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Title: The History of Rome, Book II - From the Abolition of the Monarchy in Rome to the Union of Italy
Author: Mommsen, Theodor, 1817-1903
Language: English
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The original German version of this work, Roemische Geschichte,
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E-book #3061.
THE HISTORY OF ROME, BOOK II
From the Abolition of the Monarchy in Rome to the Union of Italy
by
THEODOR MOMMSEN
Translated with the Sanction of the Author
by
William Purdie Dickson, D.D., LL.D.
Professor of Divinity in the University of Glasgow
A New Edition Revised Throughout and Embodying Recent Additions
Preparer's Note
This work contains many literal citations of and references to
foreign words, sounds, and alphabetic symbols drawn from many
languages, including Gothic and Phoenician, but chiefly Latin and
of 7-bit ASCII code, adopts the following orthographic conventions:
1) Except for Greek, all literally cited non-English words that do
not refer to texts cited as academic references, words that in the
source manuscript appear italicized, are rendered with a single
preceding, and a single following dash; thus, -xxxx-.
2) Greek words, first transliterated into Roman alphabetic
equivalents, are rendered with a preceding and a following double-
dash; thus, --xxxx--. Note that in some cases the root word itself
is a compound form such as xxx-xxxx, and is rendered as --xxx-xxx--
3) Simple unideographic references to vocalic sounds, single
letters, or alphabeic dipthongs; and prefixes, suffixes, and syllabic
references are represented by a single preceding dash; thus, -x,
or -xxx.
4) Ideographic references, referring to signs of representation rather
than to content, are represented as -"id:xxxx"-. "id:" stands for
"ideograph", and indicates that the reader should form a picture based
on the following "xxxx"; which may be a single symbol, a word, or an
attempt at a picture composed of ASCII characters. For example,
--"id:GAMMA gamma"-- indicates an uppercase Greek gamma-form followed
by the form in lowercase. Some such exotic parsing as this is
necessary to explain alphabetic development because a single symbol
may have been used for a number of sounds in a number of languages,
or even for a number of sounds in the same language at different
times. Thus, -"id:GAMMA gamma" might very well refer to a Phoenician
construct that in appearance resembles the form that eventually
stabilized as an uppercase Greek "gamma" juxtaposed to one of
lowercase. Also, a construct such as --"id:E" indicates a symbol
that with ASCII resembles most closely a Roman uppercase "E", but,
in fact, is actually drawn more crudely.
5) Dr. Mommsen has given his dates in terms of Roman usage, A.U.C.;
that is, from the founding of Rome, conventionally taken to be
753 B. C. The preparer of this document, has appended to the end
of each volume a table of conversion between the two systems.
CONTENTS
BOOK II: From the Abolition of the Monarchy in Rome to the Union
of Italy
CHAPTER
I. Change of the Constitution--Limitation of the Power of the
Magistrate
II. The Tribunate of the Plebs and the Decemvirate
III. The Equalization of the Orders, and the New Aristocracy
IV. Fall of the Etruscan Power--the Celts
V. Subjugation of the Latins and Campanians by Rome
VI. Struggle of the Italians against Rome
VII. Struggle Between Pyrrhus and Rome, and Union of Italy
VIII. Law--Religion--Military System--Economic Condition--Nationality
IX. Art and Science
BOOK SECOND
From the Abolition of the Monarchy in Rome to the Union of Italy
--dei ouk ekpleittein ton suggraphea terateuomenon dia teis iotopias
tous entugchanontas.--
Polybius.
CHAPTER I
Change of the Constitution--
Limitation of the Power of the Magistrate
Political and Social Distinctions in Rome
The strict conception of the unity and omnipotence of the state in
all matters pertaining to it, which was the central principle of the
Italian constitutions, placed in the hands of the single president
nominated for life a formidable power, which was felt doubtless by the
enemies of the land, but was not less heavily felt by its citizens.
Abuse and oppression could not fail to ensue, and, as a necessary
consequence, efforts were made to lessen that power. It was,
however, the grand distinction of the endeavours after reform and
the revolutions in Rome, that there was no attempt either to impose
limitations on the community as such or even to deprive it of
corresponding organs of expression--that there never was any
endeavour to assert the so-called natural rights of the individual in
contradistinction to the community--that, on the contrary, the attack
was wholly directed against the form in which the community was
represented. From the times of the Tarquins down to those of
the Gracchi the cry of the party of progress in Rome was not for
limitation of the power of the state, but for limitation of the power
of the magistrates: nor amidst that cry was the truth ever forgotten,
that the people ought not to govern, but to be governed.
This struggle was carried on within the burgess-body. Side by
side with it another movement developed itself--the cry of the
non-burgesses for equality of political privileges. Under this head
are included the agitations of the plebeians, the Latins, the Italians,
and the freedmen, all of whom--whether they may have borne the name
of burgesses, as did the plebeians and the freedmen, or not, as was
the case with the Latins and Italians--were destitute of, and desired,
political equality.
A third distinction was one of a still more general nature; the
distinction between the wealthy and the poor, especially such as had
been dispossessed or were endangered in possession. The legal and
political relations of Rome led to the rise of a numerous class of
farmers--partly small proprietors who were dependent on the mercy of
the capitalist, partly small temporary lessees who were dependent on
the mercy of the landlord--and in many instances deprived individuals
as well as whole communities of the lands which they held, without
affecting their personal freedom. By these means the agricultural
proletariate became at an early period so powerful as to have a
material influence on the destinies of the community. The urban
proletariate did not acquire political importance till a much later
epoch.
On these distinctions hinged the internal history of Rome, and, as
may be presumed, not less the history--totally lost to us--of the
other Italian communities. The political movement within the
fully-privileged burgess-body, the warfare between the excluded and
excluding classes, and the social conflicts between the possessors
and the non-possessors of land--variously as they crossed and
interlaced, and singular as were the alliances they often produced
--were nevertheless essentially and fundamentally distinct.
