e preponderance of patrician influence in the
assembly of the centuries, and the force perhaps of old habit, combined to
continue most of the high offices of state in the hands of members of the
Old Houses. Again, when plebeians were raised to office, and became, as
they were styled, New Men, they speedily were merged in the nobility; and
were no less aristocratic in their measures, than the oldest members of
the aristocracy.

For when have plebeians, anywhere, when elevated to superior rank, been
true to their origin; been other than the fellest persecutors of
plebeians?

The senate was therefore still, as it had been, a calm and conservative
assembly.

It was not indeed, what it had been, before Marius first, and then Sylla,
the avenger, had decimated it of their foes with the sword; and filled the
vacancies with unworthy friends and partizans.

Yet it was still a grand, a wise, a noble body--when viewed as a body--and,
for the most part, its decisions were worthy of its dignity and power--were
sage, conservative, and patriotic.

On this occasion, all motives had conspired to produce a full house;
doubt, anger, fear, excitement, curiosity, the love of country, the strong
sense of right, the fiery impulses of interest, hate, vengeance, had urged
all men of all parties, to be participants in the eventful business of the
day.

About five hundred senators were present; men of all ages from thirty-two
years(20) upward--that being the earliest at which a man could fill this
eminent seat. But the majority were of those, who having passed the prime
of active life, might be considered to have reached the highest of mental
power and capacity, removed alike from the greenness of inconsiderate
youth, and the imbecility of extreme old age.

The rare beauty of the Italian race--the strength and symmetry of the
unrivalled warrior nation, of which these were, for the most part, the
noblest and most striking specimens; the grand flow of the snow-white
draperies, faced with the broad crimson laticlave--the classic grace of
their positions--the absence of all rigid angular lines, of anything mean
or meagre, fantastic or tawdry in the garb of the solemn concourse,
rendered the meeting of Rome's Fathers a widely different spectacle from
the convention of any other representative assembly, the world has ever
witnessed.

There was no flippancy, no affectation, no light converse--The members,
young or old, had come thither to perfo