Phocion was shortly afterwards put to death by his own countrymen, the Athenians, in a mad outbreak of popular fury. Greece cannot be said to have produced one great man after Phocion; and this deficiency of wise and able leaders was doubtless one chief cause of the insignificance into which the various states, great and small, sunk after this epoch.

The ancient history of Greece, as an independent country, now draws to a close. Achaia, hitherto a small, unimportant state, having begun to make some pretensions to political consequence, excited the enmity of Sparta, and was compelled to seek the protection of Philip, the ruling prince of Macedon. Philip took the field against the Spartans, and their allies the Ætolians, and was in a fair way of subjecting all Greece by arms and influence, when he ventured on the fatal step of commencing hostilities against the Romans. This measure consummated the ruin of Greece, as well as that of Macedon. The Romans warred with Philip till the end of his life (175 B.C.), and continued the contest with his son Perseus, whom they utterly defeated, and with whom ended the line of the kings of Macedon. In a few years the once illustrious and free republics of Greece were converted into a Roman province, under the name of Achaia (146 B.C.).

Having repelled the ravagers of your country, he | brought you from the mountains to the plain, and taught you to confide, not in your fastnesses, but in your valour. By his wisdom and discipline, he trained you to arts and civility, enriched you with mines of gold, instructed you in navigation and commerce, and rendered you a terror to those nations at whose names you used to tremble. Need I mention his conquests in Upper Thrace, or those, still more valuable, in the maritime provinces of that country? Having opened the gates of Greece, he chastised the Phoenicians, reduced the Thessalians, and while I shared the command, defeated and humbled the Athenians and Thebans, eternal foes to Macedon, to whom you had been successively tributaries, subjects, and slaves. But my father rendered you their masters; and having entered the Peloponnesus, and regulated at discretion the affairs of that peninsula, he was appointed, by universal consent, general of combined Greece; an appointment not more honourable to himself than glorious for his country. At my accession to the throne, I found a debt of 500 talents, and scarcely sixty in the treasury. I contracted a fresh debt of 800; and conducting you froin Macedon, whose boundaries seemed unworthy to confine you, safely crossed the Hellespont, though the Persians then commanded the sea. By one victory we gained Ionia, Eolia, both Phrygias, and Lydia. By our courage and activity, the provinces of Cilicia and Syria, the strength of Palestine, the anti-bered Theocritus, a pastoral poet; Xenophon, Polybius, quity of Egypt, and the renown of Persia, were added to your empire. Yours now are Bactria and Aria, the productions of India, the fertility of Assyria, the wealth of Susa, and the wonders of Babylon. You are generals, princes, satraps. What have I reserved for myself but this purple and diadem, which mark my preeminence in toil and dangers? Where are my private treasures? Or why should I collect them? Are my pleasures expensive? You know that I fare worse than any of yourselves; and have in nothing spared my person. Let him who dares compare with me. Let him bare his breast, and I will bare mine. My body, the fore part of my body, is covered with honourable wounds from every sort of weapon. I often watch, that you may repose safely; and to testify my unremitting attention to your happiness, had determined to send home the aged and infirm among you, loaded with wealth and honour. But since you are all desirous to leave me, go! Report to your countrymen that, unmindful of the signal bounty of your king, you intrusted him to the vanquished barbarians. The report, doubtless, will bespeak your gratitude and piety.'

This impassioned and touching oration deeply affected the discontented soldiers, and all gladly returned to their allegiance. Shortly after this, the extraordinary career of Alexander was suddenly cut short by death. At Babylon, while engaged in extensive plans for the future, he became sick, and died in a few days, 323 B. c. Such was the end of this conqueror, in his thirty-second year, after a reign of twelve years and eight months. He left behind him an immense empire, which, possessing no consolidated power, and only loosely united by conquest, became the scene of continual wars. The generals of the Macedonian army respectively seized upon different portions of the empire, each trusting in his sword for an independent establishment. The greedy struggle for power finally terminated in confirming Ptolemy in the possession of Egypt; Seleucus in Upper Asia; Cassander in Macedon and Greece; while several of the provinces in Lower Asia fell to the share of Lysimachus.

Thus terminates the fourth and last period of Greck history, during which there flourished several eminent writers and philosophers, among whom may be num

Diodorus Siculus, Dionysius Halicarnassus, Plutarch, and Herodian, historians; Demosthenes, an orator; and Plato, Aristotle, Zeno, and Epicurus, philosophers; also Zeuxis, Timanthes, Pamphilus, Nicias, Apelles, and Eupompus, painters; and Praxiteles, Polycletus, Camachus, Naucides, and Lysippus, sculptors.

