league, and the fate of the Empire would have been in suspense, for a federal government’s capacity for imperial rule had yet to be tested. By timely concessions Rome saved her position as the head of the confederacy. By the _lex Julia_ (90 B.C.) all the Italian states that had not revolted were offered the _civitas_,[1466] and this was followed by the _lex Plautia Papiria_ (89 B.C.), which offered the _civitas_ to the _socii_ and _incolae_ of the allied cities in revolt.[1467] These measures effected a considerable extension of the citizenship, but other means, of which we are ignorant, must have been adopted for the gradual incorporation of communities, many of which still remained for a considerable time in rebellion against Rome.[1468] The work of incorporation immediately raised two problems. The first was the question of the voting rights of the new citizens. These rights were at first grudgingly accorded to prevent the new citizens swamping the old. The _novi cives_ were enrolled in but eight of the existing tribes.[1469] But this compromise could not last long; redistribution became a party cry, and even the conservatives felt the damage done to their cause by a prolonged opposition to the Italian vote. The measure of Sulpicius (88 B.C.), which distributed the new citizens over all the tribes, was indeed repealed with his other laws; but its principle seems to have been adopted in a decree of the Senate of 84 B.C.,[1470] and the equality of the Roman and Italian vote was henceforth never questioned. The vote itself was not of the importance anticipated. It was, in the first place, rendered ineffective through lack of a system of representation. Even had such a system, planned on a small scale by Augustus,[1471] been realised, it is questionable whether it could have saved the Republic. The Empire had to be garrisoned by professional armies, and these could not be found in Italy. The military and the civil power would in any case have been opposed, and the conflict must have ended in a victory for the former. But, so far as the extension of the _civitas_ did affect future politics, it was only to create a dualism between the Roman proletariate and the Italian country voters. They had different ideals and different leaders. But the former were on the spot, ready for any legislative work, and in the troubled politics that ushered in the monarchy it was they who supported those champions of freedom who replaced senatorial rule by a military despotism. The ideal of the Italian was quiescence; the scattered voters with no corporate organisation were more prone to look to persons than to causes; sometimes there was a wave of municipal enthusiasm, but many an Italian township recognised no leader but its Roman patron, and saw in his success at the polls the highest use to which they could put their suffrage.