Abolition of the Life-Presidency of the Community
As the Servian reform, which placed the --metoikos-- on a footing of
equality in a military point of view with the burgess, appears to have
originated from considerations of an administrative nature rather than
from any political party-tendency, we may assume that the first of the
movements which led to internal crises and changes of the constitution
was that which sought to limit the magistracy. The earliest
achievement of this, the most ancient opposition in Rome, consisted
in the abolition of the life-tenure of the presidency of the
community; in other words, in the abolition of the monarchy. How
necessarily this was the result of the natural development of things,
is most strikingly demonstrated by the fact, that the same change of
constitution took place in an analogous manner through the whole
circuit of the Italo-Grecian world. Not only in Rome, but likewise
among the other Latins as well as among the Sabellians, Etruscans,
and Apulians--and generally, in all the Italian communities, just as
in those of Greece--we find the rulers for life of an earlier epoch
superseded in after times by annual magistrates. In the case of the
Lucanian canton there is evidence that it had a democratic government
in time of peace, and it was only in the event of war that the
magistrates appointed a king, that is, an official similar to the
Roman dictator. The Sabellian civic communities, such as those of
Capua and Pompeii, in like manner were in later times governed by
a "community-manager" (-medix tuticus-) changed from year to year,
and we may assume that similar institutions existed among the other
national and civic communities of Italy. In this light the reasons
which led to the substitution of consuls for kings in Rome need no
explanation. The organism of the ancient Greek and Italian polity
developed of itself by a sort of natural necessity the limitation of
the life-presidency to a shortened, and for the most part an annual,
term. Simple, however, as was the cause of this change, it might be
brought about in various ways; a resolution might be adopted on the
death of one life-ruler not to elect another--a course which the
Roman senate is said to have attempted after the death of Romulus;
or the ruler might voluntarily abdicate, as is alleged to have been
the intention of king Servius Tullius; or the people might rise in
rebellion against a tyrannical ruler, and expel him.
Expulsion of the Tarquins from Rome
It was in this latter way that the monarchy was terminated in Rome.
For however much the history of the expulsion of the last Tarquinius,
"the proud," may have been interwoven with anecdotes and spun out into
a romance, it is not in its leading outlines to be called in question.
Tradition credibly enough indicates as the causes of the revolt, that
the king neglected to consult the senate and to complete its numbers;
that he pronounced sentences of capital punishment and confiscation
without advising with his counsellors; that he accumulated immense
stores of grain in his granaries, and exacted from the burgesses
military labour and task-work beyond what was due. The exasperation
of the people is attested by the formal vow which they made man by
man for themselves and for their posterity that thenceforth they would
never tolerate a king; by the blind hatred with which the name of king
was ever afterwards regarded in Rome; and above all by the enactment
that the "king for offering sacrifice" (-rex sacrorum- or
-sacrificulus-) --whom they considered it their duty to create that the
gods might not miss their accustomed mediator--should be disqualified
from holding any further office, so that this man became the foremost
indeed, but also the most powerless in the Roman commonwealth. Along
with the last king all the members of his clan were banished--a proof
how close at that time gentile ties still were. The Tarquinii
thereupon transferred themselves to Caere, perhaps their ancient
home,(1) where their family tomb has recently been discovered.
In the room of the one president holding office for life two
annual rulers were now placed at the head of the Roman community.
This is all that can be looked upon as historically certain in
reference to this important event.(2) It is conceivable that in
a great community with extensive dominion like the Roman the royal
power, particularly if it had been in the same family for several
generations, would be more capable of resistance, and the struggle
would thus be keener, than in the smaller states; but there is no
certain indication of any interference by foreign states in the
struggle. The great war with Etruria--which possibly, moreover,
has been placed so close upon the expulsion of the Tarquins only in
consequence of chronological confusion in the Roman annals--cannot
be regarded as an intervention of Etruria in favour of a countryman
who had been injured in Rome, for the very sufficient reason that the
Etruscans notwithstanding their complete victory neither restored the
Roman monarchy, nor even brought back the Tarquinian family.
Powers of the Consuls
If we are left in ignorance of the historical connections of this
important event, we are fortunately in possession of clearer light as
to the nature of the change which was made in the constitution. The
royal power was by no means abolished, as is shown by the very fact
that, when a vacancy occurred afterwards as before, an "interim king"
(-interrex-) was nominated. The one life-king was simply replaced
by two year-kings, who called themselves generals (-praetores-),
or judges (-iudices-), or merely colleagues (consules).(3)
The principles of collegiate tenure and of annual duration are those
which distinguish the republic from the monarchy, and they first meet
us here.
Collegiate Arrangement
The collegiate principle, from which the third and subsequently most
current name of the annual kings was derived, assumed in their case an
altogether peculiar form. The supreme power was not entrusted to the
two magistrates conjointly, but each consul possessed and exercised it
for himself as fully and wholly as it had been possessed and exercised
by the king. This was carried so far that, instead of one of the two
colleagues undertaking perhaps the administration of justice, and
the other the command of the army, they both administered justice
simultaneously in the city just as they both set out together to
the army; in case of collision the matter was decided by a rotation
measured by months or days. A certain partition of functions withal,
at least in the supreme military command, might doubtless take place
from the outset--the one consul for example taking the field against
the Aequi, and the other against the Volsci--but it had in no wise
binding force, and each of the colleagues was legally at liberty to
interfere at any time in the province of the other. When, therefore,
supreme power confronted supreme power and the one colleague forbade
what the other enjoined, the consular commands neutralized each other.
This peculiarly Latin, if not peculiarly Roman, institution of
co-ordinate supreme authorities--which in the Roman commonwealth on
the whole approved itself as practicable, but to which it will be
difficult to find a parallel in any other considerable state
--manifestly sprang out of the endeavour to retain the regal power
in legally undiminished fulness. They were thus led not to break
up the royal office into parts or to transfer it from an individual
to a college, but simply to double it and thereby, if necessary,
to neutralize it through its own action.
Term of Office
As regards the termination of their tenure of office, the earlier
-interregnum- of five days furnished a legal precedent. The ordinary
presidents of the community were bound not to remain in office
longer than a year reckoned from the day of their entering on their
functions;(4) and they ceased -de jure- to be magistrates upon the
expiry of the year, just as the interrex on the expiry of the five
days. Through this set termination of the supreme office the
practical irresponsibility of the king was lost in the case of the
consul. It is true that the king was always in the Roman commonwealth
subject, and not superior, to the law; but, as according to the Roman
view the supreme judge could not be prosecuted at his own bar, the
king might doubtless have committed a crime, but there was for him no
tribunal and no punishment. The consul, again, if he had committed
murder or treason, was protected by his office, but only so long as
it lasted; on his retirement he was liable to the ordinary penal
jurisdiction like any other burgess.
