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The Roman antiquities of Dionysius Halicarnassensis
The Roman antiquities of Dionysius Halicarnassensis Author:Dionysius 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: the translation of the jurifdidion, by which the fenate had granted to the people the power of trying any of the patricians they fhould think fit; and That conce... more »rning their fuf- frages, by which the authority of thofe fuffrages was tranf- ferred from the afTemblies of the centuries to Thofe of the a+ tribes. XLVII. When he had gone through the defence of the people, he turned to Appius, and faid: " After this, dare c you abufe thefe, by whofe means the commonwealth, " from being fmall, is become considerable, and, from being riata, that they were declining apace, and only made ufe of upon particular occafions; nay, they, at laft, were fo far in difrepute, that, when they were called for the fake of the aufpices, ' thirty liclors reprefented the thirty curiac. This being moft certainly the cafe, I would .read $vAsL inftead of xH£ia7 ; becaufe this was really the facl, and a fadl which our author had before, not only, mentioned, but in- larged upon, in relating the affair of u Coriolanus ; when the fenate con- fented to the two laws here mentioned by Laeftorius: By the firft of which, the people had a power of trying the patricians; and, by the laft, That of trying them in the cowitia tributay inftead of the centuriafa. As thefe two laws were obtained at the fame time, and are mentioned together by Laedtorius; and, as the other was never before taken notice of by Dio- nyfius, or by any other author, I have made no difficulty to follow this cor- rection in the tranflation. If any paffage in our author ever called for ths afiiftance of the commentators, it is this; and yet not one of them has fo much as taken notice of the difficulty, fo far from applying any remedy to it. In the firft place, hiftorians are not allowed either to draw confcquences themfelves, or to introduce ...« less