Please note that Mommsen uses the AUC chronology (Ab Urbe Condita), i.e. from the founding of the City of Rome. You can use this reference table to have the B.C. dates
The whole conduct of
the burgesses with reference to the government as well as to the
opposition shows quite clearly that the same mighty patriotism before
which even the genius of Hannibal had to quit the field prevailed also
in the Roman comitia. No doubt they often erred; but their errors
originated not in the mischievous impulses of a rabble, but in the
narrow views of burgesses and farmers.
The machinery, however, by
means of which the burgesses intervened in the course of public
affairs became certainly more and more unwieldy, and the circumstances
in which they were placed through their own great deeds far outgrew
their power to deal with them. We have already stated, that in the
course of this epoch most of the former communities of passive
burgesses, as well as a considerable number of newly established
colonies, received the full Roman franchise.(37)
