and the so-called plebeian magistrates of later times, great as their power was, had not the gift. It is quite true that, after the Plebs had forced its way into the consulship, this right could not be denied to the plebeian holders of the supreme office. But the admission was based on the legal fiction that the holder of an office once reserved to the patres was, for religious purposes, a patrician magistrate.[1]
The enjoyment of full political rights in ancient Rome was conditioned only by membership of a patrician gens; full citizenship here, as in most ancient states, being dependent on birth, and the membership of a purely private association satisfying all the demands that the state made as a condition of the attainment of its rights. But there were other forms of association of a definitely political character, amongst which the citizens were distributed, and as members of which they exercised active political rights or were subject to personal burdens. These were the three patrician tribes of Ramnes, Tities, and Luceres, and the thirty curiae. With reference to the question whether these were primary and natural associations of an ethnic character or artificial creations made by a supreme authority after the founding of Rome, we have already seen[2] that the tribus are probably an ethnic survival artificially employed; in the case of the curiae, it must remain far less certain whether they were of spontaneous growth or purely artificial creations, or (what is perhaps more probable) in the main natural associations, artificially regulated in number and grouping to suit a political purpose.
The tribe, which was a division not merely of the citizen body but of the land, was the basis for taxation and the military levy.[3] We know nothing of the first burden, but it is probable that no detailed scheme of direct taxation existed in the early Roman state. The revenues from the king's domains probably rendered him self-sufficing, while the patrician burgesses served in the army at their own cost, and were doubtless expected toVarro L.L. v. 181 "Tributum dictum a tribubus, quod ea pecunia, quae populo imperata erat, tributim a singulis pro portione census exigebatur."]
- ↑ A similar confusion was at an earlier period introduced with reference to the givers of the auspices. They are said to be given by the people (Cic. de Div. ii. 36, 76; p. 39), but the great bulk of the people (i.e. the Plebs) did not possess them.
- ↑ p. 3.
- ↑ Dionys. iv. 14 (Servius Tullius) [Greek: tas katagraphas tôn stratiôtôn kai tas eispraxeis tôn chrêmatôn . . . ouketi kata tas treis phylas tas genikas, hôs proteron, k.t.l.
