In a certain measure, this system was just as necessary as our strict rules of exchange; yet its abuse was unavoidable, as the rich man is not always kind-hearted, but is often harsh, and will abide by the law in its utmost rigour. This idolizing of mammon reigned in Rome, and the tyranny of positive law was often very oppressive. Besides which, the right was all on one side. When a patrician got into difficulties, his kinsmen or dependants had to get him out of them; the plebeians were forced in most cases to borrow money from the patricians. Now the fate of an addicted plebeian was one in which there might be much variety. He might find a mild master who allowed him to buy his freedom by work, or else a hard one who would shut him up in the _ergastulum_, put him in chains, and treat him cruelly, that his friends might be obliged to pay for his release. This was the state of these relations about the year 260. All at once an extraordinary general distress arose, like the one nearly a hundred years later, after the Gallic calamity. Before that time we find nothing at all resembling it. The reason for this must have been the war of Porsena, from which we may draw the inference that it ought to be placed much later than we find it in Livy. The distress caused commotions among the people, of the breaking out of which Livy’s account may be tolerably well founded. An old warrior, covered with scars, falls into the hands of his creditors, because his house had been burnt down and his property carried off; he escapes from the dungeon in which he has been most barbarously treated by his master, and shows himself in the market-place, starving, clothed in rags, and disfigured with stripes. This sight gives rise to a general uproar, and the _Plebes_ renounce the rule of their tyrants. Livy’s account of the way in which the tumult spreads wider and wider is a model of beautiful writing, being taken from the very nature of man; yet its details do not contain any real tradition, but it is to be looked upon as an historical romance. When the senate and the consuls had now arrived at the terrible conviction that the commonalty could not be ruled when once it did not choose to obey, either the report was spread that the Volscians were at hand, or they actually advanced when they heard of the dissensions in Rome. The senate resolved upon raising an army. According to the original law, the senate had no authority by itself to declare war; but it brought the motion before the curies, and these had to give it their approval. According to Servius’ laws, the motion ought to have gone to the centuries also; but this was no more thought of; the annalists mention only the senate. The latter decreed that an army should be raised. As the burthen of the service on foot lay on the Plebes only, its _juniores_ were summoned by tribes (_nominatim citabantur_); to answer to the summons was termed _nomen dare_; to refuse, _nomen abnuere_. This conscription remained