now
according to the centuriate organization came into the hands of that
class which since the Servian reform of the army and of taxation had
borne mainly the burdens of the state, namely the freeholders, and
indeed not so much into the hands of the great proprietors or into
those of the small cottagers, as into those of the intermediate class
of farmers--an arrangement in which the seniors were still so far
privileged that, although less numerous, they had as many voting-
divisions as the juniors. While in this way the axe was laid to the
root of the old burgess-body and their clan-nobility, and the basis
of a new burgess-body was laid, the preponderance in the latter rested
on the possession of land and on age, and the first beginnings were
already visible of a new aristocracy based primarily on the actual
consideration in which the families were held--the future nobility.
There could be no clearer indication of the fundamentally conservative
character of the Roman commonwealth than the fact, that the revolution
which gave birth to the republic laid down at the same time the
primary outlines of a new organization of the state, which was in
like manner conservative and in like manner aristocratic.

Notes for Book II Chapter I

1. I. IX. The Tarquins

2. The well-known fable for the most part refutes itself. To a
considerable extent it has been concocted for the explanation of
surnames (-Brutus-, -Poplicola-, -Scaevola-). But even its apparently
historical ingredients are found on closer examination to have been
invented. Of this character is the statement that Brutus was captain
of the horsemen (-tribunus celerum-) and in that capacity proposed
the decree of the people as to the banishment of the Tarquins; for,
according to the Roman constitution, it is quite impossible that a
mere officer should have had the right to convoke the curies. The
whole of this statement has evidently been invented with the view of
furnishing a legal basis for the Roman republic; and very ill invented
it is, for in its case the -tribunus celerum- is confounded with the
entirely different -magister equitum- (V. Burdens Of The Burgesses
f.), and then the right of convoking the centuries which pertained
to the latter by virtue of his praetorian rank is made to apply to
the assembly of the curies.

3. -Consules- are those who "leap or dance together," as -praesul- is
one who "leaps before," -exsul-, one who "leaps out" (--o