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General History for Colleges and High Schools by Philip Van Ness Myers
page 252 of 806 (31%)
and of refugees from various quarters that had sought an asylum at Rome.
They were free to acquire property, and enjoyed personal freedom, but at
first had no political rights whatever. The greater number were petty
land-owners, who held and cultivated the soil about the city. A large part
of the early history of Rome is simply the narration of the struggles of
this class to secure social and political equality with the patricians.

Besides these two principal orders, there were two other classes--clients
and slaves. The former were attached to the families of patricians, who
became their patrons, or protectors. The condition of the client was
somewhat like that of the serf in the feudal system of the Middle Ages. A
large clientage was considered the crown and glory of a patrician house.

The slaves were, in the main, captives in war. Their number, small at
first, gradually increased as the Romans extended their conquests, till
they outnumbered all the other classes taken together, and more than once
turned upon their masters in formidable revolts that threatened the very
existence of the Roman state.

THE LEGENDARY KINGS.--For nearly two and a half centuries after the
founding of Rome (from 753 to 509 B.C., according to tradition), the
government was a monarchy. To span this period, the legends of the Romans
tell of the reigns of seven kings--Romulus, the founder of Rome; Numa, the
lawgiver; Tullus Hostilius and Ancus Marcius, conquerors both; Tarquinius
Priscus, the great builder; Servius Tullius, the reorganizer of the
government and second founder of the state; and Tarquinius Superbus, the
haughty tyrant, whose oppressions led to the abolition by the people of
the office of king.

The traditions of the doings of these monarchs and of what happened to
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