(Mommsen's _History of Rome_.) It was, therefore, as a cosmopolitan, commercial city that the Romans first came into prominence. The early population was composed of mixed Etruscan and Latin stock, to which representatives of every Italian tribe and of the Greeks were soon added. By the beginning of the truly historical times the Romans had become merged into one race, representing the combined product of the races of Italy. It was this fact, very largely, which contributed to her success over the purer (ethnologically) races which surrounded her. There were two great divisions of the melting-pot process at Rome; the first, that existing during the days of the kingdom and of the early republic; the second, that of the later republic and the empire. During the first period the process of intermixture, as has been said, was between the different races of Italy; within the second period Rome became the center of the civilized world, and her population included representatives of all the known races of mankind. In no other despotism in the history of the world is there to be found so little racial or class distinction as in the Roman empire. Such distinctions were never able to exist at Rome during any portion of her history. The permanent privileged classes were those possessed of wealth, or of military power, and the descendants of both the conquerors and the conquered of one epoch would be found in the next indiscriminately divided among the exploiters and the exploited of the times. The patricians, the descendants of the early settlers of Rome, were unable to maintain their special caste privileges, and were compelled to admit the plebeians to equal political rights and privileges. Class distinction remained in as marked a degree as ever at Rome, but the distinction was now between rich and poor, and the rich plebeian took equal rank with the rich patrician. Nor were the united Roman orders strong enough to preserve a monopoly of political privileges for Romans when the territory of Rome was extended over the Italian peninsula. It was found necessary to extend the franchise first to the residents of Latium and later to those of the other portions of Italy.