Rome at any rate had grown ripe for judgment.
The shape which the judgment assumed was due perhaps, in a measure, to a
condition which has no longer a parallel among us. The men and women by
whom the hard work of the world was done were chiefly slaves, and those
who constitute the driving force of revolutions in modern Europe lay then
outside society, unable and perhaps uncaring to affect its fate. No change
then possible would much influence the prospects of the unhappy bondsmen.
The triumph of the party of the constitution would bring no liberty to
them. That their masters should fall like themselves under the authority
of a higher master could not much distress them. Their sympathies, if they
had any, would go with those nearest their own rank, the emancipated
slaves and the sons of those who were emancipated; and they, and the poor
free citizens everywhere, were to a man on the side which was considered
and was called the side of "the people," and was, in fact, the side of
despotism.
CHAPTER II.
The Roman Constitution had grown out of the character of the Roman nation.
It was popular in form beyond all constitutions of which there is any
record in history. The citizens assembled in the Comitia were the
sovereign authority in the State, and they exercised their power
immediately and not by representatives.
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