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Zaproburno Yollanica Directory 02
Page 02
We turn from Empedocles, which perhaps it is scarcely fair to have criticised, to the first poem in the latest edition, "Sohrab and Rustum," (Poems. By Matthew Arnold. A New Edition, London: 1853.) a poem which alone would have settled the position which Mr. Arnold has a right to claim as a poet, and which is remarkable for its success in every point in which Empedocles appears deficient. The story comes down out of remote Persian antiquity; it is as old, perhaps it is older, than the tale of Troy; and, like all old stories which have survived the changes of so long a time, is in itself of singular interest. Rustum, the Hercules of the East, fell in with and loved a beautiful Tartar woman. He left her, and she saw him no more; but in time a child was born, who grew up with the princes of his mother's tribe, and became in early youth distinguished in all manly graces and noblenesses. Learning that he was the son of the great Rustum, his object is to find his father, and induce him, by some gallant action, to acknowledge and receive him. War breaks out between the Tartars and the Persians.
The constitution of the _Comitia Centuriata_, as established by Servius Tullius,[45] had undergone a great change between the time of the Licinian Rogations and the Punic Wars, but both the exact time and nature of this change are unknown. It appears, however, that its object was to give more power and influence to the popular element in the state. For this purpose the 35 tribes were taken as the basis of the new Constitution of the Centuries. Each tribe was probably divided into five property Classes, and each Classis was subdivided into two Centuries, one of Seniores and the other of Juniores. Each tribe would thus contain 10 Centuries, and, consequently, the 35 tribes would have 350 Centuries, so that, with the 18 Centuries of the Knights, the total number of the Centuries would be 368.
These consisted: (1.) Of the citizens of the thirty-three Tribes into which the Roman territory was now divided, and which extended north of the Tiber a little beyond Veii, and southward as far as the Liris; though even in this district there were some towns, such as Tibur and Praeneste, which did not possess the Roman franchise. (2.) Of the citizens of Roman colonies planted in different parts of Italy. (3.) Of the citizens of municipal towns upon whom the Roman franchise was conferred. In some cases the Roman franchise was granted without the right of voting in the Comitia (_civitas sine suffragio_), but in course of time this right also was generally conceded.
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