sented to return but they
made a treaty with the people. It was agreed that their chiefs (they
called them tribunes of the plebs) should have the right of protecting
the plebeians against the magistrates of the people and of prohibiting
any measure against them. All that was necessary was to pronounce the
word "Veto" (I forbid); this single word stopped everything; for
religion prevented attacks on a tribune under penalty of being devoted
to the infernal gods.

=Triumph of the Plebs.=--The strife between the two orders beginning
at the end of the fifth century continued for two centuries (494 B.C.
to about 300 B.C.).[118]

The plebeians, much more numerous and wealthy, ended by gaining the
victory. They first secured the adoption of laws common to the two
orders; afterward that marriage should be permitted between the
patricians and the plebeians. The hardest task was to obtain the high
magistracies, or, as it was said, "secure the honors." Religious
scruple ordained, indeed, that before one could be named as a
magistrate, the gods must be asked for their approval of the choice.
This was determined by inspecting the flight of birds ("taking the
auspices"). But the old Roman religion allowed the auspices to be
taken only on the name of a patrician; it was not believed that the
gods could accept a plebeian magistrate. But there were great plebeian
families who were bent on being the equals of the patrician families
in dignity, as they were in riches and in importance. They gradually
forced the patricians to open to them all the offices, beginning with
the consulship, and ending with the great pontifical office (Pontifex
Maximus). The first plebeian consul was named in 366 B.C., the first
plebeian pontifex maximus in 302 B.C.[119] Patricians and plebeians
then coalesced and henceforth formed but one people.

THE ROMAN PEOPLE

=The Right of Citizenship.=--The _people_ in Rome, as in Greece, is
not the whole of the inhabitants, but the body of citizens. Not every
man who lives in the territory is a citizen, but only he who has the
right of citizenship. The citizen has numerous privileges:

1. He alone is a member of the body politic; he alone has the
right of voting in the assemblies of the Roman people, of serving
in the army, of being present at the religious ceremonials at
Rome, of being elected a Roman magistrate. These are what were
called public rights.

2. The citizen alone is protected by the Ro