assume that the hitherto seignorial tax now became a public one. The
continuance of the constitution granted to the province of Macedonia
by Paullus down to at least the Augustan age (Liv. xlv. 32; Justin,
xxxiii. 2), would, it is true, be compatible also with the remission
of the taxes.

Chapter XI

The Government and the Governed

Formation of New Parties

The fall of the patriciate by no means divested the Roman commonwealth
of its aristocratic character. We have already(1) indicated that the
plebeian party carried within it that character from the first as well
as, and in some sense still more decidedly than, the patriciate; for,
while in the old body of burgesses an absolute equality of rights
prevailed, the new constitution set out from a distinction between
the senatorial houses who were privileged in point of burgess
rights and of burgess usufructs, and the mass of the other citizens.
Immediately, therefore, on the abolition of the patriciate and the
formal establishment of civic equality, a new aristocracy and a
corresponding opposition were formed; and we have already shown how
the former engrafted itself as it were on the fallen patriciate, and
how, accordingly, the first movements of the new party of progress
were mixed up with the last movements of the old opposition between
the orders.(2) The formation of these new parties began in the fifth
century, but they assumed their definite shape only in the century
which followed. The development of this internal change is, as it
were, drowned amidst the noise of the great wars and victories, and
not merely so, but the process of formation is in this case more
withdrawn from view than any other in Roman history. Like a crust
of ice gathering imperceptibly over the surface of a stream and
imperceptibly confining it more and more, this new Roman aristocracy
silently arose; and not less imperceptibly, like the current
concealing itself beneath and slowly extending, there arose in
opposition to it the new party of progress. It is very difficult
to sum up in a general historical view the several, individually
insignificant, traces of these two antagonistic movements, which do
not for the present yield their historical product in any distinct
actual catastrophe. But the freedom hitherto enjoyed in the
commonwealth was undermined, and the foundation for future revolutions
was laid, during this epoch; and the delineation of these as well as
of the devel