The fall of the Roman republic Author:Charles Merivale Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. CLAIMS OP THE LATINS AND ITALIANS TO THE FULL BOMAN CIVITAS. M. LIVIUS DRUSUS EXERTS HIMSELF TO OBTAIN THEIR ENFRANCHISEMENT, AND IS ASSASS... more »INATED. — THB SOCIAL OR MARSIAN "WAR. — TRIUMPH OF THE ROMANS.— THE FRANCHISE CONCEDED BY THE LEX JULIA AND LEX PLAUTIA PAPIRIA. A. u. 654—666. B. c. 100—88. The citizen of Rome, in complete possession of that illustrious title, combined the enjoyment of two classes of rights, civil and political. The civil law regulated the forms and effects of marriage, the exercise of paternal authority, the holding of property, the capacity of willing and inheriting; it secured, further, the inviolability of the citizen's person. The political law, on the other hand, gave the right of suffrage in the election of magistrates, and in voting upon projects of law; it conferred eligibility to public office; it permitted initiation in certain religious rites, and, finally, it conceded the honour and advantage of military service in the legions. The combination of these rights and capacities constituted the complete title to the Roman franchise. It was sometimes thus conferred upon individuals, in reward for special services; in a few cases the inhabitants of a favoured city were invested with it in the mass. The admission, however, of a foreign city, in alliance with the republic, to the full right of citizenship, required it, in the first place, to renounce its own ancient institutions. The favoured community adopted at once the civil law of Rome, and organized itself internally upon the Roman model, with an assembly of the people, a curia, representing the senate, and superior elective magistrates, generally two in number, corresponding with the consuls. A city thus constituted took the name of a municipium, that is, an office -be...« less