To these leading changes, affecting the principles of the
constitution, other restrictions were added of a subordinate and more
external character, some of which nevertheless produced a deep effect
The privilege of the king to have his fields tilled by task-work
of the burgesses, and the special relation of clientship in which
the --metoeci-- as a body must have stood to the king, ceased of
themselves with the life tenure of the office.
Right of Appeal
Hitherto in criminal processes as well as in fines and corporal
punishments it had been the province of the king not only to
investigate and decide the cause, but also to decide whether the
person found guilty should or should not be allowed to appeal for
pardon. The Valerian law now (in 245) enacted that the consul must
allow the appeal of the condemned, where sentence of capital or
corporal punishment had been pronounced otherwise than by martial
law--a regulation which by a later law (of uncertain date, but passed
before 303) was extended to heavy fines. In token of this right of
appeal, when the consul appeared in the capacity of judge and not
of general, the consular lictors laid aside the axes which they had
previously carried by virtue of the penal jurisdiction belonging to
their master. The law however threatened the magistrate, who did
not allow due course to the -provocatio-, with no other penalty than
infamy--which, as matters then stood, was essentially nothing but a
moral stain, and at the utmost only had the effect of disqualifying
the infamous person from giving testimony. Here too the course
followed was based on the same view, that it was in law impossible
to diminish the old regal powers, and that the checks imposed upon the
holder of the supreme authority in consequence of the revolution had,
strictly viewed, only a practical and moral value. When therefore the
consul acted within the old regal jurisdiction, he might in so acting
perpetrate an injustice, but he committed no crime and consequently
was not amenable for what he did to the penal judge.
A limitation similar in its tendency took place in the civil
jurisdiction; for probably there was taken from the consuls at
the very outset the right of deciding at their discretion a legal
dispute between private persons.
Restrictions on the Delegation of Powers
The remodelling of the criminal as of civil procedure stood in
connection with a general arrangement respecting the transference
of magisterial power to deputies or successors. While the king had
been absolutely at liberty to nominate deputies but had never been
compelled to do so, the consuls exercised the right of delegating
power in an essentially different way. No doubt the rule that, if
the supreme magistrate left the city, he had to appoint a warden there
for the administration of justice,(5) remained in force also for the
consuls, and the collegiate arrangement was not even extended to such
delegation; on the contrary this appointment was laid on the consul
who was the last to leave the city. But the right of delegation
for the time when the consuls remained in the city was probably
restricted, upon the very introduction of this office, by providing
that delegation should be prescribed to the consul for definite
cases, but should be prohibited for all cases in which it was not so
prescribed. According to this principle, as we have said, the whole
judicial system was organized. The consul could certainly exercise
criminal jurisdiction also as to a capital process in the way of
submitting his sentence to the community and having it thereupon
confirmed or rejected; but he never, so far as we see, exercised
this right, perhaps was soon not allowed to exercise it, and possibly
pronounced a criminal judgment only in the case of appeal to the
community being for any reason excluded. Direct conflict between
the supreme magistrate of the community and the community itself was
avoided, and the criminal procedure was organized really in such a
way, that the supreme magistracy remained only in theory competent,
but always acted through deputies who were necessary though appointed
by himself. These were the two--not standing--pronouncers-of-judgment
for revolt and high treason (-duoviri perduellionis-) and the two
standing trackers of murder, the -quaestores parricidii-. Something
similar may perhaps have occurred in the regal period, where the
king had himself represented in such processes;(6) but the standing
character of the latter institution, and the collegiate principle
carried out in both, belong at any rate to the republic. The latter
arrangement became of great importance also, in so far that thereby
for the first time alongside of the two standing supreme magistrates
were placed two assistants, whom each supreme magistrate nominated at
his entrance on office, and who in due course also went out with him
on his leaving it--whose position thus, like the supreme magistracy
itself, was organized according to the principles of a standing
office, of a collegiate form, and of an annual tenure. This was not
indeed as yet the inferior magistracy itself, at least not in the
sense which the republic associated with the magisterial position,
inasmuch as the commissioners did not emanate from the choice of
the community; but it doubtless became the starting-point for the
institution of subordinate magistrates, which was afterwards developed
in so manifold ways.
In a similar way the decision in civil procedure was withdrawn from
the supreme magistracy, inasmuch as the right of the king to transfer
an individual process for decision to a deputy was converted into the
duty of the consul, after settling the legitimate title of the party
and the object of the suit, to refer the disposal of it to a private
man to be selected by him and furnished by him with instructions.
In like manner there was left to the consuls the important
administration of the state-treasure and of the state-archives;
nevertheless probably at once, or at least very early, there were
associated with them standing assistants in that duty, namely, those
quaestors who, doubtless, had in exercising this function absolutely
to obey them, but without whose previous knowledge and co-operation
the consuls could not act.
Where on the other hand such directions were not in existence, the
president of the community in the capital had personally to intervene;
as indeed, for example, at the introductory steps of a process he
could not under any circumstances let himself be represented by
deputy.
This double restriction of the consular right of delegation subsisted
for the government of the city, and primarily for the administration
of justice and of the state-chest. As commander-in-chief, on the
other hand, the consul retained the right of handing over all or any
of the duties devolving on him. This diversity in the treatment of
civil and military delegation explains why in the government of the
Roman community proper no delegated magisterial authority (-pro
magistrate-) was possible, nor were purely urban magistrates ever
represented by non-magistrates; and why, on the other hand, military
deputies (-pro consuls-, -pro praetore-, -pro quaestore-) were
excluded from all action within the community proper.
