If we look round for other possible solutions, we find two faintly foreshadowed, but both doomed to failure. The first was a reformed Senate, not merely the existing body artificially bolstered up, as it had been by Sulla, but a body really made representative of Italy through the free inclusion of _novi homines_. The idea was held by Cicero, but no scheme was ever considered which would have made it a reality. For such an object to be attained, election to those magistracies from which the Senate was recruited must cease to be in the hands of the Roman _comitia_; but no one to our knowledge, with the exception of the Emperor Augustus, thought of the possibility of election by the municipal towns.[1561] Help might also have been looked for from a reformed assembly, one that had been made representative of the whole Italian people. The allies nearly worked out this means of salvation for themselves,[1562] but the magnitude of Rome was itself a stumbling-block to the solution of the problem on federal lines. We can hardly blame the thinkers of the day for not seeing the possibility of a representative assembly of a national kind; for the Italian, like the Greek mind, though familiar enough with the idea of the representation of cities, had not advanced to the conception of the representation of individuals through electoral districts. The reason why the creation of an Italian senate or an Italian assembly might have warded off the monarchy is that such a body might have commanded respect even from the army of the provinces. This correspondence in sentiment might, it is true, have required that the army should remain mainly Italian; and Augustus’ attempt to give Italy something of a representative character may have been abandoned through fear of a conflict between an army which was becoming provincial in personnel and an Italian proletariate, when the choice of a Princeps had to be decided. Yet, although circumstances were hostile to a fusion of Italy and the provinces, and the Principate was not to be Italian, one should not forget that it had something of a popular character. The Roman citizens of the legions who made the Princeps[1563] were of a better type than the _plebs urbana_ of Rome; for not only was the freedman element eliminated, but discipline had with them replaced demoralisation, their life was lived under healthier influences, and although they were often moved to their selection by a mere _esprit de corps_, they generally succeeded in placing a very capable man on the throne.