imilar ones with reference to the
equestrian and burgess-lists were perhaps not formally and legally
assigned to the censors, but were always practically implied in
their powers. It was the community, not the censor, that conferred
burgess-rights; but the person, to whom the latter in making up the
list of persons entitled to vote did not assign a place or assigned an
inferior one, did not lose his burgess-right, but could not exercise
the privileges of a burgess, or could only exercise them in the
inferior place, till the preparation of a new list. The same was the
case with the senate; the person omitted by the censor from his list
ceased to attend the senate, as long as the list in question remained
valid--unless the presiding magistrate should reject it and reinstate
the earlier list. Evidently therefore the important question in this
respect was not so much what was the legal liberty of the censors,
as how far their authority availed with those magistrates who had to
summon according to their lists. Hence it is easy to understand
how this prerogative gradually rose in importance, and how with the
increasing consolidation of the nobility such erasures assumed
virtually the form of judicial decisions and were virtually respected
as such. As to the adjustment of the senatorial list undoubtedly the
enactment of the Ovinian -plebiscitum- exercised a material share of
influence--that the censors should admit to the senate "the best men
out of all classes."

23. II. III. The Burgess-Body. Its Composition

24. II. III. Complete Opening Up of Magistracies and Priesthoods

25. II. III. Restrictions as to the Accumulation and the Reoccupation
of Offices

26. II. III. Partition and Weakening of Consular Powers

CHAPTER IV

Fall of the Etruscan Power-the Celts

Etrusco-Carthaginian Maritime Supremacy

In the previous chapters we have presented an outline of the
development of the Roman constitution during the first two centuries
of the republic; we now recur to the commencement of that epoch for
the purpose of tracing the external history of Rome and of Italy.
About the time of the expulsion of the Tarquins from Rome the Etruscan
power had reached its height. The Tuscans, and the Carthaginians who
were in close alliance with them, possessed undisputed supremacy on
the Tyrrhene Sea. Although Massilia amidst continual and severe
struggles maintained her independence, the seaports of Campania and
of