There were four things that greatly prejudiced the liberty of Rome. The patricians had engrossed to themselves all public employments whatever; an exorbitant power was annexed to the consulate; the people were often insulted; and, in fine, they had scarcely any influence at all left in the public suffrages. These four abuses were redressed by the people.

    1st. It was regulated that the plebeians might aspire to some magistracies; and by degrees they were rendered capable of them all, except that of Inter-rex.

    2nd. The consulate was dissolved into several other magistracies; ³² prætors were created, on whom the power was conferred of trying private causes; quæstors ³³ were nominated for determining those of a criminal nature; diles were established for the civil administration; treasurers ³⁴ were made for the management of the public money; and, in fine, by the creation of censors the consuls were divested of that part of the legislative power which regulates the morals of the citizens and the transient polity of the different bodies of the state. The chief privileges left them were to preside in the great meetings ³⁵ of the people, to assemble the senate, and to command the armies.

    3rd. The sacred laws appointed tribunes, who had a power of checking the encroachments of the patricians, and prevented not only private but likewise public injuries.

    In fine, the plebeians increased their influence in the general assemblies. The people of Rome were divided in three different manners -- by centuries, by curi, and by tribes; and whenever they gave their votes, they were convened in one of those three ways.

    In the first the patricians, the leading men, the rich and the senate, which was very nearly the same thing, had almost the whole authority; in the second they had less; and less still in the third.

    The division into centuries was a division rather of estates and fortunes than of persons The whole people were distributed into a hundred and ninety-three centuries, ³⁶ which had each a single vote. The patricians and leading men composed the first ninety-eight centuries; and the other ninety-five consisted of the remainder of the citizens. In this division therefore the patricians were masters of the suffrages.

    In the division into curi, ³⁷ the patricians had not the same advantages; some, however, they had, for it was necessary to consult the augurs, who were under the direction of the patricians; and no proposal could be made there to the people unless it had been previously laid before the senate, and approved of by a senatus-consultum. But, in the division into tribes they had nothing to do either with the augurs or with the decrees of the senate; and the patricians were excluded.

    Now the people endeavoured constantly to have those meetings by curi which had been customary by centuries, and by tribes, those they used to have before by curi; by which means the direction of public affairs soon devolved from the patricians to the plebeians.

    Thus when the plebeians obtained the power of trying the patricians -- a power which commenced in the affair of Coriolanus, ³⁸ they insisted upon assembling by tribes, ³⁹ and not by centuries; and when the new magistracies ⁴⁰ of tribunes and diles were established in favour of the people, the latter obtained that they should meet by curi in order to nominate them; and after their power was quite settled, they gained. ⁴¹so far their point as to assemble by tribes to proceed to this nomination.