The struggle between the Roman clans and commons was thus substantially at an end.  While the nobility still preserved out of its comprehensive privileges the -de facto- possession of one of the consulships and one of the censorships, it was excluded by law from the tribunate, the plebeian aedileship, the second consulship and censorship, and from participation in the votes of the plebs which were legally equivalent to votes of the whole body of burgesses.  As a righteous retribution for its perverse and stubborn resistance, the patriciate had seen its former privileges converted into so many disabilities.  The Roman clan-nobility, however, by no means disappeared because it had become an empty name.  The less the significance and power of the nobility, the more purely and exclusively the patrician spirit developed itself.  The haughtiness of the “Ramnians” survived the last of their class-privileges for centuries; after they had steadfastly striven “to rescue the consulate from the plebeian filth” and had at length become reluctantly convinced of the impossibility of such an achievement, they continued at least rudely and spitefully to display their aristocratic spirit.  To understand rightly the history of Rome in the fifth and sixth centuries, we must never overlook this sulking patricianism; it could indeed do little more than irritate itself and others, but this it did to the best of its ability.  Some years after the passing of the Ogulnian law (458) a characteristic instance of this sort occurred.  A patrician matron, who was married to a leading plebeian that had attained to the highest dignities of the state, was on account of this misalliance expelled from the circle of noble dames and was refused admission to the common festival of Chastity; and in consequence of that exclusion separate patrician and plebeian goddesses of Chastity were thenceforward worshipped in Rome.  Doubtless caprices of this sort were of very little moment, and the better portion of the clans kept themselves entirely aloof from this miserable policy of peevishness; but it left behind on both sides a feeling of discontent, and, while the struggle of the commons against the clans was in itself a political and even moral necessity, these convulsive efforts to prolong the strife—­the aimless combats of the rear-guard after the battle had been decided, as well as the empty squabbles as to rank and standing—­needlessly irritated and disturbed the public and private life of the Roman community.

The Social Distress, and the Attempt to Relieve It

Nevertheless one object of the compromise concluded by the two portions of the plebs in 387, the abolition of the patriciate, had in all material points been completely attained.  The question next arises, how far the same can be affirmed of the two positive objects aimed at in the compromise?—­whether the new order of things in reality checked social distress and established political equality?