topography; a clear-headed man like Sarti does not put all the buildings in Rome of the different ages side by side, as the common herd do. People fancied that the tribunes had the Veto, and likewise the self-same privilege which they got afterwards, of proposing resolutions; but the first tribunes are perhaps to be looked upon in no other light but that of an ambassador in a foreign state, who is to protect the subjects of his sovereign. The patricians had until now wielded their power without any check; the plebeians had no share in the administration: and therefore a magistracy became necessary which might come forward as protectors against public authorities as well as against individuals, whenever any members of their order had to complain of ill usage. Their houses were therefore open by day and night, and they were not allowed to absent themselves from the city: like a physician they were always to be in readiness to give help. This is a grand idea, quite peculiar to Rome; there is nothing analogous to it in Greek antiquity. Besides this the tribunes had the right of calling together their commonalty, and of making propositions;--yet there are very few traces indeed of this in the earlier times. The resolutions which the tribunes moved among the _Plebes_ were mere bye-laws, rules at pleasure, _plebiscita_; whilst, on the other hand, those of the patricians were called _leges_. To this allusion is made in a passage of Livy, where the Etruscans say, that the Romans were now two peoples, each of them _suis magistratibus, suis legibus_, a notice of the importance of which Livy was entirely unconscious. He does not in general alter the materials which he finds; but he merely drops part of them. The _plebiscita_ had as yet no authority whatever over the whole community; after more than twenty years they could only be considered as an opinion offered by an assembly of states, which might pass into a law (283). The only real magistracy among the plebeians were the ædiles, a name which among the Latins also was borne by the local magistrates. In all likelihood, these were judges in the disputes of the plebeians among themselves; whereas the tribunes were no judges in the earlier times, though perhaps there may have been an appeal to them from the ædiles. No change was probably made at that time in the civil law.