Page:Montesquieu - The spirit of laws.djvu/294
242 T H E S P I R I T
BOOK f or i t Wa5 necefiary that the augurs fhould be con-
XI Chap 14, fated who were under the direction of the patrici-
& \ ans , and no propofal could be made there to the
people unlefs it had been previoufly laid before the fenate and approved of by a fenatus-confultum. But in the divifion into tribes they had nothing to do ei ther with the augurs or with the decrees of the fe nate-, and the patricians were excluded.
Now the people endeavoured conftantly to have thole meetings by curia s which had been cufto- mary by centuries; and by tribes, thofe they ufed to have before by curia s ; by which means the di rection of public affairs loon devolved from the pa tricians to the plebeians.
Thus, when the plebeians obtained the power of judging the patricians, a power which com-
( Ibid, menced in the affair of Coriolanus( c ), the plebeians infilled upon judging them by affemblies in tribes*, and not in centuries : and when the new magiftra-
( r ) Dionyf. cies (*) of tribunes and ./Ediles were eftablifhed in ook 6 rn > f avour o* r ^ ie people, the latter obtained that they
410, & fhould meet by curia s in order to nominate them j
4 1 and after their power was quire fettled, they gained
() See ( g ) lb far their point as to affemble by tribes to pro-
- y ceed to this nomination.
Hah earn, book 9,
P-6o 5 . CHAP. XV.
In what manner Rome, while in the flouri/hing ftatt of the republic^ fuddenly loft its liberty.
��I
��N the heat of the contefts between the patrici ans and the plebeians, the latter infilled upon
��* Contrary to the ancient cultom, as may be feen in Dionyf. Halicarn. book 5. 320.
having
�� �� �
