Note 227 — Chapter II · THE SOCIAL COMPOSITION OF THE PRIMITIVE POPULUS

Since the publication of the Staatsrecht, writers have made slight modifications or extensions of the conventional theory. Greenidge, in Poste, Gaii Institutiones, xix, suggests that the dual forms in Roman law may have as their basis a racial distinction between the patricians and the plebeians. A serious objection to this kind of reasoning is that if we are on the lookout for dualities, trinities, and the like, we shall find them in abundance everywhere. All sorts of theories as to the racial connections of the two social classes have been proposed. Zöller, Latium und Rom, 23 ff., supposes that the patricians were Sabine and the plebeians Latin. Ridgeway, Early Age of Greece, i. 257, holds that the plebeians were Ligurians, whereas Conway, in Riv. di Stor. ant. vii (1903). 422-4, prefers to consider them Volscians. These notions are equally worthless. Undoubtedly race is a potent factor in history; but Gumplowicz, Rassenkampf (1883), has killed the theory by overwork.

Among the writers who have rejected the conventional view are Soltau, Altröm. Volksversamml. (1880); Bernhöft, Röm. Königsz. (1882); Pelham, Outlines of Roman History (1893; reprint of his article on “Roman History,” in the Encycl. Brit.); Meyer, Gesch. d. Alt. ii (1893); Holzapfel, in Beitr. z. alt. Gesch. i (1902). 254.