In the condition of a humble dependency of Rome, and therefore following the fate of that empire, Greece remained for upwards of four succeeding centuries; but although of little political importance, it still retained its pre-eminence in learning. Enslaved as the land was, it continued to be the great school of the time. As Greece had formerly sent its knowledge and arts over the East by the arms of one of her own kings, she now diffused them over the western world under the protection of Rome. Athens, which was the emporium of Grecian learning and elegance, became the resort of all who were ambitious of excelling either in knowledge or the arts; statesmen went thither to improve themselves in eloquence; philosophers to learn the tenets of the sages of Greece; and artists to study models of excellence in building, statuary, or painting; natives of Greece were also found in all parts of the world, gaining an honourable subsistence by the superior knowledge of their country. That country in the meantime was less disturbed by intestine feuds than formerly, but was not exempt from the usual fate of conquests, being subject to the continual extortions of governors and lieutenants, who made the conquered provinces the means of repairing fortunes which had been broken by flattering the caprices of the populace at home.

Even

The period of the independence of Greece, during which all those great deeds were performed which have attracted the attention of the world, may be reckoned from the era of the first Persian war to the conquest of Macedon, the last independent Greek state, by the Romans. This period, as we have seen, embraced little more than 300 years. It is not, therefore, from the duration of the independent political power of the Grecian states that their celebrity arises. the patriotism of their soldiers, and the devoted heroism of Thermopyla and Marathon, have been emulated elsewhere without attracting much regard; and we At the death of Alexander, the Athenians considered must therefore conclude that it is chiefly from the supeit a fit opportunity to emancipate themselves from the riority of its poets, philosophers, historians, and artists, ascendancy of Macedon; but without success. Demos- that the importance of the country in the eyes of thenes, one of the most eminent patriots and orators modern men arises. The political squabbles of the of Athens, on this occasion, to avoid being assassinated Athenians are forgotten; but the moral and intelby order of Antipater, the Macedonian viceroy, killed lectual researches of their philosophers, and the elegant himself by swallowing poison; and his compatriot | remains of their artists, possess an undying fare,

CONCLUDING PERIOD OF GREEK HISTORY.

HISTORY OF ROME.

bouring towns--one of them a small dependency of the | which he had founded on the Palatine; and it was in Etruscans, situated on the Calian Hill, and probably his reign that those events took place which terminated named Lucerum; another a Sabine village on the Quirinal Hill, called Quirium. The Etruscans, or Etrusco-Latins as they seem rather to have been, of Lucerum were received on a subordinate footing; the Sabines of Quirium on one of equality; but the joint city continued to bear its old name of Roma. The population of this new Rome consisted, therefore, of three tribes the ancient Romans, who called themselves Ramnes; the Sabines of Quirium, who called themselves Tities; and the Etrusco-Latins of Lucerum, who were named Luceres.

ORIGINAL ROMAN CONSTITUTION-EARLY HISTORY UNDER
THE KINGS-ORIGIN OF THE PLEBEIANS.

With the enlargement of the population of Rome by the addition of these new masses of citizens, a change of the constitution became of course necessary. The following seems to have been the form ultimately assumed:-Governed by a common sovereign, eligible by the whole community from one of the superior tribesthe Ramnes and the Tities-the three tribes intrusted the conduct of their affairs to a senate composed of 200 members, 100 of whom represented the gentes of the Ramnes, and 100 the gentes of the Tities. The Luceres, as an inferior tribe, were not represented in the senate; and their political influence was limited to the right to vote with the other two tribes in the general assemblies of the whole people. In these general assemblies, or Comitia, as they were called, the people voted; not individually, nor in families, nor in gentes, but in divisions called Curia or Curies; the Curia being the tenth part of a tribe, and including, according to the ancient system of round numbers, ten gentes. Thus the entire Populus Romanus, or Roman people, of this primitive time consisted of thirty curies-ten curies of Ramnes, ten of Tities, and ten of Luceres: the ten curies of each tribe corresponding to 100 gentes, and the thirty curies together making up 300 gentes. As the Luceres were an inferior tribe, their gentes were called Gentes Minores, or Lesser Houses; while those of the Ramnes and Tities were called Gentes Majores, or Greater Houses. The assembly of the whole people was called the Comitia Curiata, or Meeting of Curies. After a measure had been matured by the king and senate, it was submitted to the whole people in their curies, who might accept or reject, but could not alter, what was thus proposed to them. An appeal was also open to the curies against any sentence of the king, or of the judges nominated by him in his capacity of supreme justiciary. The king, moreover, was the high priest of the nation in peace, as well as the commander-in-chief during war. The 300 gentes furnished each a horseman, so as to constitute a body of cavalry; the mass of the people forming the infantry. The right of assembling the senate lay with the king, who usually convened it three times a month.

