Volume 1

The Roman antiquities of Dionysius Halicarnassensis / translated into English; with notes and dissertations. By Edward Spelman.

  • Dionysius of Halicarnassus
Date:
1758
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The Roman antiquities of Dionysius Halicarnassensis / translated into English; with notes and dissertations. By Edward Spelman. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    302/532 (page 236)
    all thefe reafons; having, probably, taken the example from the fyftem of government, which, at that time, prevailed at Athens. For the Athenians divided their people into two parts, and called thofe, wTho were diftinguifhed by their birth, and fortunes, Ev7toc]gi$oti, well-born; to whom the ad¬ ministration of the government was committed ; and the reft of the people, who had no fhare in it, Aygoixo^ Hufband- men: But, in procefs of time, thefe, alfo, were admitted to the magiftracy. Thofe, who give the moft probable ac¬ count of the Roman government, fay, that, for thefe reafons, thofe perfons were 17 called Fathers, and their pofterity. Patricians: But others, conftdering the thing in the light their own envy places it, in order to calumniate the Romans, as if they were, ignobly, defcended, fay they were not called Patricians, for the reafons I have alledged, but, becaufe thefe only could name their fathers; as if all the reft were fugitives, and unable to fhew that their fathers were free men. To prove which, they fay that, whenever their kings thought proper to aflemble the Patricians, the cryers called them both by their own names, and the names of their fathers ; while officers, appointed for that purpofe, fummoned the Plebeians all at once to the affemblies, by the found of oxens horns. But neither is the calling of the Patricians, by the cryers, any argument of their nobility, nor the found of the horn, any mark of the ignoblenefs of the Plebeians: The a7‘ <pa<ri th$ otvJpct? f««»as braced, Patres certe ab honore, patri- >toil T8f (K ytvxf ctvlcovi vrciitpuc pvogCW6S CQYU1YI uppcllciti. This opinion w Livy has, alfo, im- w B. i. e. 8, former