themselves, but were perfectly content to elect their magistrates, and to express their opinion occasionally on projects of legislation, of which perhaps they only half understood the import. They put entire trust in the governing class, and their loyalty made the Senate an object of awe for all the peoples of the Mediterranean. It was long before that loyalty gave way, — not till it became perfectly clear that their natural interests were no longer in harmony with those of their rulers; not till the trusteeship of the oligarchy had been grossly and irretrievably abused. And by that time they were themselves ruined, both morally and materially; their part in the history of the world was played out, and they rapidly disappeared. By that time, too, the whole face of the civilised world was changed; the City-State was no more, and a new political system was beginning slowly to appear.
Before we leave the Roman oligarchy and its work of conquest and government, let us turn for a moment to another side of its indefatigable activity, to which I have had no opportunity as yet of alluding. At the end of the last chapter it was pointed out that in the period of the equalisation of the Orders was laid the foundation-stone of that system of legal rules which was to become Rome's most valuable legacy to modern civilisation. The Twelve Tables, however harsh and rude they may appear to us, provided a sufficient legal basis for the mutual transactions of Roman citizens. But this code was meant for Roman citizens only; it
