The condition of Rome then bore a great resemblance to that of England before its electoral reform. For several centuries, the English Constitution was vaunted as the palladium of liberty, although then, as at Rome, birth and fortune were the unique source of honours and power. In both countries the aristocracy, master of the elections by solicitation, money, or _rotten boroughs_, caused, as the patricians at Rome, the members of the nobility to be elected to parliament, and no one was citizen in either of the two countries without the possession of wealth. Nevertheless, if the people, in England, had no part in the direction of affairs, they boasted justly, before 1789, a liberty which shone brightly in the middle of the silentious atmosphere of the Continental states. The disinterested observer does not examine if the scene where grave political questions are discussed is more or less vast, or if the actors are more or less numerous: he is only struck by the grandeur of the spectacle. Thus, far be from us the intention of blaming the nobility, any more in Rome than in England, for having preserved its preponderance by all the means which laws and habits placed at its disposal. The power was destined to remain with the patricians as long as they showed themselves worthy of it; and, it cannot but be acknowledged, without their perseverance in the same policy, without that elevation of views, without that severe and inflexible virtue, the distinguishing character of the aristocracy, the work of Roman civilisation would not have been accomplished. At the beginning of the fifth century, the Republic, consolidated, is going to gather the fruit of the many efforts it has sustained. More united henceforward, in the interior, the Romans will turn all their energy towards the conquest of Italy, but it will require nearly a century to realise it. Always stimulated by their institutions, always restrained by an intelligent aristocracy, they will furnish the astonishing example of a people preserving, in the name of liberty and in the midst of agitation, the immobility of a system which will render them masters of the world. CHAPTER III. CONQUEST OF ITALY. (From 416 to 488.) [Sidenote: Description of Italy.] I. Ancient Italy did not comprise all the territory which has for its natural limits the Alps and the sea. What is called the continental part, or the great plain traversed by the Po, which extends between the Alps, the Apennines, and the Adriatic, was separated from it. This plain, and part of the mountains on the coasts of the Mediterranean, formed Liguria, Cisalpine Gaul, and Venetia. The peninsula, or Italy proper, was bounded, on the north, by the Rubicon, and, probably, by the lower course of the Arno;[162] on the west, by the Mediterranean; on the east, by the Adriatic; on the south, by the Ionian Sea. (See the Maps, No. 1 and No. 2.) [Illustration: GENERAL MAP OF ANCIENT ITALY.]