and censors in the half-century from the beginning of the war with Hannibal to the close of that with Perseus, is extremely limited; and by far the most of these, such as the Flaminii, Terentii, Porcii, Acilii, and Laelii, may be referred to elections by the opposition, or are traceable to special aristocratic connections.  The election of Gaius Laelius in 564, for instance, was evidently due to the Scipios.  The exclusion of the poorer classes from the government was, no doubt, required by the altered circumstances of the case.  Now that Rome had ceased to be a purely Italian state and had adopted Hellenic culture, it was no longer possible to take a small farmer from the plough and to set him at the head of the community.  But it was neither necessary nor beneficial that the elections should almost without exception be confined to the narrow circle of the curule houses, and that a “new man” could only make his way into that circle by a sort of usurpation.(17) No doubt a certain hereditary character was inherent not merely in the nature of the senate as an institution, in so far as it rested from the outset on a representation of the clans,(18) but in the nature of aristocracy generally, in so far as statesmanly wisdom and statesmanly experience are bequeathed from the able father to the able son, and the inspiring spirit of an illustrious ancestry fans every noble spark within the human breast into speedier and more brilliant flame.  In this sense the Roman aristocracy had been at all times hereditary; in fact, it had displayed its hereditary character with great naivete in the old custom of the senator taking his sons with him to the senate, and of the public magistrate decorating his sons, as it were by anticipation, with the insignia of the highest official honour—­the purple border of the consular, and the golden amulet-case of the triumphator.  But, while in the earlier period the hereditariness of the outward dignity had been to a certain extent conditioned by the inheritance of intrinsic worth, and the senatorial aristocracy had guided the state not primarily by virtue of hereditary right, but by virtue of the highest of all rights of representation—­the right of the excellent, as contrasted with the ordinary, man—­it sank in this epoch (and with specially great rapidity after the end of the Hannibalic war) from its original high position, as the aggregate of those in the community who were most experienced in counsel and action, down to an order of lords filling up its ranks by hereditary succession, and exercising collegiate misrule.

Family Government