the State and its armies, and in each case this led to a further recognition of the right of the people to have its voice heard in matters of government. The parallel must not be pushed too far; but this at least is clear, that had Roman aristocracy and English kingship been able to live and rule in peace, studying simply the comfort of their subjects and the maintenance of existing conditions of society, neither would so soon have found itself face to face with the people, and obliged to make terms with them or renounce a career of conquest. No historian should allow his sense of the iniquity or the fruitlessness of war to hinder him from paying due attention to the vital struggles of a great State; for it is in war that the real fibre and mettle of the masses of population are seen at their best, and win acknowledgment most eftectually. Less, indeed, than economic history, but still to be reckoned along with it, military history is the exponent of the strength and vitality of a nation; constitutional history, after all, does but sum up the changes in the outward form of government to which the vicissitudes of war, commerce, and agriculture slowly and painfully give birth. In the present chapter we shall have special reason to bear this in mind; for once more we shall note the constitutional results of a long period of war and conquest — results so surprising as to seem almost paradoxical.
If we take our stand at the year 300 B.C., or better, perhaps, at 287 B.C.,[1] and read carefully the
- ↑ This is the date of the Lex Hortensia, the third of the three