Such was ancient Rome, as it appears to the historic eye endeavouring to penetrate the mists of the past, where at first all seems vague and wavering. The inquirer to whom we owe the power to conceive the condition of ancient Rome, so far as that depended on political institutions, was the celebrated German historian Niebuhr. Not so, however, did the Romans conceive their own early history. In all ancient communities, it was a habit of the popular imagination, nay, it was part of the popular religion, to trace the fortunes of the community to some divine or semi-divine founder; whose exploits, as well as those of his heroic successors, formed the subject of numerous sacred legends and ballads. Now, it was part of the Roman faith that their city had been founded at a point of time corresponding with B.C. 754, by twin brothers of miraculous birth, called Romulus and Remus, whose father was the war god Mars, and their mother a vestal virgin of the line of the Alban kings, the progeny of the great Eneas. Romulus, according to this legend, surviving his brother Remus, became the king of the village of shepherds

in the establishment of the triple community of the Ramnes, Tities, and Luceres. Setting out with Romulus, the Romans traced the history of their state through a series of legends relating to six kings, his successors, whose characters, and the lengths of their reigns, are all duly determined. Of this traditionary succession of seven kings, extending over a period of 245 years (B. C. 754-509), history can recognise with certainty the existence of only the two or three latest. It is possible, however, to elicit out of the legends a glimmering of the actual history of the Roman state during these imaginary reigns.

Possessed, as all our information respecting the Romans in later times justifies us in supposing, of an unusual degree of that warlike instinct which was so rampant among the early tenants of our globe, the shepherd farmers of Rome were incessantly engaged in raids on their Latin, Etruscan, and Sabine neighbours. Strong-bodied, valiant, and persevering, as we also know them to have been, they were, on the whole, successful in these raids; and the consequence was, a gradual extension of their territory, particularly on the Latin side, by the conquest of those who were weaker than themselves. After each conquest, their custom was to deprive the conquered community of a part of their lands, and also of their political independence, annexing them as subjects to the Populus Romanus. The consequence was a gradual accumulation round the original Populus, with its 300 Houses, of a subjectpopulation, free-born, and possessing property, but without political influence. This subject-population, the origin of which is dated by the legends from the reign of Ancus Martius, the fourth king from Romulus, received the name of the Plebs, a word which we translate common people,' but which it would be more correct, in reference to these very ancient times, to translate conquered people.' Besides the plebs, the Roman community received another ingredient in the persons called Clients; strangers, that is, most of them professing mechanical occupations, who, arriving in Rome, and not belonging to a gens, were obliged, in order to secure themselves against molestation, to attach themselves to some powerful citizen willing to protect them, and called by them Patronus, or Patron. About six centuries before Christ, therefore, the population of the growing township of Roma may be considered as having consisted of four classes-1st, The populus, or patricians, a governing class, consisting of a limited number of powerful families, holding themselves aloof from the rest of the community, not intermarrying with them, and gradually diminishing in consequence; 2d, The plebs, or plebeians, a large and continually-increasing subject-population, of the same mixed Etrusco-Sabine-Latin blood as the populus, but domineered over by them by right of conquest; 3d, The clients, a considerable class, chiefly occupied in handicraft professions in the town, while the populus and the plebs confined themselves to the more honourable occupation, as it was then esteemed, of agriculture; and 4th, The slaves, or servi, whether belonging to patricians, plebeians, or clients-a class who were valued along with the cattle.

