely in the hands of the patricians, and the right to hold office was restricted to the members of this caste. At this time the members of the patrician order were perhaps not very much inferior in numbers to the plebeian order; but the discrepancy between the numbers of the two orders so rapidly increased that by the beginning of the fourth century before Christ the government of Rome had become practically that of an oligarchy.

In the latter days of the republic, in the contest which resulted in the overthrow of the republic, the basic reasons for the struggle were of an economic rather than a political character. In the period now under discussion the political element predominated in the class contests, although various elements of disagreement were to be found existing side by side.

"Three distinct movements agitated the community. The first proceeded from the body of full citizens, and was confined to it; its object was to limit and lessen the life-power of the single president or king; in all such movements at Rome, from the time of the Tarquins to that of the Gracchi, there was no attempt to assert the rights of the individual at the expense of the state, nor to limit the power of the state, but only that of its magistrates. The second was the demand for equality of political privileges, and was the cause of bitter struggles between the full burgesses and those, whether plebeians, freedmen, Latins, or Italians, who keenly resented their political inequality. The third movement was an equally prolific source of trouble in Roman history; it arose from the embittered relations between landholders and those who had either lost possession of their farms, or, as was the case with many small farmers, held possession at the mercy of the capitalist or landlord. These three movements must be clearly grasped, as upon them hinges the internal history of Rome. Although often intertwined and confused with one another, they were, nevertheless, essentially and fundamentally distinct. The natural outcome of the first was the abolition of the monarchy—a result which we find everywhere, alike in Greek and Italian states, and which seems to have been a certain evolution of the form of constitution peculiar to both peoples." (Mommsen.)

The overthrow of the monarchy was accomplished quickly and effectively. Unlike the case in most countries, the monarchy once overthrown, there was no attempt for nearly five centuries to reëstablish it. The word "king" was regarded with such hatred that the mere accusation made against any public leader that he was seeking to make himself king was generally sufficient to utterly destroy his influence, even when such charges were unfounded and unsupported by evidence.

The men who established the new form of government created after the expulsion of Tarquinius adopted the theory of political checks and balances which we afterwards find exerting such a strong influence upon the framers of our American Constitution. It was necessary that at least a part of the powers formerly exercised by the king should be intrusted to some official under the new régime. The greatest efforts, however, were made to render it impossible for any Roman official to use the governmental powers granted him in such a manner as to secure for himself the kingly office. The mere provision that the highest official in the government should be elected, rather than succeed to the office by right of descent, was rightly judged to be by itself an insufficient protection against the seizure of supreme power by some Roman tyrant.

A stronger safeguard was found in the division of the highest power in the state between two officials, who later came to be known as consuls. (The officers afterwards known as consuls were for a considerable period known as prætors; after the term consul came into use the name prætor at a still later period was given to the possessor of a new office created shortly after the passage of the Licinian Act.) The kingly power, or that part of it not absolutely abolished or given to the religious officials, was vested jointly in the two consuls, each possessing the full right to exercise all the functions of the office. Under this division of power each consul was considered a most effective check upon any ambition for a crown which might be possessed by the other.

Another safeguard, a safeguard which unfortunately has recently been too much disregarded in the United States, consisted in the short term of office prescribed by the new law, the consuls and other Roman officials being elected for a term of one year only.

While, as has been said, the consuls retained in general all the former powers of the king, still in some respects these powers were curtailed:

1. By the Valerian Law of 509 B.C. each person condemned by the consul to capital or corporal punishment was entitled to an appeal as a matter of right. It had previously been optional with the king whether to grant an appeal.

2. The consuls never possessed the various pecuniary rights of the kings, such as that of having the fields cultivated by the citizens.

3. The quæstors, who had previously been appointed or not by the king himself, as he saw fit, now became regular state officials.

4. The religious duties and powers of the king did not pass to the consul. The highest religious officer of the state, the pontifex maximus, was from this time on elected by the Pontifical College. The various colleges of priests (all of whom had formerly been appointed by the king) now filled up vacancies in their own numbers. Other religious officers were appointed by the pontifex maximus. On account of the close connection between the Roman religion and the Roman government, the pontifex maximus became a strong political power in the city. By the power of this officer and his associates to hold the auspices and regulate the calendar, they were enabled to prevent or permit the holding of the public assemblies, extend or decrease the term of office of public officials, and exercise a greater or less influence on almost every public question or proceeding.

5. The insignia and marks of dignity permitted to the consul were of a less imposing character than those previously granted to the king. While the king had been accompanied by twenty-four lictors, the consul was permitted only twelve, and the axes were taken away. While the king had worn the purple robe, the consul wore merely the ordinary Roman toga with a purple border. The royal chariot of the king did not descend to the consul, who was obliged to travel on foot within the limits of the