sessed by the
burgesses as hitherto represented in the curies, yet it was inevitable
that those rights, which the burgesses hitherto had exercised not
as the assembly of curies, but as the burgess-levy, should pass over
to the new centuries of burgesses and --metoeci--. Henceforward,
accordingly, it was the centuries whose consent the king had
to ask before beginning an aggressive war.(11) It is important,
on account of the subsequent course of development, to note these
first steps towards the centuries taking part in public affairs;
but the centuries came to acquire such rights at first more in the
way of natural sequence than of direct design, and subsequently
to the Servian reform, as before, the assembly of the curies was
regarded as the proper burgess-community, whose homage bound the
whole people in allegiance to the king. By the side of these new
landowning full-burgesses stood the domiciled foreigners from the
allied Latium, as participating in the public burdens, tribute and
task-works (hence -municipes-); while the burgesses not domiciled,
who were beyond the pale of the tribes, and had not the right
to serve in war and vote, came into view only as "owing tribute"
(-aerarii-).

In this way, while hitherto there had been distinguished only two
classes of members of the community, burgesses and clients, there
were now established those three political classes, which exercised
a dominant influence over the constitutional law of Rome for many
centuries.

Time and Occasion of the Reform

When and how this new military organization of the Roman community
came into existence, can only be conjectured. It presupposes the
existence of the four regions; in other words, the Servian wall must
have been erected before the reform took place. But the territory
of the city must also have considerably exceeded its original limits,
when it could furnish 8000 holders of full hides and as many who
held lesser portions, or sons of such holders. We are not acquainted
with the superficial extent of the normal Roman farm; but it is
not possible to estimate it as under twenty -jugera-.(12) If we
reckon as a minimum 10,000 full hides, this would imply a superficies
of 190 square miles of arable land; and on this calculation, if we
make a very moderate allowance for pasture, the space occupied by
houses, and ground not capable of culture, the territory, at the
period when this reform was carried out, must have had at lea