assigned them, who were to contribute two thousand asses yearly for
the support of the horses. All these burdens were taken off the poor
and laid on the rich. Then an additional honour was conferred upon
them: for the suffrage was not now granted promiscuously to all--a
custom established by Romulus, and observed by his successors--to
every man with the same privilege and the same right, but gradations
were established, so that no one might seem excluded from the right of
voting, and yet the whole power might reside in the chief men of the
state. For the knights were first called to vote, and then the eighty
centuries of the first class, consisting of the first class of the
infantry: if there occurred a difference of opinion among them, which
was seldom the case, the practice was that those of the second class
should be called, and that they seldom descended so low as to come
down to the lowest class. Nor need we be surprised, that the present
order of things, which now exists, after the number of the tribes was
increased to thirty-five, their number being now double of what it
was, should not agree as to the number of centuries of juniors and
seniors with the collective number instituted by Servius Tullius. For
the city being divided into four districts, according to the regions
and hills which were then inhabited, he called these divisions,
tribes, as I think, from the tribute. For the method of levying taxes
ratably according to the value of property was also introduced by him:
nor had these tribes any relation to the number and distribution of
the centuries.

The census being now completed, which he had brought to a speedy close
by the terror of a law passed in reference to those who were
not rated, under threats of imprisonment and death, he issued a
proclamation that all the Roman citizens, horse and foot, should
attend at daybreak in the Campus Martius, each in his century. There