Nominating a Successor
The right of nominating a successor had not been possessed by the
king, but only by the interrex.(7) The consul was in this respect
placed on a like footing with the latter; nevertheless, in the event
of his not having exercised the power, the interrex stepped in as
before, and the necessary continuity of the office subsisted still
undiminished under the republican government. The right of
nomination, however, was materially restricted in favour of the
burgesses, as the consul was bound to procure the assent of the
burgesses for the successors designated by him, and, in the sequel,
to nominate only those whom the community designated to him. Through
this binding right of proposal the nomination of the ordinary supreme
magistrates doubtless in a certain sense passed substantially into the
hands of the community; practically, however, there still existed a
very considerable distinction between that right of proposal and the
right of formal nomination. The consul conducting the election was by
no means a mere returning officer; he could still, e. g. by virtue of
his old royal prerogative reject particular candidates and disregard
the votes tendered for them; at first he might even limit the choice
to a list of candidates proposed by himself; and--what was of
still more consequence--when the collegiate consulship was to be
supplemented by the dictator, of whom we shall speak immediately,
in so supplementing it the community was not consulted, but on the
contrary the consul in that case appointed his colleague with the
same freedom, wherewith the interrex had once appointed the king.
Change in the Nomination of Priests
The nomination of the priests, which had been a prerogative of the
kings,(8) was not transferred to the consuls; but the colleges of
priests filled up the vacancies in their own ranks, while the Vestals
and single priests were nominated by the pontifical college, on which
devolved also the exercise of the paternal jurisdiction, so to speak,
of the community over the priestesses of Vesta. With a view to the
performance of these acts, which could only be properly performed by
a single individual, the college probably about this period first
nominated a president, the -Pontifex maximus-. This separation of the
supreme authority in things sacred from the civil power--while the
already-mentioned "king for sacrifice" had neither the civil nor the
sacred powers of the king, but simply the title, conferred upon him
--and the semi-magisterial position of the new high priest, so decidedly
contrasting with the character which otherwise marked the priesthood
in Rome, form one of the most significant and important peculiarities
of this state-revolution, the aim of which was to impose limits on the
powers of the magistrates mainly in the interest of the aristocracy.
We have already mentioned that the outward state of the consul was
far inferior to that of the regal office hedged round as it was
with reverence and terror, that the regal name and the priestly
consecration were withheld from him, and that the axe was taken away
from his attendants. We have to add that, instead of the purple
robe which the king had worn, the consul was distinguished from the
ordinary burgess simply by the purple border of his toga, and that,
while the king perhaps regularly appeared in public in his chariot,
the consul was bound to accommodate himself to the general rule and
like every other burgess to go within the city on foot.
The Dictator
These limitations, however, of the plenary power and of the insignia
of the magistracy applied in the main only to the ordinary presidency
of the community. In extraordinary cases, alongside of, and in a
certain sense instead of, the two presidents chosen by the community
there emerged a single one, the master of the army (-magister populi-)
usually designated as the -dictator-. In the choice of dictator the
community exercised no influence at all, but it proceeded solely
from the free resolve of one of the consuls for the time being, whose
action neither his colleague nor any other authority could hinder.
There was no appeal from his sentence any more than from that of the
king, unless he chose to allow it. As soon as he was nominated, all
the other magistrates were by right subject to his authority. On the
other hand the duration of the dictator's office was limited in two
ways: first, as the official colleague of those consuls, one of whom
had nominated him, he might not remain in office beyond their legal
term; and secondly, a period of six months was fixed as the absolute
maximum for the duration of his office. It was a further arrangement
peculiar to the dictatorship, that the "master of the army" was bound
to nominate for himself immediately a "master of horse" (-magister
equitum-), who acted along with him as a dependent assistant somewhat
as did the quaestor along with the consul, and with him retired from
office--an arrangement undoubtedly connected with the fact that
the dictator, presumably as being the leader of the infantry, was
constitutionally prohibited from mounting on horseback. In the light
of these regulations the dictatorship is doubtless to be conceived as
an institution which arose at the same time with the consulship, and
which was designed, especially in the event of war, to obviate for a
time the disadvantages of divided power and to revive temporarily the
regal authority; for in war more particularly the equality of rights
in the consuls could not but appear fraught with danger; and not only
positive testimonies, but above all the oldest names given to the
magistrate himself and his assistant, as well as the limitation of the
office to the duration of a summer campaign, and the exclusion of the
-provocatio- attest the pre-eminently military design of the original
dictatorship.
On the whole, therefore, the consuls continued to be, as the kings had
been, the supreme administrators, judges, and generals; and even in a
religious point of view it was not the -rex sacrorum- (who was only
nominated that the name might be preserved), but the consul, who
offered prayers and sacrifices for the community, and in its name
ascertained the will of the gods with the aid of those skilled in
sacred lore. Against cases of emergency, moreover, a power was
retained of reviving at any moment, without previous consultation of
the community, the full and unlimited regal authority, so as to set
aside the limitations imposed by the collegiate arrangement and by
the special curtailments of jurisdiction. In this way the problem of
legally retaining and practically restricting the regal authority was
solved in genuine Roman fashion with equal acuteness and simplicity
by the nameless statesmen who worked out this revolution.
Centuries and Curies
The community thus acquired by the change of constitution rights
of the greatest importance: the right of annually designating its
presidents, and that of deciding in the last instance regarding the
life or death of the burgess. But the body which acquired these
rights could not possibly be the community as it had been hitherto
constituted--the patriciate which had practically become an order of
nobility. The strength of the nation lay in the "multitude" (-plebs-)
which already comprehended in large numbers people of note and of
wealth. The exclusion of this multitude from the public assembly,
although it bore part of the public burdens, might be tolerated as
long as that public assembly itself had no very material share in
the working of the state machine, and as long as the royal power by
the very fact of its high and free position remained almost equally
formidable to the burgesses and to the --metoeci-- and thereby
maintained equality of legal redress in the nation. But when the
community itself was called regularly to elect and to decide, and the
president was practically reduced from its master to its commissioner
for a set term, this relation could no longer be maintained as it
stood; least of all when the state had to be remodelled on the morrow
of a revolution, which could only have been carried out by the
co-operation of the patricians and the --metoeci--. An extension of
that community was inevitable; and it was accomplished in the most
comprehensive manner, inasmuch as the collective plebeiate, that is,
all the non-burgesses who were neither slaves nor citizens of
extraneous communities living at Rome under the -ius hospitii-,
were admitted into the burgess-body. The curiate assembly of the
old burgesses, which hitherto had been legally and practically the
first authority in the state, was almost totally deprived of its
constitutional prerogatives. It was to retain its previous powers
only in acts purely formal or in those which affected clan-relations
--such as the vow of allegiance to be taken to the consul or to
the dictator when they entered on office just as previously to the
king,(9) and the legal dispensations requisite for an -arrogatio- or
a testament--but it was not in future to perform any act of a properly
political character. Soon even the plebeians were admitted to the
right of voting also in the curies, and by that step the old
burgess-body lost the right of meeting and of resolving at all.
