many voting-divisions as the juniors.  While in this way the axe was laid to the root of the old burgess-body and their clan-nobility, and the basis of a new burgess-body was laid, the preponderance in the latter rested on the possession of land and on age, and the first beginnings were already visible of a new aristocracy based primarily on the actual consideration in which the families were held—­the future nobility.  There could be no clearer indication of the fundamentally conservative character of the Roman commonwealth than the fact, that the revolution which gave birth to the republic laid down at the same time the primary outlines of a new organization of the state, which was in like manner conservative and in like manner aristocratic.

Notes for Book II Chapter I

1.  I. IX.  The Tarquins

2.  The well-known fable for the most part refutes itself.  To a considerable extent it has been concocted for the explanation of surnames (-Brutus-, -Poplicola-, -Scaevola-).  But even its apparently historical ingredients are found on closer examination to have been invented.  Of this character is the statement that Brutus was captain of the horsemen (-tribunus celerum-) and in that capacity proposed the decree of the people as to the banishment of the Tarquins; for, according to the Roman constitution, it is quite impossible that a mere officer should have had the right to convoke the curies.  The whole of this statement has evidently been invented with the view of furnishing a legal basis for the Roman republic; and very ill invented it is, for in its case the -tribunus celerum- is confounded with the entirely different -magister equitum- (V.  Burdens Of The Burgesses f.), and then the right of convoking the centuries which pertained to the latter by virtue of his praetorian rank is made to apply to the assembly of the curies.

3. -Consules- are those who “leap or dance together,” as -praesul- is one who “leaps before,” -exsul-, one who “leaps out” (—­o ekpeson—­), -insula-, a “leap into,” primarily applied to a mass of rock fallen into the sea.

4.  The day of entering on office did not coincide with the beginning of the year (1st March), and was not at all fixed.  The day of retiring was regulated by it, except when a consul was elected expressly in room of one who had dropped out (-consul suffectus-); in which case the substitute succeeded to the rights and consequently to the term of him whom he replaced.  But these supplementary consuls in the earlier period only occurred when merely one of the consuls had dropped out:  pairs of supplementary consuls are not found until the later ages of the republic.  Ordinarily, therefore, the official year of a consul consisted of unequal portions of two civil years.

5.  I. V. The King

6.  I. XI.  Crimes

7.  I. V. Prerogatives of the Senate

8.  I. V. The King