But its character testifies that it cannot have been a change demanded by the plebeians, for the new constitution assigned to them duties alone, and not rights.

It must rather have owed its origin either to the wisdom of one of the Roman kings, or to the urgency of the burgesses that they should be delivered from exclusive liability to burdens, and that the non-burgesses should be made to share on the one hand in taxation--that is, in the obligation to make advances to the state (the -tributum-)--and rendering task-work, and on the other hand in the levy.

Both were comprehended in the Servian constitution, but they hardly took place at the same time.

The bringing in of the non-burgesses presumably arose out of the economic burdens; these were early extended to such as were "possessed of means" (-locupletes-) or "settled people" (-adsidui-, freeholders), and only those wholly without means, the "children-producers" (-proletarii-, -capite censi-) remained free from them.

Thereupon followed the politically more important step of bringing in the non-burgesses to military duty.