n of Italian extraction, the son of Damaratus
of Corinth, an emigrant from Tarquinii, was made king, even whilst the
sons of Ancus still lived? that after him Servius Tullius, the son of a
captive woman of Corniculum, with his father unknown, his mother a
slave, attained the throne by his ability and merit? For what shall I
say of Titus Tatius the Sabine, whom Romulus himself, the founder of our
city, admitted into partnership of the throne? Accordingly, whilst no
class of persons is disdained, in whom conspicuous merit may be found,
the Roman dominion increased. You do well to be dissatisfied now with a
plebeian consul, when your ancestors disdained not foreigners as kings,
and when, even after the expulsion of kings, the city was not shut
against foreign merit. After the expulsion of the kings, we certainly
admitted the Claudian family from the Sabine country not only into
citizenship, but even into the number of the patricians. Can a man from
a foreigner be made a patrician, then a consul? shall a Roman citizen,
if he belong to the commons, be precluded from all hope of the
consulate? Do we then deem it impossible that a man of the commons can
be a person of fortitude and activity, qualified to excel both in peace
and war, tyke to Numa, Lucius Tarquinius, and Servius Tullius? Or,
should such appear, shall we not suffer him to meddle with the helm of
government? or shall we have consuls like the decemvirs, the most
abandoned of mortals, who were, however, all patricians, rather than
like the best of kings, though new men?

4. "But (I may be told) no commoner has been consul since the expulsion
of the kings. What then? ought no innovation to be introduced? and what
has not yet been practised, (and in a new state there are many things
not yet practised,) ought not even such measures, even though they be
useful, be adopted? During the reign of Romulus there were no pontiffs,
nor augurs: they were appointed by Numa Pompilius. There was no census
in the state, nor the distribution of centuries and classes; it was
introduced by Servius Tullius: there never had been consuls; they were
created after the expulsion of the kings. Of a dictator neither the
office nor the name had existed; it commenced its existence among the
senators. There were no tribunes of the people, aediles, nor quaestors: it
was resolved that those officers should be appointed. Within the last
ten years we both created decemvirs for compiling laws, and we a