iminished, that of political inferiority forced itself on the
thoughts of the free --metoeci--; and it was only the sovereignty
of the king ruling equally over all that prevented the outbreak of
political conflict between the privileged and the non-privileged
classes.

The Servian Constitution

The first step, however, towards the amalgamation of the two
portions of the people scarcely took place in the revolutionary
way which their antagonism appeared to foreshadow. The reform of
the constitution, which bears the name of king Servius Tullius, is
indeed, as to its historical origin, involved in the same darkness
with all the events of a period respecting which we learn whatever
we know not by means of historical tradition, but solely by means of
inference from the institutions of later times. But its character
testifies that it cannot have been a change demanded by the
plebeians, for the new constitution assigned to them duties alone,
and not rights. It must rather have owed its origin either to the
wisdom of one of the Roman kings, or to the urgency of the burgesses
that they should be delivered from exclusive liability to burdens,
and that the non-burgesses should be made to share on the one hand
in taxation--that is, in the obligation to make advances to the
state (the -tributum-)--and rendering task-work, and on the other
hand in the levy. Both were comprehended in the Servian constitution,
but they hardly took place at the same time. The bringing in of
the non-burgesses presumably arose out of the economic burdens;
these were early extended to such as were "possessed of means"
(-locupletes-) or "settled people" (-adsidui-, freeholders), and only
those wholly without means, the "children-producers" (-proletarii-,
-capite censi-) remained free from them. Thereupon followed the
politically more important step of bringing in the non-burgesses
to military duty. This was thenceforth laid not upon the burgesses
as such, but upon the possessors of land, the -tribules-, whether
they might be burgesses or mere --metoeci--; service in the army
was changed from a personal burden into a burden on property. The
details of the arrangement were as follow.

The Five Classes

Every freeholder from the eighteenth to the sixtieth year of his
age, including children in the household of freeholder fathers,
without distinction of birth, was under obligation of service, so
that even the manumitted slave had to serve,