the attempt to unite those
belonging to it in one and the same primary assembly, and to leave to
this assembly the decision, yielded a result as lamentable as it was
ridiculous.(36) The fundamental defect of the policy of antiquity
--that it never fully advanced from the urban form of constitution to
that of a state or, which is the same thing, from the system of
primary assemblies to a parliamentary system--in this case avenged
itself. The sovereign assembly of Rome was what the sovereign
assembly in England would be, if instead of sending representatives
all the electors of England should meet together as a parliament--an
unwieldy mass, wildly agitated by all interests and all passions, in
which intelligence was totally lost; a body, which was neither able
to take a comprehensive view of things nor even to form a resolution
of its own; a body above all, in which, saving in rare exceptional
cases, a couple of hundred or thousand individuals accidentally
picked up from the streets of the capital acted and voted in name of
the burgesses. The burgesses found themselves, as a rule, nearly as
satisfactorily represented by their de facto representatives in the
tribes and centuries as by the thirty lictors who de jure represented
them in the curies; and just as what was called the decree of the
curies was nothing but a decree of the magistrate who convoked the
lictors, so the decree of the tribes and centuries at this time was
in substance simply a decree of the proposing magistrate, legalised
by some consentients indispensable for the occasion. But while in
these voting-assemblies, the -comitia-, though they were far from
dealing strictly in the matter of qualification, it was on the whole
burgesses alone that appeared, in the mere popular assemblages on the
other hand--the -contiones---every one in the shape of a man was
entitled to take his place and to shout, Egyptians and Jews, street-
boys and slaves. Such a "meeting" certainly had no significance
in the eyes of the law; it could neither vote nor decree. But it
practically ruled the street, and already the opinion of the street
was a power in Rome, so that it was of some importance whether this
confused mass received the communications made to it with silence or
shouts, whether it applauded and rejoiced or hissed and howled at
the orator. Not many had the courage to lord it over the populace
as Scipio Aemilianus did, when they hissed him on account of his
express