like the constitutions of Lycurgus, Solon, and Zaleucus; and it is evidently been produced under Greek influence. Particular analogies may be deceptive, such as the coincidence already noticed by the ancients, that in Corinth also widows and orphans were charged with the provision of horses for the cavalry; but the adoption of the armour and arrangements of the Greek hoplite system was certainly no accidental coincidence. Now if we consider the fact that it was in the second century of the city that the Greek states in Lower Italy advanced from the pure clan-constitution to a modified one, which placed the preponderance in the hands of the landholders, we shall recognize in that movement the impulse which called forth in Rome the Servian reform, a change of constitution resting in the main on the same fundamental idea, and only directed into a somewhat different course by the strictly monarchical form of the Roman state.[1]
- ↑ The analogy also between the so-called Servian constitution and the treatment of the Attic metœci deserves to be particularly noticed. Athens, like Rome, opened her gates at a comparatively early period to metœci, and afterwards summoned them also to share the burdens of the state. We cannot suppose that any direct connection existed in this instance between Athens and Rome; but the coincidence serves all the more distinctly to show how the same causes—urban centralization and urban development—everywhere and of necessity produce similar effects.
