It is quite plain that this constitution tended to give the chief power in the state to the body of the commons, and especially to the richer class among them, who fought in the first ranks of the phalanx. For wherever there is a well-armed and well-disciplined infantry, it constitutes the main force of an army; and it is a true observation of Aristotle, that in the ancient commonwealths the chief power was apt to be possessed by that class of the people whose military services were most important: thus when the navy of Athens became its great support and strength, the government became democratical; because the ships were manned by the poorer classes. POPULAR INSTITUTIONS Other good and popular institutions were ascribed to the reign of Servius. As he had made the commons an order in the state, so he gave them judges out of their own body to try all civil causes; whereas before they had no jurisdiction, but referred all their suits either to the king or to the houses. These judges were, as Niebuhr[c] thinks, the _centumviri_, the hundred men of a later period, elected three from each tribe, so that in the time of Servius their number would probably have been ninety. To give a further organisation to the commons, he is said also to have instituted the festivals called Paganalia and Compitalia. In the tribes in the country, many strongholds on high ground, pagi, had been fixed upon as general refuges for the inhabitants and their cattle in case of invasion. Here they all met once a year to keep festival, and every man, woman, and child paid on these occasions a certain sum, which being collected by the priests gave the amount of the whole population. And for the same purpose, every one living in the city paid a certain sum at the temple of Juno Lucina for every birth in his family, another sum at the temple of Venus Libitina for every death, and a third at the temple of Youth for every son who came to the age of military service. The Compitalia in the city answered to the Paganalia in the country, and were yearly festivals in honour of the Lares or guardian spirits, celebrated at all the compita, or places where several streets met. Other laws and measures are ascribed to Servius, which seem to be the fond invention of a later period, when the commons, suffering under a cruel and unjust system, and wishing its overthrow, gladly believed that the deliverance which they longed for had been once given them by their good king, and that they were only reclaiming old rights, not demanding new ones. Servius, it is said, drove out the patricians from their unjust occupation of the public land, and ordered that the property only, and not the person, of a debtor should be liable for the payment of his debt.