blish the aristocratic government. It is not, however, the
whole truth. While the majority of contemporaries probably thought
that the revolution had brought upon the plebeians only a more rigid
despotism, we who come afterwards discern in that very revolution the
germs of young liberty. What the patricians gained was gained at the
expense not of the community, but of the magistrate's power. It is
true that the community gained only a few narrowly restricted rights,
which were far less practical and palpable than the acquisitions
of the nobility, and which not one in a thousand probably had the
wisdom to value; but they formed a pledge and earnest of the future.
Hitherto the --metoeci-- had been politically nothing, the old
burgesses had been everything; now that the former were embraced
in the community, the old burgesses were overcome; for, however much
might still be wanting to full civil equality, it is the first breach,
not the occupation of the last post, that decides the fall of the
fortress. With justice therefore the Roman community dated its
political existence from the beginning of the consulate.

While however the republican revolution may, notwithstanding the
aristocratic rule which in the first instance it established, be
justly called a victory of the former --metoeci-- or the -plebs-,
the revolution even in this respect bore by no means the character
which we are accustomed in the present day to designate as democratic.
Pure personal merit without the support of birth and wealth could
perhaps gain influence and consideration more easily under the regal
government than under that of the patriciate. Then admission to
the patriciate was not in law foreclosed; now the highest object of
plebeian ambition was to be admitted into the dumb appendage of
the senate. The nature of the case implied that the governing
aristocratic order, so far as it admitted plebeians at all, would
grant the right of occupying seats in the senate not absolutely to
the best men, but chiefly to the heads of the wealthy and notable
plebeian families; and the families thus admitted jealously guarded
the possession of the senatorial stalls. While a complete legal
equality therefore had subsisted within the old burgess-body, the
new burgess-body or former --metoeci-- came to be in this way divided
from the first into a number of privileged families and a multitude
kept in a position of inferiority. But the power of the community