The curial organization was virtually rooted out, in so far as it
was based on the clan-organization and this latter was to be found
in its purity exclusively among the old burgesses. When the plebeians
were admitted into the curies, they were certainly also allowed to
constitute themselves -de jure- as--what in the earlier period they
could only have been -de facto-(10)--families and clans; but it is
distinctly recorded by tradition and in itself also very conceivable,
that only a portion of the plebeians proceeded so far as to constitute
-gentes-, and thus the new curiate assembly, in opposition to its original
character, included numerous members who belonged to no clan.
All the political prerogatives of the public assembly--as well the
decision on appeals in criminal causes, which indeed were essentially
political processes, as the nomination of magistrates and the adoption
or rejection of laws--were transferred to, or were now acquired by,
the assembled levy of those bound to military service; so that the
centuries now received the rights, as they had previously borne the
burdens, of citizens. In this way the small initial movements made by
the Servian constitution--such as, in particular, the handing over to
the army the right of assenting to the declaration of an aggressive
war(11)--attained such a development that the curies were completely
and for ever cast into the shade by the assembly of the centuries, and
people became accustomed to regard the latter as the sovereign people.
In this assembly debate took place merely when the presiding
magistrate chose himself to speak or bade others do so; of course
in cases of appeal both parties had to be heard. A simple majority
of the centuries was decisive.
As in the curiate assembly those who were entitled to vote at all were
on a footing of entire equality, and therefore after the admission
of all the plebeians into the curies the result would have been a
complete democracy, it may be easily conceived that the decision of
political questions continued to be withheld from the curies; the
centuriate assembly placed the preponderating influence, not in the
hands of the nobles certainly, but in those of the possessors of
property, and the important privilege of priority in voting, which
often practically decided the election, placed it in the hands of
the -equites- or, in other words, of the rich.
Senate
The senate was not affected by the reform of the constitution in the
same way as the community. The previously existing college of elders
not only continued exclusively patrician, but retained also its
essential prerogatives--the right of appointing the interrex, and of
confirming or rejecting the resolutions adopted by the community as
constitutional or unconstitutional. In fact these prerogatives were
enhanced by the reform of the constitution, because the appointment
of the magistrates also, which fell to be made by election of the
community, was thenceforth subject to the confirmation or rejection
of the patrician senate. In cases of appeal alone its confirmation,
so far as we know, was never deemed requisite, because in these the
matter at stake was the pardon of the guilty and, when this was
granted by the sovereign assembly of the people, any cancelling
of such an act was wholly out of the question.
But, although by the abolition of the monarchy the constitutional
rights of the patrician senate were increased rather than diminished,
there yet took place--and that, according to tradition, immediately on
the abolition of the monarchy--so far as regards other affairs which
fell to be discussed in the senate and admitted of a freer treatment,
an enlargement of that body, which brought into it plebeians also, and
which in its consequences led to a complete remodelling of the whole.
From the earliest times the senate had acted also, although not solely
or especially, as a state-council; and, while probably even in the
time of the kings it was not regarded as unconstitutional for non-
senators in this case to take part in the assembly,(12) it was now
arranged that for such discussions there should be associated with
the patrician senate (-patres-) a number of non-patricians "added to
the roll" (-conscripti-). This did not at all put them on a footing
of equality; the plebeians in the senate did not become senators, but
remained members of the equestrian order, were not designated -patres-
but were even now -conscripti-, and had no right to the badge of
senatorial dignity, the red shoe.(13) Moreover, they not only
remained absolutely excluded from the exercise of the magisterial
prerogatives belonging to the senate (-auctoritas-), but were obliged,
even where the question had reference merely to an advice (-consilium-),
to rest content with the privilege of being present in silence
while the question was put to the patricians in turn, and of only
indicating their opinion by adding to the numbers when the division
was taken--voting with the feet (-pedibus in sententiam ire-,
-pedarii-) as the proud nobility expressed it. Nevertheless,
the plebeians found their way through the new constitution not
merely to the Forum, but also to the senate-house, and the first
and most difficult step towards equality of rights was taken in
this quarter also.
Otherwise there was no material change in the arrangements affecting
the senate. Among the patrician members a distinction of rank soon
came to be recognized, especially in putting the vote: those who were
proximately designated for the supreme magistracy, or who had already
administered it, were entered on the list and were called upon to vote
before the rest; and the position of the first of them, the foreman of
the senate (-princeps senatus-) soon became a highly coveted place of
honour. The consul in office, on the other hand, no more ranked as a
member of senate than did the king, and therefore in taking the votes
did not include his own. The selection of the members--both of the
narrower patrician senate and of those merely added to the roll--fell
to be made by the consuls just as formerly by the kings; but the
nature of the case implied that, while the king had still perhaps some
measure of regard to the representation of the several clans in the
senate, this consideration was of no account so far as concerned
the plebeians, among whom the clan-organization was but imperfectly
developed, and consequently the relation of the senate to that
organization in general fell more and more into abeyance. We have no
information that the electing consuls were restricted from admitting
more than a definite number of plebeians to the senate; nor was there
need for such a regulation, because the consuls themselves belonged to
the nobility. On the other hand probably from the outset the consul
was in virtue of his very position practically far less free, and
far more bound by the opinions of his order and by custom, in the
appointment of senators than the king. The rule in particular, that
the holding of the consulship should necessarily be followed by
admission to the senate for life, if, as was probably the case at
this time, the consul was not yet a member of it at the time of
his election, must have in all probability very early acquired
consuetudinary force. In like manner it seems to have become early
the custom not to fill up the senators' places immediately on their
falling vacant, but to revise and complete the roll of the senate on
occasion of the census, consequently, as a rule, every fourth year;
which also involved a not unimportant restriction on the authority
entrusted with the selection. The whole number of the senators
remained as before, and in this the -conscripti- were also included;
from which fact we are probably entitled to infer the numerical
falling off of the patriciate.(14)
Conservative Character of the Revolution
We thus see that in the Roman commonwealth, even on the conversion of
the monarchy into a republic, the old was as far as possible retained.
