the formal sovereignty of the people and the practically subsisting
constitution was in great part a semblance. Party phrases were in
free circulation: of the parties themselves there was little trace in
matters really and directly practical. Throughout the whole seventh
century the annual public elections to the civil magistracies,
especially to the consulship and censorship, formed the real standing
question of the day and the focus of political agitation; but it was
only in isolated and rare instances that the different candidates
represented opposite political principles; ordinarily the question
related purely to persons, and it was for the course of affairs a
matter of indifference whether the majority of the votes fell to a
Caecilian or to a Cornelian. The Romans thus lacked that which
outweighs and compensates all the evils of party-life--the free and
common movement of the masses towards what they discern as a befitting
aim--and yet endured all those evils solely for the benefit of the
paltry game of the ruling coteries.

It was comparatively easy for the Roman noble to enter on the career
of office as quaestor or tribune of the people; but the consulship
and the censorship were attainable by him only through great exertions
prolonged for years. The prizes were many, but those really worth
having were few; the competitors ran, as a Roman poet once said, as
it were over a racecourse wide at the starting-point but gradually
narrowing its dimensions. This was right, so long as the magistracy
was--what it was called--an "honour" and men of military, political,
or juristic ability were rival competitors for the rare chaplets; but
now the practical closeness of the nobility did away with the benefit
of competition, and left only its disadvantages. With few exceptions
the young men belonging to the ruling families crowded into the
political career, and hasty and premature ambition soon caught at