and were now at most merely emphasised by being worshipped separately.




THE REORGANISATION OF SERVIUS


Like a lofty peak rising above the mists which cover the tops of the
lower-lying mountains, the figure of Servius Tullius towers above the
semi-legendary Tarquins on either side of him. We feel that we have to
do with a veritable character in history, and we find ourselves
wondering what sort of a man he was personally--a feeling that never
occurs to us with Romulus and the older kings, and comes to us only
faintly with the elder Tarquin, while the younger Tarquin has all the
marks of a wooden man, who was put up only to be thrown down, whose
whole _raison d'être_ is to explain the transition from the kingdom to
the republic on the theory of a revolution. Eliminate the revolution,
suppose the change to have been a gradual and a constitutional one, and
you may discard the proud Tarquin without losing anything but a
lay-figure with its more or less gaudy trappings of later myths. But it
is not so with Servius; his wall and his constitution are very real and
defy all attempts to turn their maker into a legend. Yet on the other
hand we must be on our guard, for much of the definiteness which seems
to attach to him is rather the definiteness of a certain stage in Rome's
development, a certain well-bounded chronological and sociological
tract. It is dangerous to try to limit too strictly Servius's personal
part in this development; and far safer, though perhaps less
fascinating, to use his name as a general term for the changes which
Rome underwent from the time when foreign influences began to tell upon