Questions for Examination.

1.  What is the most probable account given of the origin of the distinction between the patricians and the plebeians at Rome?

2.  How did Romulus subdivide the Roman tribes?

3.  By what regulations were the gentes governed?

4.  Who were the chiefs of the gentes?

5.  What was the condition of the clients?

6.  By whom were alterations made in the number and constitution of the senate?

7.  What assembly was peculiar to the patricians?

8.  What were the powers of the Roman kings?

9.  What great change was made in the Roman constitution by Servius Tullius?

10.  For what purpose was the census instituted?

11.  How were votes taken in the comitia centuriata?

12.  Were the designs of Servius frustrated?

13.  What was the Roman law respecting debtors?

14.  When did the Roman power decline?

15.  What changes were made in the constitution of the equestrian rank?

16.  What change was made after the abolition of royalty?

17.  How were the liberties of the people secured?

18.  Why was the office of dictator appointed?

19.  How did the plebeians obtain the protection of magistrates chosen from their own order?

20.  What additional triumphs were obtained by the plebeians?

21.  What was the consequence of the establishment of freedom?

22.  For what purpose was the censorship instituted?

23.  What change took place in the constitution of the senate?

FOOTNOTES: 

[1] The same remark may be applied to the Scottish clans and the ancient Irish septs, which were very similar to the Roman gentes.

[2] When the plebeians endeavoured to procure the repeal of the laws which prohibited the intermarriage of the patricians and plebeians, the principal objection made by the former was, that these rights and obligations of the gentes (jura gentium) would be thrown into confusion.

[3] This was also the case with the Irish tanists, or chiefs of septs; the people elected a tanist, but their choice was confined to the members of the ruling family.

[4] See Historical Miscellany Part III.  Chap. i.

[5] They were called “patres nunorum gentium,” the senators of the inferior gentes.

[6] The “comitia curiata,” assembled in the comi’tium, the general assemblies of the people were held in the forum.  The patrician curiae were called, emphatically, the council of the people; (concilium populi;) the third estate was called plebeian, (plebs.) This distinction between populus and plebs was disregarded after the plebeians had established their claim to equal rights.  The English reader will easily understand the difference, if he considers that the patricians were precisely similar to the members of a close corporation, and the plebeians to the other inhabitants of a city.  In London, for example, the common council may represent the senate, the livery answer for the populus, patricians, or comitia curiata, and the general body of other inhabitants will correspond with the plebs.