exact idea of
position of the clients in the early Roman state, for the like-named
institution of the historic republican period is by no means the one that
prevailed at the end of the monarchy. The older, serf-like, conditions had
disappeared; the relationship was voluntarily assumed, and its
obligations, now of a much less serious nature, depended for their
observance solely upon the interest of both parties.

The patrician aristocracy formed a social caste, the product of a long
period of social development, and this caste was enlarged in early times
by the recognition of new _gentes_ as possessing the qualifications of the
older clans (_patres maiorum_ and _minorum gentium_). But eventually it
became a closed order, jealous of its prerogatives and refusing to
intermarry with the non-patrician element.

*The Plebs.* This latter constituted the plebeians or _plebs_. They were
free citizens--the less wealthy landholders, tradesmen, craftsmen, and
laborers--who lacked the right to sit in the Senate and so had no direct
share in the administration. Beyond question, however, they were included
in the _curiae_ and had the right to vote in the _comitia curiata_. Nor is
there any proof of a racial difference between plebeians and patricians.
It is not easy to determine to what degree the clients participated in the
political life of the community, yet, in the general use of the term, the
plebs included the clients, who later, under the republic, shared in all
the privileges won by the plebeians and who, consequently, must have had
the status of plebeians in the eye of the state.

The sharp social and political distinction between nobles and commons,
between patricians and plebeians, is the outstanding feature of early
Roman society, and affords the clue to the political development of the
early republican period.

[Illustration: Roman Expansion in Italy to 265 B. C.]

CHAPTER V

THE EXPANSION OF ROME TO THE UNIFICATION OF THE ITALIAN PENINSULA: c.
509-265 B. C.

I. TO THE CONQUEST OF VEII--392 B. C.

*The alliance of Rome and the Latin League, about 486 B. C.* At the close
of the regal period Rome appears as the chief city in Latium, controlling
a territory of some 350 sq. miles to the south of the Tiber. But the fall
of the monarchy somewhat weakened the position of Rome, for it brought on
hostilities with the Etrusca