Note 20 — Chapter II

Schwegler, i, 621-28, 636-38; Fustel de Coulanges, p. 277. Note the expression populo plebique in Livy, xxix, 27; Cicero, Pro Murena, i; Macrobius, Saturnalia, i, 17. Ortolan (endorsed by Labbé) argues (work cited, p. 31) that populus plebsque no more implies separation than senatus populusque. But this argument destroys itself. The Senate as such was distinct from the populus, as having auctoritas, while the populus had only potestas. The phrase then was not a pleonasm. By this very analogy populus plebsque implies a vital legal distinction. Niebuhr, who first made the facts clear (cp. his Lectures, Eng. trans. ed. 1870, p. 107), followed Vico, who was led to the true view by knowledge of the separateness of the popolo from the commune in the Italian republics.