The increasing numbers of the plebs, the result of fresh wars, and the value of their services to the community, entitled them to possess, and emboldened them to claim, some political consideration. Accordingly, in the reign of Tarquinius Priscus, the fifth of the legendary kings, and in whose reputed Etruscan lineage historians fancy that they can discern a time when Etruscan influence, if not Etruscan arms, reigned paramount in Rome, a modification of the original constitution took place. A number of the richest plebeian families were drafted into the populus, to supply the blanks caused by the dying out of many of the ancient gentes of the Ramnes, Tities, and Luceres; and at the same time the number of senators was increased to 300, by the admission of the Luceres to the same rights as

character and institutions, throw first it, and then all Europe, into fermentation?

the other two tribes. Even this modification was insufficient; and in order to do justice to the claims of the plebs, Servius Tullius, the successor of Tarquinius, It required a period of 119 years (B. c. 509-390) to and who is gratefully celebrated in Roman history as enable the Romans to burst the chain of petty nations ⚫ the King of the Commons,' proposed and effected an-Latins, Volscians, Vejentes, &c.—which girdled in entire renovation of the political system of the state. their strength. This was a period of almost incessant His first reform consisted in giving the plebs a regular warfare; the last glorious act of which was the siege internal organisation for its own purposes, by dividing and capture of Veii by the hero Camillus, B. C. 395, or it into thirty tribes or parishes-four for the town, and in the year of the city 359. By this capture part of twenty-six for the country-each provided with an Etruria was added to the Roman dominions, and the officer or tribe-convener called the Tribune, as well as influence of the state considerably extended on all with a detailed machinery of local government; and sides. This conquest, as well as the career of victory all permitted to assemble in a general meeting called against Equians, Volscians, &c. which had preceded the Comitia Tributa, to discuss matters purely affecting it, was greatly facilitated by a confederacy, offensive the plebs. But this was not all. To admit the plebs and defensive, which had subsisted between the Romans to a share in the general legislative power of the com- and the adjacent nations of the Latins and the Hernimunity, he instituted a third legislative body, called cans from the year of the city 268, the twenty-third the Comitia Centuriata, in addition to the two-the year after the expulsion of the kings, when it had been senate and the comitia curiata—already existing. The established by the instrumentality of an able patrician comitia centuriata was an assembly of the whole free named Spurius Cassius, who was three times, in cases population of the Roman territory-patricians, ple- of difficulty, elected to the consulship. This confedebeians, and clients-arranged, according to the amount racy with two powerful nations had insured the stabiof their taxable property, in five classes, which again lity of the infant republic against all assaults. were subdivided into 195 bodies, called Centuries, each The second consulship of Spurius Cassius (year of century possessing a vote, but the centuries of the rich Rome 261, or B. c. 493) had also been remarkable as being much smaller than those of the poor, so as to the epoch of a formidable civic tumult-the first of secure a preponderance to wealth. The powers of the that long series of struggles between the patricians and comitia centuriata were similar to those of the comitia the plebeians which constitutes the most interesting curiata under the former system. They had the right portion of the annals of the carly Commonwealth. to elect supreme magistrates, and to accept or reject a Not long after the expulsion of the kings, the patrician measure referred to them by the king and senate. The gentes had begun to show a disposition to tamper comitia curiata, however, still continued to be held; with the Servian constitution, or at least to prevent and a measure, even after it had passed the comitia the plebs from obtaining more power than they already centuriata, had still to be approved by the curies possessed. The principal instrument by which they ere it could become a law. Notwithstanding this re- were able to cripple the energies of the plebs was the striction, the constitution of Servius Tullius was a operation of the law of debt. In primitive Rome, as great concession to the popular spirit, as it virtually in other ancient states, an insolvent debtor was liable admitted every free individual within the Roman terri- to be seized by his creditor, and kept in chains, or made tory to a share in the government. to work as his slave. Now, such had been the distress of the first years of the republic, that multitudes of the plebeians, deprived, by the casualties of war, of their little properties, had been obliged, in order to preserve the lives of their families, to become debtors to the

An attempt on the part of Tarquinius Superbus, the successor of Servius Tullius, to undo the reforms of his predecessor, and to establish what the ancients called a tyranny, or a government of individual will, led to the expulsion of him and his family, and to the aboli-patricians, the exclusive proprietors of the state lands. tion of the kingly form of government at Rome, B. C. 509, or in the year of the city 245. Instead of a king, two annual magistrates called Consuls were appointed, in whom were vested all the kingly functions, with the exception of the pontifical, for which special functionaries were created. Otherwise, the Servian constitution remained in full operation.

THE COMMONWEALTH TO THE GAULISH INVASION-STRUGGLE

BETWEEN THE PATRICIANS AND PLEBEIANS.