So far as a revolution in a state can be conservative at all, this one
was so; not one of the constituent elements of the commonwealth was
really overthrown by it. This circumstance indicates the character
of the whole movement. The expulsion of the Tarquins was not, as the
pitiful and deeply falsified accounts of it represent, the work of a
people carried away by sympathy and enthusiasm for liberty, but the
work of two great political parties already engaged in conflict, and
clearly aware that their conflict would steadily continue--the old
burgesses and the --metoeci-- --who, like the English Whigs and
Tories in 1688, were for a moment united by the common danger which
threatened to convert the commonwealth into the arbitrary government
of a despot, and differed again as soon as the danger was over.
The old burgesses could not get rid of the monarchy without the
cooperation of the new burgesses; but the new burgesses were far from
being sufficiently strong to wrest the power out of the hands of the
former at one blow. Compromises of this sort are necessarily limited
to the smallest measure of mutual concessions obtained by tedious
bargaining; and they leave the future to decide which of the
constituent elements shall eventually preponderate, and whether they
will work harmoniously together or counteract one another. To look
therefore merely to the direct innovations, possibly to the mere
change in the duration of the supreme magistracy, is altogether to
mistake the broad import of the first Roman revolution: its indirect
effects were by far the most important, and vaster doubtless than
even its authors anticipated.
The New Community
This, in short, was the time when the Roman burgess-body in the
later sense of the term originated. The plebeians had hitherto been
--metoeci-- who were subjected to their share of taxes and burdens,
but who were nevertheless in the eye of the law really nothing but
tolerated aliens, between whose position and that of foreigners proper
it may have seemed hardly necessary to draw a definite line of
distinction. They were now enrolled in the lists as burgesses liable
to military service, and, although they were still far from being on
a footing of legal equality--although the old burgesses still remained
exclusively entitled to perform the acts of authority constitutionally
pertaining to the council of elders, and exclusively eligible to the
civil magistracies and priesthoods, nay even by preference entitled to
participate in the usufructs of burgesses, such as the joint use of
the public pasture--yet the first and most difficult step towards
complete equalization was gained from the time when the plebeians no
longer served merely in the common levy, but also voted in the common
assembly and in the common council when its opinion was asked, and the
head and back of the poorest --metoikos-- were as well protected by
the right of appeal as those of the noblest of the old burgesses.
One consequence of this amalgamation of the patricians and plebeians
in a new corporation of Roman burgesses was the conversion of the
old burgesses into a clan-nobility, which was incapable of receiving
additions or even of filling up its own ranks, since the nobles no
longer possessed the right of passing decrees in common assembly
and the adoption of new families into the nobility by decree of the
community appeared still less admissible. Under the kings the ranks
of the Roman nobility had not been thus closed, and the admission of
new clans was no very rare occurrence: now this genuine characteristic
of patricianism made its appearance as the sure herald of the speedy
loss of its political privileges and of its exclusive estimation
in the community. The exclusion of the plebeians from all public
magistracies and public priesthoods--while they were admissible to
the position of officers and senators--and the maintenance, with
perverse obstinacy, of the legal impossibility of marriage between old
burgesses and plebeians, further impressed on the patriciate from the
outset the stamp of an exclusive and wrongly privileged aristocracy.
A second consequence of the new union of the burgesses must have been
a more definite regulation of the right of settlement, with reference
both to the Latin confederates and to other states. It became
necessary--not so much on account of the right of suffrage in the
centuries (which indeed belonged only to the freeholder) as on
account of the right of appeal, which was intended to be conceded
to the plebeian, but not to the foreigner dwelling for a time or
even permanently in Rome--to express more precisely the conditions
of the acquisition of plebeian rights, and to mark off the enlarged
burgess-body in its turn from those who were now the non-burgesses.
To thisepoch therefore we may trace back--in the views and feelings
of the people--both the invidiousness of the distinction between
patricians and plebeians, and the strict and haughty line of demarcation
between -cives Romani- and aliens. But the former civic distinction was
in its nature transient, while the latter political one was permanent;
and the sense of political unity and rising greatness, which was thus
implanted in the heart of the nation, was expansive enough first
to undermine and then to carry away with its mighty current those
paltry distinctions.
Law and Edict
It was at this period, moreover, that law and edict were separated.
The distinction indeed had its foundation in the essential character
of the Roman state; for even the regal power in Rome was subordinate,
not superior, to the law of the land. But the profound and practical
veneration, which the Romans, like every other people of political
capacity, cherished for the principle of authority, gave birth to the
remarkable rule of Roman constitutional and private law, that every
command of the magistrate not based upon a law was at least valid
during his tenure of office, although it expired with that tenure.
It is evident that in this view, so long as the presidents were
nominated for life, the distinction between law and edict must have
practically been almost lost sight of, and the legislative activity
of the public assembly could acquire no development. On the other
hand it obtained a wide field of action after the presidents were
changed annually; and the fact was now by no means void of practical
importance, that, if the consul in deciding a process committed a
legal informality, his successor could institute a fresh trial of
the cause.
Civil and Military Authority
It was at this period, finally, that the provinces of civil and
military authority were separated. In the former the law ruled,
in the latter the axe: the former was governed by the constitutional
checks of the right of appeal and of regulated delegation; in the
latter the general held an absolute sway like the king.(15) It was
an established principle, that the general and the army as such should
not under ordinary circumstances enter the city proper. That organic
and permanently operative enactments could only be made under the
authority of the civil power, was implied in the spirit, if not in the
letter, of the constitution. Instances indeed occasionally occurred
where the general, disregarding this principle, convoked his forces
in the camp as a burgess assembly, nor was a decree passed under
such circumstances legally void; but custom disapproved of such
a proceeding, and it soon fell into disuse as though it had been
forbidden. The distinction between Quirites and soldiers became
more and more deeply rooted in the minds of the burgesses.
Government of the Patriciate
Time however was required for the development of these consequences
of the new republicanism; vividly as posterity felt its effects,
the revolution probably appeared to the contemporary world at first
in a different light. The non-burgesses indeed gained by it
burgess-rights, and the new burgess-body acquired in the -comitia
centuriata- comprehensive prerogatives; but the right of rejection on
the part of the patrician senate, which in firm and serried ranks
confronted the -comitia- as if it were an Upper House, legally hampered
their freedom of movement precisely in the most important matters, and
although not in a position to thwart the serious will of the collective
body, could yet practically delay and cripple it. If the nobility in
giving up their claim to be the sole embodiment of the community did not
seem to have lost much, they had in other respects decidedly gained.
