clientes, there arose a second _political_ class in the State, namely
the plebs. The client as client had no political existence. [Sidenote:
The plebeians.] But as a plebeian he had. Whether the plebs was formed
of clients who had been released from their clientship, just as slaves
might be manumitted; or of foreigners, as soldiers, traders, or
artisans were admitted into the community; or partly of foreigners and
partly of clients, the latter being equalised by the patres with the
former in self-defence; and whether as a name it dated from or was
antecedent to the so-called Tullian organization is uncertain. But we
know that in one way or other a second political division in the State
arose and that the constitution, of which Servius Tullius was the
reputed author, made every freeman in Rome a citizen by giving him a
vote in the Comitia Centuriata. Yet though the plebeian was a citizen,
and as such acquired 'commercium,' or the right to hold and devise
property, it was only after a prolonged struggle that he achieved
political equality with the patres. [Sidenote: Gradual acquisition
by the plebs of political equality with the patres.] Step by step he
wrung from them the rights of intermarriage and of filling offices of
state; and the great engine by which this was brought about was the
tribunate, the historical importance of which dates from, even though
as a plebeian magistracy it may have existed before, the first
secession of the plebs in 494 B.C. [Sidenote: Character of the
tribunate.] The tribunate stood towards the freedom of the Roman
people in something of the same relation which the press of our time
occupies towards modern liberty: for its existence implied free
criticism of the executive, and out of free speech grew free action.
[Sidenote: The Roman government transformed from oligarchy into a
plutocracy.]

Side by side with those external events which made Rome mistress first