Hundreds had, in consequence, fallen into a condition of slavery; and many more, fearing to offend their patrician creditors by opposing their designs, had become mere ciphers in the comitia centuriata. In short, the plebs, as a body, was disintegrated and disheartened. Some instances of oppression, more flagrant than ordinary, led to an outbreak, and a clamour for the abolition of all existing debts; and to enforce their demands, the plebeians adopted a method of agitation which seems singular enough to our modern conceptions: they, or After the expulsion of the kings, the little republic at least such of them as were in arms for military serhad to struggle through many difficulties arising from vice, retired in a mass from the city at a time when it the attacks of the neighbouring nations, incited thereto was threatened with invasion, and encamped on a hill by the Tarquinii. Ten of the twenty-six rural parishes near, declaring they would starve sooner than live in were torn away in the contest-a loss equivalent to a such a place as Rome was. The government was thus fuil third part of the Roman territory. It would have reduced to a dead lock; Spurius Cassius was chosen required a prophetic eye to foresee that, of all the consul by the patricians; and by his instrumentality states into which Italy was then divided, this little an arrangement was come to, by which the demands of struggling republic was to obtain the pre-eminence. the commons were conceded, existing debts abolished, One would have been disposed to promise the supre-a treaty of mutual obligation for the future agreed to macy of the peninsula rather to the cultured and largebrained Etruscans, already masters of the north of Italy; to the hardy and valiant Samnites, who were fast overspreading the southern interior; or, most probably of all, to the Greeks, who, after adding Sicily to the empire of their gifted race, were rapidly establishing colonies on the southern coasts of the peninsula. Nay, clustered round the Roman territories there were various petty states, any one of which might have ap-important this office would become. peared a match for Rome-the Latins, the Equians, Not content with alleviating the temporary distresses the Volscians, the Hernicans, the Sabines, and the of the plebeians, Spurius Cassius wished permanently Etruscans of Veii on the right bank of the Tiber. to ameliorate their condition; and accordingly, in his Who could have predicted that, bursting this cincture third consulship, in the year of the city 268, or B.C. of nations, the men of the Tiber would overspread the | 486, he boldly proposed and carried what was called an peninsula, and, by the leavening influence of their | Agrarian Law. It is absolutely necessary that the

between the populus and the plebs as between two independent communities, and a new office instituted, under the title of the Tribuneship of the Common People, for the express purpose of protecting the interests of the plebs. The commons then returned to the city; two tribunes of the people were appointed; and their number was subsequently increased first to five, and afterwards to tem. No one could have foreseen how

reader of Roman history should understand this term. | the amendments which they effected on the old laws According to the early Roman constitution, the lands were favourable to the plebeians. The principal conacquired in war became the property of the whole stitutional changes which they carried out were the populus, or body of patricians, in common. Portions incorporation of patricians and clients with the pleof the conquered lands might be purchased from the beian tribes; the investment of the centuries with the state by rich persons; and in such cases the purchaser, powers of an ultimate court of appeal; and the substi whether patrician or plebeian, became absolute owner. tution of the decemviral office, of which they themUsually, however, the lands were not sold, but were selves were an example, for the consulship, five of the annexed to the unallotted property already belonging decemvirs to be plebeians. This last change, however, to the populus. With regard to this state land, a very was of short duration; for the second decemvirate was curious system prevailed. Any patrician (but none brought to an end by its own depravity. Compelled, else) was allowed to occupy and cultivate as much of by a new secession of the commons, to abdicate, the it as he chose, on condition of paying to the state a decemvirs of 305 were succeeded by two popular contithe of the annual produce if it were arable land, and suls, under whose auspices several important privileges a fifth if it were laid out in oliveyards or vineyards. were obtained for the plebeians, the most important of The land thus occupied did not, by right of possession, which was a law conferring on a plebiscitum, or resolubecome the property of the individual: he was liable tion of the tribes, the right to become law on receiving to be turned out of it at the pleasure of the state-his the sanction of the patricians, thus enabling the whole landlord; and it was entirely at his own risk that he people to originate measures as well as the senate. laid out capital in improving it. As, however, it rarely In 310, the plebeians mustered courage to demand that happened that an individual was ejected from land one of the consuls should thenceforward be chosen from which he had thus occupied, large tracts of the state their order. To divert them from this, the patricians land were speedily occupied by enterprising patricians. yielded to another demand-the repeal of the law Such being the plan of distribution, it is evident that prohibiting intermarriage between the two orders. The in the state lands, occupied and unoccupied, the go- plebeians, however, still persisting in their demand vernment possessed a constant fund upon which they regarding the consulship, the patricians, in 311, offered could draw in cases of emergency. By selling portions a compromise, which consisted in breaking down the of it, they could raise money; and by assigning por- supreme authority, hitherto concentrated in the consultions of it to indigent families, they could permanently ship, into three offices-the Censorship, the Quæstorprovide for them. Several times, it appears, this had ship, and the Military Tribunate-with consular powers. been done in the case of indigent plebeian families; The censors were to be two in number, chosen for a and the agrarian law of Spurius Cassius was simply a period of five years, by the curies from among the patriproposal that a large accession to the state lands cians, subject to the approval of the centuries. The having just taken place-the government should seize ostensible duty of the censors was the administration the opportunity to provide for the distressed plebeians, of the public revenues; but as they were intrusted with by apportioning them small portions of these state the task of determining the rank of every citizen, and lands. To the plebeians this proposal was exceedingly of rating his taxable property, their power was, in agreeable; not so, however, to the patricians, who pos- reality, enormous. To watch over the moral conduct sessed the right of occupying and farming as much of of the citizens, and to degrade such senators or knights the public territory as they chose, but who lost that as disgraced their order, were parts of their understood right from the moment that the land was apportioned duty. The quaestors, two in number, were to keep the by the state. The patricians, accordingly, resisted the public accounts; they were likewise to be patricians, proposal with all their might; and Spurius Cassius but were to be chosen by the centuries. Regarding having carried it notwithstanding, they caused him to the third office, the military tribunate, the plebeians be impeached and put to death as soon as his consul- were to have the option of this office, consisting of an ship had expired. indefinite number of persons of somewhat less dignity than the consuls, but to be chosen by the centuries from either order indiscriminately, or of consuls to be chosen, as before, from among the patricians only.