The king, it is true, was a patrician as well as the consul, and the
right of nominating the members of the senate belonged to the latter as
to the former; but while his exceptional position raised the former no
less above the patricians than above the plebeians, and while cases
might easily occur in which he would be obliged to lean upon the
support of the multitude even against the nobility, the consul--ruling
for a brief term, but before and after that term simply one of the
nobility, and obeying to-morrow the noble fellow-burgess whom he had
commanded to-day--by no means occupied a position aloof from his
order, and the spirit of the noble in him must have been far more
powerful than that of the magistrate. Indeed, if at any time by
way of exception a patrician disinclined to the rule of the nobility
was called to the government, his official authority was paralyzed
partly by the priestly colleges, which were pervaded by an intense
aristocratic spirit, partly by his colleague, and was easily suspended
by the dictatorship; and, what was of still more moment, he wanted
the first element of political power, time. The president of a
commonwealth, whatever plenary authority may be conceded to him,
will never gain possession of political power, if he does not continue
for some considerable time at the head of affairs; for a necessary
condition of every dominion is duration. Consequently the senate
appointed for life inevitably acquired--and that by virtue chiefly
of its title to advise the magistrate in all points, so that we speak
not of the narrower patrician, but of the enlarged patricio-plebeian,
senate--so great an influence as contrasted with the annual rulers,
that their legal relations became precisely inverted; the senate
substantially assumed to itself the powers of government, and
the former ruler sank into a president acting as its chairman and
executing its decrees. In the case of every proposal to be submitted
to the community for acceptance or rejection the practice of
previously consulting the whole senate and obtaining its approval,
while not constitutionally necessary, was consecrated by use and wont;
and it was not lightly or willingly departed from. The same course
was followed in the case of important state-treaties, of the
management and distribution of the public lands, and generally of
every act the effects of which extended beyond the official year;
and nothing was left to the consul but the transaction of current
business, the initial steps in civil processes, and the command in
war. Especially important in its consequences was the change in
virtue of which neither the consul, nor even the otherwise absolute
dictator, was permitted to touch the public treasure except with the
consent and by the will of the senate. The senate made it obligatory
on the consuls to commit the administration of the public chest, which
the king had managed or might at any rate have managed himself, to two
standing subordinate magistrates, who were nominated no doubt by the
consuls and had to obey them, but were, as may easily be conceived,
much more dependent than the consuls themselves on the senate.(16)
It thus drew into its own hands the management of finance; and this
right of sanctioning the expenditure of money on the part of the
Roman senate may be placed on a parallel in its effects with the
right of sanctioning taxation in the constitutional monarchies
of the present day.
The consequences followed as a matter of course. The first and
most essential condition of all aristocratic government is, that
the plenary power of the state be vested not in an individual but
in a corporation. Now a preponderantly aristocratic corporation,
the senate, had appropriated to itself the government, and at the
same time the executive power not only remained in the hands of the
nobility, but was also entirely subject to the governing corporation.
It is true that a considerable number of men not belonging to the
nobility sat in the senate; but as they were incapable of holding
magistracies or even of taking part in the debates, and thus were
excluded from all practical share in the government, they necessarily
played a subordinate part in the senate, and were moreover kept in
pecuniary dependence on the corporation through the economically
important privilege of using the public pasture. The gradually
recognized right of the patrician consuls to revise and modify the
senatorial list at least every fourth year, ineffective as presumably
it was over against the nobility, might very well be employed in their
interest, and an obnoxious plebeian might by means of it be kept out
of the senate or even be removed from its ranks.
The Plebeian Opposition
It is therefore quite true that the immediate effect of the revolution
was to establish the aristocratic government. It is not, however, the
whole truth. While the majority of contemporaries probably thought
that the revolution had brought upon the plebeians only a more rigid
despotism, we who come afterwards discern in that very revolution the
germs of young liberty. What the patricians gained was gained at the
expense not of the community, but of the magistrate's power. It is
true that the community gained only a few narrowly restricted rights,
which were far less practical and palpable than the acquisitions
of the nobility, and which not one in a thousand probably had the
wisdom to value; but they formed a pledge and earnest of the future.
Hitherto the --metoeci-- had been politically nothing, the old
burgesses had been everything; now that the former were embraced
in the community, the old burgesses were overcome; for, however much
might still be wanting to full civil equality, it is the first breach,
not the occupation of the last post, that decides the fall of the
fortress. With justice therefore the Roman community dated its
political existence from the beginning of the consulate.
While however the republican revolution may, notwithstanding the
aristocratic rule which in the first instance it established, be
justly called a victory of the former --metoeci-- or the -plebs-,
the revolution even in this respect bore by no means the character
which we are accustomed in the present day to designate as democratic.
Pure personal merit without the support of birth and wealth could
perhaps gain influence and consideration more easily under the regal
government than under that of the patriciate. Then admission to
the patriciate was not in law foreclosed; now the highest object of
plebeian ambition was to be admitted into the dumb appendage of
the senate. The nature of the case implied that the governing
aristocratic order, so far as it admitted plebeians at all, would
grant the right of occupying seats in the senate not absolutely to
the best men, but chiefly to the heads of the wealthy and notable
plebeian families; and the families thus admitted jealously guarded
the possession of the senatorial stalls. While a complete legal
equality therefore had subsisted within the old burgess-body, the
new burgess-body or former --metoeci-- came to be in this way divided
from the first into a number of privileged families and a multitude
kept in a position of inferiority. But the power of the community now
according to the centuriate organization came into the hands of that
class which since the Servian reform of the army and of taxation had
borne mainly the burdens of the state, namely the freeholders, and
indeed not so much into the hands of the great proprietors or into
those of the small cottagers, as into those of the intermediate class
of farmers--an arrangement in which the seniors were still so far
privileged that, although less numerous, they had as many voting-
divisions as the juniors. While in this way the axe was laid to the
root of the old burgess-body and their clan-nobility, and the basis
of a new burgess-body was laid, the preponderance in the latter rested
on the possession of land and on age, and the first beginnings were
already visible of a new aristocracy based primarily on the actual
consideration in which the families were held--the future nobility.
