Note 1603 — Chapter XII · THE COMITIA TRIBUTA AND THE RISE OF POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY To the Year 449

Plut. Ti. Gracch. 15; Mommsen, Röm. Staatsr. ii. 287, n. 1. The fictitious character of the legal basis on which the plebeians are represented as acting in this early period of their history may be illustrated, as Mommsen, Röm. Staatsr. ii. 299, n. 3, has pointed out, by their assumption of the agrarian proposal of Sp. Cassius as one of their fundamental principles, the application of which neither magistrates nor private individuals were at liberty to impede; cf. Livy ii. 54, 61; Dion. Hal. ix. 37, 54; Schwegler, Röm. Gesch. ii. 480, 531, 567. The fault is not all with the annalists.