Note 359 — Chapter XIII · - THE INSTITUTION OF ROMAN POLITICAL SOCIETY.
Reading edition
Niebuhr says: “The existence of the plebs as acknowledgedly a free and very numerous portion of the nation, may be traced back to the reign of Ancus; but before the time of Servius it was only an aggregate of unconnected parts, not a united regular whole.”—History of Rome, l. c., i, 315.