After this event, the patricians renewed their efforts to suppress the plebs, proceeding so far as to transfer the right of electing the consuls from the centuries to the purely patrician body of the curies. The plebeians, however, behaved resolutely, asserting their rights through their tribunes, and by clamours in the comitia tributa, where none but plebeians had a right to take a part. In the year of the city 271, or B.C. 483, they regained the power of choosing one of the consuls; and in the year 283, or B. c. 471, they wrung from the patricians the right of electing their tribunes in their own comitia tributa, instead of the centuries, at the same time obtaining the right to discuss in the comitia tributa affairs affecting the whole Commonwealth. Other concessions followed; and at length, in the year 292, or B. c. 462, a tribune named Caius Terentilius Harsa was so bold as to propose a complete revision of the constitution in all its parts. It was not desirable, he said, that the old distinction between populus and plebs, which had originated in war, should be longer kept up; let, therefore, a revision of the whole body of the laws be undertaken, with a view to put the plebeians on a legal equality with the patricians, and let some more limited form of supreme magistracy be substituted for the consulship. After a protracted opposition, this proposal resulted, in the year 303, or B. c. 452, in the appointinent of the famous First Decemvirate; a board of ten patricians, who were to revise the entire body of the laws, as well as the political machinery of the state, superseding in the meantime all other authority. The digest of Roman law prepared by these decemvirs became the foundation of all subsequent jurisprudence among the Romans;

This compromise having been accepted, the period from 311 to 350 was one of incessant agitation on the part of the plebeians, of incessant opposition on the part of the patricians, of incessant shifting between the consulship and the military tribunate, according as the patricians or the plebeians were the stronger. On the whole, however, the plebeians gained ground. In 321, the active authority of the censors was limited to eighteen months out of the five years for which they were appointed. In 328, the tribes obtained the right of deliberating on questions of peace and war. In 334, the number of the quæstors was increased to four, to be chosen indiscriminately from either order. Lastly, in 350, or B. c. 404, the system of payment for military service became common. During these forty years the patricians had frequently had recourse to the expedient of appointing a Dictator, or supreme magistrate, with unlimited authority for six months. Such an appointment almost always proved a temporary check to the political advancement of the plebeians. In cases of difficulty also, arising from external danger, it was usual to appoint some able man dictator; and it was at such a juncture, in the year 359, that, determined to bring the siege of Veii to a close, the Romans appointed Camillus to this high office.

of

The siege of Veii having terminated so successfully, the Romans were prepared to resume their career conquest without, and their political agitations within, when both the one and the other received a check from an unexpected quarter. Some cause, now unknown,