the slaves to arms,
and it was only after a violent conflict, and by the aid of the
Tusculans who hastened to render help, that the Roman burgess-force
overcame the Catilinarian band. The same character of fanatical
exasperation marks other events of this epoch, the historical
significance of which can no longer be apprehended in the lying
family narratives; such as the predominance of the Fabian clan which
furnished one of the two consuls from 269 to 275, and the reaction
against it, the emigration of the Fabii from Rome, and their
annihilation by the Etruscans on the Cremera (277). Still more odious
was the murder of the tribune of the people, Gnaeus Genucius, who had
ventured to call two consulars to account, and who on the morning of
the day fixed for the impeachment was found dead in bed (281). The
immediate effect of this misdeed was the Publilian law (283), one of
the most momentous in its consequences with which Roman history has to
deal. Two of the most important arrangements--the introduction of the
plebeian assembly of tribes, and the placing of the -plebiscitum- on
a level, although conditionally, with the formal law sanctioned by the
whole community--are to be referred, the former certainly, the latter
probably, to the proposal of Volero Publilius the tribune of the
people in 283. The plebs had hitherto adopted its resolutions by
curies; accordingly in these its separate assemblies, on the one hand,
the voting had been by mere number without distinction of wealth or
of freehold property, and, on the other hand, in consequence of that
standing side by side on the part of the clansmen, which was implied
in the very nature of the curial assembly, the clients of the great
patrician families had voted with one another in the assembly of the
plebeians. These two circumstances had given to the nobility various
opportunities of exercising influence on that assembly, and especially
of managing the election of tribunes according to their views; and
both were henceforth done away by means of the new method of voting
according to tribes. Of these, four had been formed under the Servian
constitution for the purposes of the levy, embracing town and country
alike;(8) subsequently-perhaps in the year 259--the Roman territory
had been divided into twenty districts, of which the first four
embraced the city and its immediate environs, while the other sixteen
were formed out of the rural territory on the basis of the c