introduced that due admixture of democracy, which is so essentially necessary to the constitution of a well regulated republick. As a minute detail of a history so well known as that of the Romans would be quite superfluous, I shall only observe, that the democratick power in that republick did not arrive at its just state of independence, until the Plebeians were not only entitled to the highest posts and dignities, equally with the Patricians, but until the plebiscita or decrees made by the people in their assembly by tribes,[261] were confirmed to be equally binding as those made in their assembly by centuries. This law was first made when the tyranny of the decemvirs was abolished by the second secession of the people to the Sacred Mountain, but was perpetually violated by the over-bearing power of the aristocracy. But an event similar to that which occasioned the first secession of the people, to which they properly owed the origin of their liberty, was the cause of the third and last secession, which fully completed that liberty, and gave the fatal blow to the arbitrary aristocratick faction. Veturius, the son of Titus Veturius, who had been consul and died insolvent, borrowed a sum of money of one Plotius to defray the expenses of his father’s funeral. As the father was greatly indebted to the same Plotius, he demanded of young Veturius the payment of both debts which his father and he himself had contracted. As the unhappy young man was utterly unable to satisfy the demand, Plotius seized his unfortunate debtor, and confined him to the work of a slave, until he had discharged both principal and interest. Veturius bore his servitude with patience, and did his utmost to please his creditor. But as he refused to gratify the detestable passion of the infamous Plotius he treated him with the utmost inhumanity to force him to a compliance. One day he had the good fortune to escape out of the house of his merciless creditor, and fled to the forum, where he showed his back torn with stripes and his body covered with blood, and explained the reason of his shocking treatment. The people, enraged at so dreadful a spectacle, demanded an absolute security against that law, which gave the creditors such a shameful power over their insolvent debtors. For though that law had been abolished near forty years before upon a like occasion, yet the Patricians, by their superior power, had again revived it. The consuls reported the affair to the senate, who committed Plotius to prison, and ordered all those who were in custody for debt to be set at liberty. The Plebeians, not satisfied with these trifling concessions, insisted upon the absolute abolition of that inhuman law; but they were opposed with equal animosity by the Patricians. Despairing therefore of gaining their point by entreaties and remonstrances, they retired in a body to the Janiculum, resolutely determined never to enter the city, until they had received full satisfaction. The senate, alarmed