Book contents
- Frontmatter
- PREFACE
- Contents
- INTRODUCTION
- The Latin State
- The League with the Latins
- Of the Colonies
- On the Rights of Isopolity and Municipium
- On the Franchise of the Latins
- The League with the Hernicans
- The Wars with the Volscians and Æquians, down to the end of the Veientine War
- The Office of Warden of the City
- The Internal Feuds of the Patricians
- Of the Public Land and its Occupation
- The Assignments of Land before the time of Sp. Cassius
- The Agrarian Law of Sp. Cassius, and his Death
- The seven Consulships of the Fabii
- The Veientine War
- Internal History from the Destruction of the Fabii to the first Pestilence
- The Legend of Coriolanus
- The Wars with the Volscians and Æquians down to the Peace of 295
- The Æquian War down to the Decemvirate
- Disasters and extraordinary Phenomena
- Civil History of the eleven Years preceding the Decemvirate
- The first Decemvirs, and their Laws
- The second Decemvirate
- The first Year after the Restoration of Freedom
- Civil Commotions down to the Constitution of 311
- The Consular Military Tribunate
- The Censorship
- Civil Affairs from the Year 311 down to the last Veientine War
- On the Pay of the Troops
- The Wars down to the Last with Veii
- The last War with Veii
- The other Wars down to that with the Gauls
- Internal History down to the War with the Gauls
- Physical History from 305 to 365
- On the Gauls, and their Immigration into Italy
- The War with the Gauls, and the Taking of Rome
- On the Olympiad and Year of the Taking of Rome
- Rome after the Departure of the Gauls
- The Wars down to the Reform of 384
- Civil History down to the Year 374
- Appendix I On the Roman Mode of Partitioning Landed Property, and on the Limitatio
- Appendix II On the Agrimensores
The Internal Feuds of the Patricians
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 June 2011
- Frontmatter
- PREFACE
- Contents
- INTRODUCTION
- The Latin State
- The League with the Latins
- Of the Colonies
- On the Rights of Isopolity and Municipium
- On the Franchise of the Latins
- The League with the Hernicans
- The Wars with the Volscians and Æquians, down to the end of the Veientine War
- The Office of Warden of the City
- The Internal Feuds of the Patricians
- Of the Public Land and its Occupation
- The Assignments of Land before the time of Sp. Cassius
- The Agrarian Law of Sp. Cassius, and his Death
- The seven Consulships of the Fabii
- The Veientine War
- Internal History from the Destruction of the Fabii to the first Pestilence
- The Legend of Coriolanus
- The Wars with the Volscians and Æquians down to the Peace of 295
- The Æquian War down to the Decemvirate
- Disasters and extraordinary Phenomena
- Civil History of the eleven Years preceding the Decemvirate
- The first Decemvirs, and their Laws
- The second Decemvirate
- The first Year after the Restoration of Freedom
- Civil Commotions down to the Constitution of 311
- The Consular Military Tribunate
- The Censorship
- Civil Affairs from the Year 311 down to the last Veientine War
- On the Pay of the Troops
- The Wars down to the Last with Veii
- The last War with Veii
- The other Wars down to that with the Gauls
- Internal History down to the War with the Gauls
- Physical History from 305 to 365
- On the Gauls, and their Immigration into Italy
- The War with the Gauls, and the Taking of Rome
- On the Olympiad and Year of the Taking of Rome
- Rome after the Departure of the Gauls
- The Wars down to the Reform of 384
- Civil History down to the Year 374
- Appendix I On the Roman Mode of Partitioning Landed Property, and on the Limitatio
- Appendix II On the Agrimensores
Summary
The only thing that can prevent an aristocracy from splitting into hostile parties, pursuing each other with the bitterest animosity, is the existence of a formidable rustic or civic commonalty: for factions are never wanting in it, which, when it is free from anxiety, break out into irreconcilable fury against one another; as we see in the Guelfs and Ghibellines: these, as is expressly stated with regard to Florence, at the outset were merely parties among the houses, and the commonalty had nothing to do with them. If the aristocratical body comprehends a narrow oligarchy with peculiar privileges, whether resulting from prescription or usurpation, these will excite no less vehement murmurs among those who are thrown into the background, than in an opprest commonalty; and the oligarchs will display the same arrogance and ferocity toward the one as toward the other. The Bacchiads looked upon the Dorians at Corinth as their subjects: the members of the secret council at Freyburg excluded the nobless even in our fathers days from posts of honour and of authority: the same point did the major houses at Rome endeavour to carry against the minor. The latter however found support from individuals of the privileged class, moved whether by benevolent feelings or by mortified pride, and from the commonalty; whose liberties were gaining ground so long as the houses, which after their reconciliation strove to keep it under, were at variance, and vying with each other in courting its favour.
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- Chapter
- Information
- The History of Rome , pp. 124 - 128Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010