The official style of the Roman Government was that of the Senate and the Roman people. It is not easy to form an estimate of what constituted the Roman people at any particular date. In these days of individual freedom and independence the term people has a definite meaning; we know that for political purposes the English people means every registered voter, and that the process by which any resident within the limits of His Majesty’s dominions can acquire a vote are comparatively simple for white men; but citizenship was not so simple a matter in ancient times, and antiquarian research fails in some measure to enlighten us, because the Romans had a habit of keeping the old names and the old forms long after their original significance and the powers implied had passed to new institutions or suffered complete change. The very phrase the Senate _and_ the Roman people is deeply significant, for it excludes the Senate from the people. Whatever may have been the original meaning of the word “Populus,” it was clearly something distinct from the Senate, which was not _representative_ of the people, but another power. The fusion between the two powers was in fact never completed till the predominance of the Imperial Hierarchy practically eliminated the Senate. There was a time in the history of the Republic when this fusion seemed to be approaching completion, and when the Senate moved in the direction of becoming a representative body; but the Roman conquests threw such preponderating influence into the hands of the Senate, that the constitutional position which had been slowly won for the “people” became nominal rather than real. The oligarchy of Rome was never in the Republican period disestablished as the oligarchies of many Greek cities were disestablished. The Roman historians have preserved for us a constitution based on property qualifications, which might tempt us to imagine that there was a time when a Government with something approaching to a democratic organization controlled the destinies of Rome. It is possible that there was a time when the Roman people was divided into classes according to their assessed property, and when each class voted separately; but it is exceedingly improbable that even in that golden age of liberty there was anything approaching to free and independent elections as we understand them.