More remarkable still were the conditions which we find after the establishment of the empire and the extension of Roman territory around the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. There were no royal house, no hereditary nobility, and few special privileges left for the inhabitants of Rome. The distinctions between rich and poor were never more galling; _but_ high birth conferred no great advantage, and the lowest born could rise to the highest posts of honor. The ponderous weight of the empire ground out racial and caste distinctions and welded together all the heterogeneous mass. The provinces became Romanized, and the population of Rome became a mixture of all the races of the provinces. Of how little importance Rome was to the later empire is shown by the removal of the seat of the empire by Constantine to Constantinople, and the continued existence of an empire calling itself Roman for more than a thousand years after Rome had ceased to constitute a part of such empire. CHAPTER IV THE EARLY REPUBLIC The first epoch of the Roman republic is that extending from the overthrow of the kings, about 509 B.C., to the passage of the Licinian Laws in 367 B.C. The history of this century and a half at Rome is primarily the history of internal strife and class antagonisms. During these early days the progress made by the republic toward the expansion of its territories or the extension of its foreign influence was inappreciable. Rome, during these days, was contending on a position of near equality with the neighboring cities of Latium and Etruria. Twice during this period the independence, perhaps the very existence, of the city was seriously threatened. The war against the Etruscans, which followed immediately upon the expulsion of the last of the Tarquin kings, resulted so unfavorably to Rome that not only was her territory considerably reduced in size but even the subjugation of Rome itself might probably have been accomplished but for the forbearance of her victorious opponents.