widens and the relation between
the rulers, whose might is their sole right, and the ruled, whose
obedience reaches no farther than their fears, manifests at length
undisguisedly the character of force. Down to the revolt and razing
of Fregellae in 629, which as it were officially attested the altered
character of the Roman rule, the ferment among the Italians did not
properly wear a revolutionary character. The longing after equal
rights had gradually risen from a silent wish to a loud request,
only to be the more decidedly rejected, the more distinctly it was
put forward. It was very soon apparent that a voluntary concession
was not to be hoped for, and the wish to extort what was refused
would not be wanting; but the position of Rome at that time hardly
permitted them to entertain any idea of realizing that wish. Although
the numerical proportions of the burgesses and non-burgesses in Italy
cannot be properly ascertained, it may be regarded as certain that
the number of the burgesses was not very much less than that of the
Italian allies; for nearly 400,000 burgesses capable of bearing arms
there were at least 500,000, probably 600,000 allies.(7) So long
as with such proportions the burgesses were united and there was no
outward enemy worthy of mention, the Italian allies, split up into
an endless number of isolated urban and cantonal communities, and
connected with Rome by a thousand relations public and private,
could never attain to common action; and with moderate prudence the
government could not fail to control their troublesome and indignant
subjects partly by the compact mass of the burgesses, partly by the very
considerable resources which the provinces afforded, partly by setting
one community against another.

The Italian and the Roman Parties

Accordingly the Italians kept themselves quiet, till the revolution
began to shake Rome; but, as soon as this had broken out, they too
mingled in the movements and agitations of the Roman parties, with a
view to obtain equality of rights by means of the one or the other.
They had made common cause first with the popular and then with the
senatorial party, and gained equally little by either. They had been
driven to the conviction that, while the best men of both parties
acknowledged the justice and equity of their claims, these best men,
aristocrats as well as Populares, had equally little power to
procure ahearing for those claims with the mass of their par