Book XI.
Chap. 14, & 15.for it Was necessary that the augurs should be consulted who were under the direction of the patricians; and no proposal could be made there to the people unless it had been previously laid before the senate and approved of by a senatus-consultum. But in the division into tribes they had nothing to do either with the augurs or with the decrees of the senate; and the patricians were excluded.
Now the people endeavoured constantly to have those meetings by curia's which had been customary by centuries; and by tribes, those they used to have before by curia's; by which means the direction of public affairs loon devolved from the patricians to the plebeians.
Thus, when the plebeians obtained the power of judging the patricians, a power which commenced in the affair of Coriolanus[1], the plebeians insisted upon judging them by assemblies in tribes[2], and not in centuries: and when the new magistracies[3] of tribunes and Ædiles were established in favour of the people, the latter obtained that they should meet by curia's in order to nominate them; and after their power was quire settled, they gained[4] so far their point as to assemble by tribes to proceed to this nomination.
CHAP. XV.
In what manner Rome, while in the flourishing state of the republic, suddenly lost its liberty.
IN the heat of the contests between the patricians and the plebeians, the latter insisted upon
