When he in his turn becomes the possessor of
political power as a great baron or as head of a _civitas_, his
interests, and consequently his influence, are concerned with
intriguing and with efforts for his own political advancement, in many
cases leaving but few traces of the old relation of "defender of the
people." It is, however, of importance to note that this decline in
his prominence in civil life is commensurate with the diminished need
by the people of his protection, owing to the steady increase in the
security and independence of their position.
To sum up briefly the chief characteristics of the early and obscure
period which we have been considering, I think we can truly call it a
transition period, and its history a tottering bridge from the dead
Roman municipal system of the past, to the new state and city life of
the future; from a state of society where, as we have seen, the city
had changed from a political to an administrative division, to one
where the city was to prepare itself again to claim, and eventually,
by the growth of internal resources, to gain the lost function of
sovereignty. The condition of the people during this time we have seen
to be wretched in the extreme; the dismantled city but a bunch of
comfortless dwellings; its inhabitants but a semi-servile population,
with a small admixture of refugees of a better class; the city
occupying but a subordinate place as part of the rural holding within
whose limits it stood; whatever of wealth it contained an easy if not
a legitimate prey to the turbulent spirits, whose mutual contests kept
the surrounding country in a continual state of disturbance.
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