ABSTRACT
We have thus briefly traced the advancement of the plebeian order in Rome, from the position of something much resembling serfs, to an equality with the proudest patricians. It was a victory of' right against prescription, won only by perseverance, watchfulness, and unfaltering resolution. It was delayed, now by the triumph of a reactionary party, now by the diversion of public attention to external dangers; and its course was marked by checks and counterchecks, and by numerous comprouuses. From the secession to the passing of the Hortensian law-a period of more than two liundred years-every step of progress was resolutely opposed; and falsehood, ignorance, superstition, and murder were freely used as weapons with which to resist plebeian claims. But, though slow, the progress was sure; and no reactionary measures were suffered long to be in force. And the termination of the struggle coincides with the commenoement of Rome's age of greatest prosperity. We need not point the moral; the story speakS for itself; "that which lias been, is that which shan be, and. there is nothing new under the SUll."
