This series of offices is what is
called the "order of the honors." Each of these functions lasts but
one year, and to rise to the one next higher a new election is
necessary. In the year which precedes the voting one must show one's
self continually in the streets, "circulate" as the Romans say
(_ambire_: hence the word "ambition"), to solicit the suffrages of the
people. For all this time it is the custom to wear a white toga, the
very sense of the word "candidate" (white garment).
FOOTNOTES:
[117] Probably some of the plebeians originated in non-noble Roman
families.--ED.
[118] We know the story of this contest only through Livy and Dionysius
of Halicarnassus; their very dramatic account has become celebrated, but
it is only a legend frequently altered by falsifiers.
[119] The pontificate was opened to the plebeians by the Ogulnian Law of
300 B.C. The first plebeian pontifex maximus was in 254 B.C. Livy,
Epitome, xviii.--ED.
[120] This qualification was set in the last century of the
republic.--ED.
[121] He cites several of their old proverbs: "A bad farmer is one who
buys what his land can raise.
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