frequently inveigh against the people, and sometimes
even Livy as at the first institution of it. To say the truth, it was a
kind of anarchy, whereof the people could not be excusable, if there had
not, through the courses taken by the Senate, been otherwise a necessity
that they must have seen the commonwealth run into oligarchy.

The manner how the Comitia curiata, centuriata or tributa were called,
during the time of the commonwealth, to the suffrage, was by lot: the
curia, century, or tribe, whereon the first lot fell, being styled
principium, or the prerogative; and the other curioe, centuries or
tribes, whereon the second, third, and fourth lots, etc., fell, the
jure vocatoe. From henceforth not the first classes, as in the times
of Servius, but the prerogative, whether curia, century, or tribe, came
first to the suffrage, whose vote was called omen proerogativum, and
seldom failed to be leading to the rest of the tribes. The jure vocatoe,
in the order of their lots, came next: the manner of giving suffrage
was, by casting wooden tablets, marked for the affirmative or the
negative, into certain urns standing upon a scaffold, as they marched
over it in files, which for the resemblance it bore was called the
bridge. The candidate, or competitor, who had most suffrages in a curia,
century, or tribe, was said to have that curia, century, or tribe;
and he who had most of the curioe, centuries, or tribes, carried the
magistracy.

These three places being premised, as such upon which there will be
frequent reflection, I come to the narrative, divided into two parts,
the first containing the institution, the second the constitution of the
commonwealth, in each whereof I shall distinguish the orders, as those
which contain the whole model, from the rest of the discourse, which
tends only to the explanation or proof of them.

In the institution or building of a commonwealth, the first work, as
that of builders, can be no other than fitting and distributing the
materials.

The materials of a commonwealth are the people, and the people of Oceana
were distributed by casting them into certain divisions, regarding their
quality, their age, their wealth, and the places of their residence or
habitation, which was done by the ensuing orders.

The first order "distributes the people into freemen or citizens and
servants, while such; for if they attain to liberty, that is, to live of
themselves, they are freemen or citizens."