The
patricians sacrificed their own real advantages, as well as the
interests of their country, to maintain an ascendancy as injurious to
themselves, as it was unjust to the other citizens. But no sooner had
the agrarian laws established a more equitable distribution of
property, and other popular laws opened the magistracy to merit
without distinction of rank, than the city rose to empire with
unexampled rapidity.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The Licinian law provided that no one should rent at a time more
than 500 acres of public land.
[2] The league by which the Latin states were bound (jus Latii) was
more favourable than that granted to the other Italians (jus
Italicum.)
* * * * *
CHAPTER VI.
THE ROMAN RELIGION.
First to the gods 'tis fitting to prepare
The due libation, and the solemn prayer;
For all mankind alike require their grace,
All born to want; a miserable race.--_Homer_.
1. We have shown that the Romans were, most probably, a people
compounded of the Latins, the Sabines, and the Tuscans; and that the
first and last of these component parts were themselves formed from
Pelasgic and native tribes.
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