22.  This prerogative and the similar ones with reference to the equestrian and burgess-lists were perhaps not formally and legally assigned to the censors, but were always practically implied in their powers.  It was the community, not the censor, that conferred burgess-rights; but the person, to whom the latter in making up the list of persons entitled to vote did not assign a place or assigned an inferior one, did not lose his burgess-right, but could not exercise the privileges of a burgess, or could only exercise them in the inferior place, till the preparation of a new list.  The same was the case with the senate; the person omitted by the censor from his list ceased to attend the senate, as long as the list in question remained valid—­unless the presiding magistrate should reject it and reinstate the earlier list.  Evidently therefore the important question in this respect was not so much what was the legal liberty of the censors, as how far their authority availed with those magistrates who had to summon according to their lists.  Hence it is easy to understand how this prerogative gradually rose in importance, and how with the increasing consolidation of the nobility such erasures assumed virtually the form of judicial decisions and were virtually respected as such.  As to the adjustment of the senatorial list undoubtedly the enactment of the Ovinian -plebiscitum- exercised a material share of influence—­that the censors should admit to the senate “the best men out of all classes.”

23.  II.  III.  The Burgess-Body.  Its Composition

24.  II.  III.  Complete Opening Up of Magistracies and Priesthoods

25.  II.  III.  Restrictions as to the Accumulation and the Reoccupation of Offices

26.  II.  III.  Partition and Weakening of Consular Powers

CHAPTER IV

Fall of the Etruscan Power-the Celts

Etrusco-Carthaginian Maritime Supremacy

In the previous chapters we have presented an outline of the development of the Roman constitution during the first two centuries of the republic; we now recur to the commencement of that epoch for the purpose of tracing the external history of Rome and of Italy.  About the time of the expulsion of the Tarquins from Rome the Etruscan power had reached its height.  The Tuscans, and the Carthaginians who were in close alliance with them, possessed undisputed supremacy on the Tyrrhene Sea.  Although Massilia amidst continual and severe struggles maintained her independence, the seaports of Campania and of the Volscian land, and after the battle of Alalia Corsica also,(1) were in the possession of the Etruscans.  In Sardinia the sons of the Carthaginian general Mago laid the foundation of the greatness both of their house and of their city by the complete conquest of the island (about 260); and in Sicily, while the Hellenic colonies were occupied with their internal feuds, the Phoenicians retained possession of the western half without material opposition.  The vessels of the Etruscans were no less dominant in the Adriatic; and their pirates were dreaded even in the more eastern waters.