No direct steps were taken, prior to the time of Servius Tullius, to establish a state founded upon territory and upon property; but the previous measures were a preparation for that event. In addition to the institutions named, they had created a city magistracy, and a complete military system, including the institution of the equestrian order. Under institutions purely gentile Rome had become, in the time of Servius Tullius, the strongest military power in Italy.
Among the new magistrates created, that of warden of the city (custos urbis) was the most important. This officer, who was chief of the senate (princeps senatus), was, in the first instance, according to Dionysius, appointed by Romulus.[357] The senate, which had no power to convene itself, was convened by him. It is also claimed that the rex had power to summon the senate. That it would be apt to convene upon his request, through the call of its own officer, is probable; but that he could command its convocation is improbable, from its independence in functions, from its dignity, and from its representative character. After the time of the Decemvirs the name of the office was changed to præfect of the city (præfectus urbi), its powers were enlarged, and it was made elective by the new comitia centuriata. Under the republic, the consuls, and in their absence, the praetor, had power to convene the senate, and also to hold the comitia. At a later day, the office of praetor (praetor urbanus) absorbed the functions of this ancient office and became its successor. A judicial magistrate, the Roman praetor was the prototype of the modern judge. Thus, every essential institution in the government or administration of the affairs of society may generally be traced to a simple germ, which springs up in a rude form from human wants, and, when able to endure the test of time and experience, is developed into a permanent institution.
A knowledge of the tenure of the office of chief, and of the functions of the council of chiefs, before the time of Romulus, could they be ascertained, would reflect much light upon the condition of Roman gentile society in the time of Romulus. Moreover, the several periods should be studied separately, because the facts of their social condition were changing with their advancement in intelligence. The Italian period prior to Romulus, the period of the seven reges, and the subsequent periods of the republic and of the empire are marked by great differences in the spirit and character of the government. But the institutions of the first period entered into the second, and these again were transmitted into the third, and remained with modifications in the fourth. The growth, development and fall of these institutions embody the vital history of the Roman people. It is by tracing these institutions from the germ through their successive stages of growth, on the wide scale of the tribes and nations of mankind, that we can follow the great movements of the human mind in its evolution from its infancy in savagery to its present high development. Out of the necessities of mankind for the organization of society came the gens; out of the gens came the chief, and the tribe with its council of chiefs; out of the tribe came by segmentation the group of tribes, afterwards re-united in a confederacy, and finally consolidated by coalescence into a nation; out of the experience of the council came the necessity of an assembly of the people with a division of the powers of the government between them; and finally, out of the military necessities of the united tribes came the general military commander, who became in time a third power in the government, but subordinate to the two superior powers. It was the germ of the office of the subsequent chief magistrate, the king and the president. The principal institutions of civilized nations are simply continuations of those which germinated in savagery, expanded in barbarism, and which are still subsisting and advancing in civilization.
As the Roman government existed at the death of Romulus, it was social, and not political; it was personal, and not territorial. The three tribes were located, it is true, in separate and distinct areas within the limits of the city; but this was the prevailing mode of settlement under gentile institutions. Their relations to each other and to the resulting society, as gentes, curiæ and tribes, were wholly personal, the government dealing with them as groups of persons, and with the whole as the Roman people. Localized in this manner within inclosing ramparts, the idea of a township or city ward would suggest itself when the necessity for a change in the plan of government was forced upon them by the growing complexity of affairs. It was a great change that was soon to be required of them, to be wrought out through experimental legislation—precisely the same which the Athenians had entered upon shortly before the time of Servius Tullius. Rome was founded, and its first victories were won under institutions purely gentile; but the fruits of these achievements by their very magnitude demonstrated the inability of the gentes to form the basis of a state. But it required two centuries of intense activity in the growing commonwealth to prepare the way for the institution of the second great plan of government based upon territory and upon property. A withdrawal of governing powers from the gentes, curiæ and tribes, and their bestowal upon new constituencies was the sacrifice demanded. Such a change would become possible only through a conviction that the gentes could not be made to yield such a form of government as their advanced condition demanded. It was practically a question of continuance in barbarism, or progress into civilization. The inauguration of the new system will form the subject of the next chapter.
CHAPTER XIII. - THE INSTITUTION OF ROMAN POLITICAL SOCIETY.
The Populus.—The Plebeians.—The Clients.—The Patricians.—Limits of the Order.—Legislation of Servius Tullius.—Institution of Property Classes.—Of the Centuries.—Unequal Suffrage.—Comitia Centuriata.—Supersedes Comitia Curiata.—Classes Supersede the Gentes.—The Census.—Plebeians made Citizens.—Institution of City Wards.—Of Country Townships.—Tribes Increased To Four.—Made Local instead of Consanguine.—Character of New Political System.—Decline and Disappearance of Gentile Organization.—The Work it Accomplished.
Servius Tullius, the sixth chief of the Roman military democracy, came to the succession about one hundred and thirty-three years after the death of Romulus, as near as the date can be ascertained.[358] This would place his accession about 576 B. C. To this remarkable man the Romans were chiefly indebted for the establishment of their political system. It will be sufficient to indicate its main features, together with some of the reasons which led to its adoption.