laws, and the last appeal in matters of judicature, as appears in
the case of Horatius that killed his sister; till, in the reign
of Servius (for the other kings kept not to the institution of
Romulus), the people being grown somewhat, the power of the
Curiata was for the greater part translated to the Centuriata
comitia instituted by this King, which distributed the people,
according to the sense of valuation of their estates, into six
classes, every one containing about forty centuries, divided into
youth and elders; the youth for field-service, the elders for the
defence of their territory, all armed and under continual
discipline, in which they assembled both upon military and civil
occasions. But when the Senate proposed to the people, the horse
only, whereof there were twelve centuries, consisting of the
richest sort over and above those of the foot enumerated, were
called with the first classes of the foot to the suffrage; or if
these accorded not, then the second classes were called to them,
but seldom or never any of the rest. Wherefore the people, after
the expulsion of the kings, growing impatient of this inequality,
rested not till they had reduced the suffrage as it had been in
the Comitia curiato to the whole people again; but in another
way, that is to say, by the Comitia tributa, which thereupon were
instituted, being a council where the people in exigencies made
laws without the Senate, which laws were called plebiscita. This
Council is that in regard whereof Cicero and other great wits so
frequently inveigh against the people, and sometimes even Livy as
at the first institution of it. To say the truth, it was a kind
of anarchy, whereof the people could not be excusable, if there
had not, through the courses taken by the Senate, been otherwise
a necessity that they must have seen the commonwealth run into
oligarchy.