The patricians, the descendants of the early settlers of Rome, were unable to maintain their special caste privileges, and were compelled to admit the plebeians to equal political rights and privileges. Class distinction remained in as marked a degree as ever at Rome, but the distinction was now between rich and poor, and the rich plebeian took equal rank with the rich patrician. Nor were the united Roman orders strong enough to preserve a monopoly of political privileges for Romans when the territory of Rome was extended over the Italian peninsula. It was found necessary to extend the franchise first to the residents of Latium and later to those of the other portions of Italy.
More remarkable still were the conditions which we find after the establishment of the empire and the extension of Roman territory around the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. There were no royal house, no hereditary nobility, and few special privileges left for the inhabitants of Rome. The distinctions between rich and poor were never more galling; but high birth conferred no great advantage, and the lowest born could rise to the highest posts of honor. The ponderous weight of the empire ground out racial and caste distinctions and welded together all the heterogeneous mass. The provinces became Romanized, and the population of Rome became a mixture of all the races of the provinces. Of how little importance Rome was to the later empire is shown by the removal of the seat of the empire by Constantine to Constantinople, and the continued existence of an empire calling itself Roman for more than a thousand years after Rome had ceased to constitute a part of such empire.
CHAPTER IV
The Early Republic
The first epoch of the Roman republic is that extending from the overthrow of the kings, about 509 B.C., to the passage of the Licinian Laws in 367 B.C. The history of this century and a half at Rome is primarily the history of internal strife and class antagonisms. During these early days the progress made by the republic toward the expansion of its territories or the extension of its foreign influence was inappreciable.
Rome, during these days, was contending on a position of near equality with the neighboring cities of Latium and Etruria. Twice during this period the independence, perhaps the very existence, of the city was seriously threatened.
The war against the Etruscans, which followed immediately upon the expulsion of the last of the Tarquin kings, resulted so unfavorably to Rome that not only was her territory considerably reduced in size but even the subjugation of Rome itself might probably have been accomplished but for the forbearance of her victorious opponents.
Later, in 390 B.C., the capture and sack of Rome by the Gauls nearly proved the death-blow of the Roman republic. The internal dissensions of this period were mainly responsible for the lack of military success. Although it is true that the history of early Rome, unlike the histories of the various early Grecian states, records few instances where hatred or bitterness arising from political defeat induced a citizen to turn traitor to his country, and although the approach of a foreign foe was generally sufficient to bring about a truce in Roman political hostilities and the union of all factions in the city against the common national enemy, still it must be remembered that the amount of energy possessed by a community is limited. When the all-absorbing questions agitating a people are those relative to internal political contests, the energies of the ablest men of each generation are spent mainly in political contests instead of being exerted for the common welfare of the community.