with blood the last fires of rebellion.

Besides the dangers threatening society from the discontent of the
poor, the aggressions of the rich, the multiplication and ferocious
treatment of slaves, and the social rivalries of the capital, the
condition of Italy and the general deterioration of public morality
imperatively demanded reform. It has been already said that we do
not know for certain how the plebs arose. But we know how it wrested
political equality from the patres, and, speaking roughly, we may date
the fusion of the two orders under he common title 'nobiles,' from
the Licinian laws. [Sidenote: The 'nobiles' at Rome.] It had been a
gradual change, peaceably brought about, and the larger number having
absorbed the smaller, the term 'nobiles,' which specifically meant
those who had themselves filled a curule office, or whose fathers had
done so, comprehended in common usage the old nobility and the new.
The new nobles rapidly drew aloof from the residuum of the plebs, and,
in the true _parvenu_ spirit, aped and outdid the arrogance of the old
patricians. Down to the time of the Gracchi, or thereabouts, the two
great State parties consisted of the plebs on the one hand, and these
nobiles on the other. [Sidenote: The 'optimates' and 'populares.']
After that date new names come into use, though we can no more fix the
exact time when the terms optimates and populares superseded previous
party watchwords than we can when Tory gave place to Conservative, and
Whig to Liberal. Thus patricians and plebeians were obsolete terms,
and nobles and plebeians no longer had any political meaning, for each
was equal in the sight of the law; each had a vote; each was eligible
to every office. But when the fall of Carthage freed Rome from all
rivals, and conquest after conquest filled the treasury, increased
luxury made the means of ostentation more greedily sought. Office
meant plunder; and to gain office men bribed, and bribed every day
on a vaster scale. If we said that 'optimates' signified the men
who bribed and abused office under the banner of the Senate and its
connections, and that 'populares' meant men who bribed and abused
office with the interests of the people outside the senatorial pale
upon their lips, we might do injustice to many good men on both sides,
but should hardly be slandering the parties. Parties in fact they were
not. They were factions, and the fact that it is by no means easy
always to decide how far i