The social contract & discoursesRousseau, Jean-Jacques
Philosophy
The social contract & discourses
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques
Economics; Political science -- Early works to 1800; Social contract
Besides this, out of each tribe was taken a body of one hundred
_Equites_ or Knights, called a _century_, which shows that these
divisions, being unnecessary in a town, were at first merely military.
But an instinct for greatness seems to have led the little township of
Rome to provide itself in advance with a political system suitable for
the capital of the world.
Out of this original division an awkward situation soon arose. The
tribes of the Albans (Ramnenses) and the Sabines (Tatienses) remained
always in the same condition, while that of the foreigners (Luceres)
continually grew as more and more foreigners came to live at Rome,
so that it soon surpassed the others in strength. Servius remedied
this dangerous fault by changing the principle of cleavage, and
substituting for the racial division, which he abolished, a new one
based on the quarter of the town inhabited by each tribe. Instead of
three tribes he created four, each occupying and named after one of the
hills of Rome. Thus, while redressing the inequality of the moment, he
also provided for the future; and in order that the division might be
one of persons as well as localities, he forbade the inhabitants of one
quarter to migrate to another, and so prevented the mingling of the
races.
He also doubled the three old centuries of Knights and added twelve
more, still keeping the old names, and by this simple and prudent
method, succeeded in making a distinction between the body of Knights
and the people, without a murmur from the latter.
To the four urban tribes Servius added fifteen others called rural
tribes, because they consisted of those who lived in the country,
divided into fifteen cantons. Subsequently, fifteen more were created,
and the Roman people finally found itself divided into thirty-five
tribes, as it remained down to the end of the Republic.
The distinction between urban and rural tribes had one effect which
is worth mention, both because it is without parallel elsewhere, and
because to it Rome owed the preservation of her morality and the
enlargement of her empire. We should have expected that the urban
tribes would soon monopolise power and honours, and lose no time in
bringing the rural tribes into disrepute; but what happened was exactly
the reverse. The taste of the early Romans for country life is well
known. This taste they owed to their wise founder, who made rural and
military labours go along with liberty, and, so to speak, relegated to
the town arts, crafts, intrigue, fortune and slavery.
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