TEXT A In place of the king, two
chief executives were chosen annually by the whole body of citizens. These were
known as praetors, or leaders, but later received the title of consuls. The
participation of a colleague in the exercise of supreme power and the limitation
of the tenure to one year prevented the chief magistrate from becoming
autocratic. The character of the Senate was altered by the enrollment of
plebeian members, known as conscripti, and hence the official designation of the
senators thereafter was patres conscripti (conscript fathers). As yet, only
patricians were eligible for the magistracies, and the discontent of the plebs
led to a violent struggle between the two orders and the gradual removal of the
social and political disabilities under which the plebs had labored.
In 494 BC a secession of plebeian soldiers led to the institution of the
tribuni plebis, who were elected annually as protectors of the plebs; they had
the power to veto the acts of patrician magistrates, and thus served as the
leaders of the plebs in the struggles with the patricians. The appointment of
the decemvirate, a commission of ten men, in 451 BC resulted in the drawing up
of a famous code of laws. In 445 BC, under the Canuleian law, marriages between
patricians and members of the plebs were declared legally valid. By the
Licinian-Sextian laws, passed in 367 BC, it was provided that one of the two
consuls should thenceforth be plebeian. The other magistracies were gradually
opened to the plebs: in 356 BC the dictatorship, an extraordinary magistracy,
the incumbent of which was appointed in times of great danger; in 350 BC, the
censorship; in 337 BC, the praetorship; and in 300 BC, the pontifical and
augural colleges. These political changes gave rise to a new
aristocracy, composed of patrician and wealthy plebeian families, and admission
to the Senate became almost the hereditary privilege of these families. The
Senate, which had originally possessed little administrative power, became a
powerful governing body, dealing with matters of war and peace, foreign
alliances, the founding of colonies, and the handling of the state finances. The
rise of this new nobilitas brought to an end the struggles between the two
orders, but the position of the poorer plebeian families was not improved, and
the marked contrast between the conditions of the rich and the poor led to
struggles in the later Republic between the aristocratic party and the popular
party. The external history of Rome during this period was
chiefly military. Rome had acquired the leadership of Latium before the close of
the regal period. Assisted by their allies, the Romans fought wars against the
Etruscans the Volscians, and the Aequians. The military policy of Rome became
more aggressive in the 60 years between 449 and 390 BC. The defeat of the Romans
at Allia and the capture and burning of Rome by the Gauls under the leadership
of the chieftain Brennus in 3.90 BC were great disasters, but their effect was
temporary. The capture of the Etruscan city of Veii in 396 BC by the soldier and
statesman Marcus Furius Camillus spelled the beginning of the end for Etruscan
independence. Other Etruscan cities hastened to make peace, and by the middle of
the 4th century BC all southern Etruria was kept in check by Roman garrisons and
denationalized by an influx of Roman colonists. Victories over the Volscians,
the Latins, and the Hernicans gave the Romans control of central Italy and
brought them into conflict with the Samnites of southern Italy, who were
defeated in a series of three wars, extending from 343 to 290 BC. A revolt of
the Latins and Volscians was put down, and in 338 BC the Latin League, a
long-established confederation of the cities of Latium, was dissolved. A
powerful coalition was at this time formed against Rome, consisting of
Etruscans, Umbrians, and Gauls in the north, and of Lucanians, Bruttians, and
Samnites in the south; this coalition endangered the power of Rome, but the
northern confederacy was defeated in 283 BC and the southern states soon
after. According to the last paragraph, we know that______
A．the history of Rome in this period was marked with internal conflicts B．Rome was invincible in this period C．Gauls ended the prosperity of Rome D．some Etruscan cities were frightened by Rome’s victory