| Summary: | This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1852 edition. Excerpt: ...thus, in this instance, too, was raised the storm which occasioned the plebiscitum of Canuleius. This is generally regarded as the great victory of the plebeians; for the patricians, it is said, at last gave way, but reserved to themselves other rights. Livy looks upon it as a degradation of the ruling order. I will not quarrel with him for saying so, but if we look at the matter in its true light, it is evident that the existence of such a law injured none more than the patricians themselves. Mixed marriages between persons of the two estates had undoubtedly been frequent at all times, and as far as conscience was concerned, they were perfectly legitimate. See above, p. 193. Militby Tribunes. 221 The son of such a marriage never had the jus gentilicium, hut was numbered among the plebeians, the consequence of which was, that the patrician order became continually less and less numerous. It is an acknowledged fact, that wherever the nobles insist upon marrying none but members of their own order, they become in course of time quite powerless. M. Rchberg mentions, that within fifty years one-third of the baronial families of the duchy of Bremen became extinct, and any body who wished to be regarded as equal to the rest had to shew sixteen ancestors. If the plebeians had wished to outwit the patricians, they certainly ought to have insisted upon the connubium remaining forbidden; and but for the Canuleian law, the patricians would have lost their position in the state one hundred years earher. The law was passed, but whether it was in favour of the patricians or of the plebeians we know not. About such things we cannot spenk with any probability, for even what appears absurd has sometimes really happened. Afterwards, we once find three...
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