by the patricians.

(M776) The basis or principle of the new organization of Servius was the
possession of property. All free citizens, whether patricians or
plebeians, were called to defend the State, and were enrolled in the army.
The equites, or cavalry, took the precedence in the army, and was composed
of the wealthy citizens. There were eighteen centuries of these knights,
six patrician and twelve plebeian, all having more than one hundred
thousand ases. They were armed with sword, spear, helmet, shield, greaves,
and cuirass. The infantry was composed of the classes, variously armed, of
which, including equites, there were one hundred and ninety-four
centuries, one hundred of whom were of the first rank, heavily armed--all
men possessing one hundred thousand ases. Each class was divided into
seniores--men between forty-five and sixty, and juniores--from seventeen to
forty-five. The former were liable to be called out only in emergencies.
This division of the citizens was a purely military one, and each century
had one vote. But as the first class numbered one hundred centuries, each
man of which was worth land valued at one hundred thousand ases, it could
cast a larger vote than all the other classes, which numbered only
ninety-four together. Thus the rich controlled all public affairs.

(M777) To this military body of men, in which the rich preponderated,
Servius committed all the highest functions of the State, for the Comitia
Centuriata possessed elective, judicial, and legislative functions.
Servius also rendered many other benefits to the plebeians, He divided
among them the lands gained from the Etruscans. He inclosed the city with
a wall, which remained for centuries, embracing the seven hills on which
Rome was built. But it is as the hero of the plebeian order that he is
famous, and paid the penalty for being such. He was assassinated, probably
by the instigation of the patricians, by his son-in-law, Lucius
Tarquinius, who mounted his throne as Tarquinius Superbus, the last king
of Rome, B.C. 534. The daughter of the murdered king, Tullia, who rode in
her chariot over his bleeding body, is enrolled among the infamous women
of antiquity.

(M778) Tarquinius Superbus, a usurper and murderer, abrogated the popular
laws of Servius Tullius, and set aside even the assembly of the Curiae, and
degraded and decimated the Senate, and appropriated the confiscated
estates of those whom he destroyed. He reigned as a de