There could be no clearer indication of the fundamentally conservative
character of the Roman commonwealth than the fact, that the revolution
which gave birth to the republic laid down at the same time the
primary outlines of a new organization of the state, which was in
like manner conservative and in like manner aristocratic.
Notes for Book II Chapter I
1. I. IX. The Tarquins
2. The well-known fable for the most part refutes itself. To a
considerable extent it has been concocted for the explanation of
surnames (-Brutus-, -Poplicola-, -Scaevola-). But even its apparently
historical ingredients are found on closer examination to have been
invented. Of this character is the statement that Brutus was captain
of the horsemen (-tribunus celerum-) and in that capacity proposed
the decree of the people as to the banishment of the Tarquins; for,
according to the Roman constitution, it is quite impossible that a
mere officer should have had the right to convoke the curies. The
whole of this statement has evidently been invented with the view of
furnishing a legal basis for the Roman republic; and very ill invented
it is, for in its case the -tribunus celerum- is confounded with the
entirely different -magister equitum- (V. Burdens Of The Burgesses
f.), and then the right of convoking the centuries which pertained
to the latter by virtue of his praetorian rank is made to apply to
the assembly of the curies.
3. -Consules- are those who "leap or dance together," as -praesul- is
one who "leaps before," -exsul-, one who "leaps out" (--o ekpeson--),
-insula-, a "leap into," primarily applied to a mass of rock fallen
into the sea.
4. The day of entering on office did not coincide with the beginning
of the year (1st March), and was not at all fixed. The day of
retiring was regulated by it, except when a consul was elected
expressly in room of one who had dropped out (-consul suffectus-);
in which case the substitute succeeded to the rights and consequently
to the term of him whom he replaced. But these supplementary consuls
in the earlier period only occurred when merely one of the consuls had
dropped out: pairs of supplementary consuls are not found until the
later ages of the republic. Ordinarily, therefore, the official year
of a consul consisted of unequal portions of two civil years.
5. I. V. The King
6. I. XI. Crimes
7. I. V. Prerogatives of the Senate
8. I. V. The King
9. I. V. The King
10. I. VI. Dependents and Guests
11. I. VI. Political Effects of the Servian Military Organization
12. I. V. The Senate as State Council
13. I. V. Prerogatives of the Senate
14. That the first consuls admitted to the senate 164 plebeians, is
hardly to be regarded as a historical fact, but rather as a proof that
the later Roman archaeologists were unable to point out more than 136
-gentes- of the Roman nobility (Rom, Forsch. i. 121).
15. It may not be superfluous to remark, that the -iudicium
legitimum-, as well as that -quod imperio continetur-, rested on
the imperium of the directing magistrate, and the distinction only
consisted in the circumstance that the -imperium- was in the former
case limited by the -lex-, while in the latter it was free.
16. II. I. Restrictions on the Delegation of Powers
CHAPTER II
The Tribunate of the Plebs and the Decemvirate
Material Interests
Under the new organization of the commonwealth the old burgesses had
attained by legal means to the full possession of political power.
Governing through the magistracy which had been reduced to be their
servant, preponderating in the Senate, in sole possession of all
public offices and priesthoods, armed with exclusive cognizance of
things human and divine and familiar with the whole routine of
political procedure, influential in the public assembly through the
large number of pliant adherents attached to the several families,
and, lastly, entitled to examine and to reject every decree of the
community,--the patricians might have long preserved their practical
power, just because they had at the right time abandoned their claim
to sole legal authority. It is true that the plebeians could not but
be painfully sensible of their political disabilities; but undoubtedly
in the first instance the nobility had not much to fear from a purely
political opposition, if it understood the art of keeping the
multitude, which desired nothing but equitable administration and
protection of its material interests, aloof from political strife.
In fact during the first period after the expulsion of the kings we
meet with various measures which were intended, or at any rate seemed
to be intended, to gain the favour of the commons for the government
of the nobility especially on economic grounds. The port-dues were
reduced; when the price of grain was high, large quantities of corn
were purchased on account of the state, and the trade in salt was made
a state-monopoly, in order to supply the citizens with corn and salt
at reasonable prices; lastly, the national festival was prolonged for
an additional day. Of the same character was the ordinance which we
have already mentioned respecting property fines,(1) which was not
merely intended in general to set limits to the dangerous
fining-prerogative of the magistrates, but was also, in a significant
manner, calculated for the especial protection of the man of small means.
The magistrate was prohibited from fining the same man on the same
day to an extent beyond two sheep or beyond thirty oxen, without
granting leave to appeal; and the reason of these singular rates
can only perhaps be found in the fact, that in the case of the man of
small means possessing only a few sheep a different maximum appeared
necessary from that fixed for the wealthy proprietor of herds of oxen
--a considerate regard to the wealth or poverty of the person fined,
from which modern legislators might take a lesson.
But these regulations were merely superficial; the main current flowed
in the opposite direction. With the change in the constitution
there was introduced a comprehensive revolution in the financial and
economic relations of Rome, The government of the kings had probably
abstained on principle from enhancing the power of capital, and had
promoted as far as it could an increase in the number of farms.
The new aristocratic government, again, appears to have aimed from
the first at the destruction of the middle classes, particularly of
the intermediate and smaller holdings of land, and at the development
of a domination of landed and moneyed lords on the one hand, and of
an agricultural proletariate on the other.
Rising Power of the Capitalists
The reduction of the port-dues, although upon the whole a popular
measure, chiefly benefited the great merchant. But a much greater
accession to the power of capital was supplied by the indirect system
of finance-administration. It is difficult to say what were the
remote causes that gave rise to it: but, while its origin may
probably be referred to the regal period, after the introduction of
the consulate the importance of the intervention of private agency
must have been greatly increased, partly by the rapid succession of
magistrates in Rome, partly by the extension of the financial action
of the treasury to such matters as the purchase and sale of grain and
salt; and thus the foundation must have been laid for that system of
farming the finances, the development of which became so momentous and
so pernicious for the Roman commonwealth. The state gradually put
all its indirect revenues and all its more complicated payments and
transactions into the hands of middlemen, who gave or received a round
sum and then managed the matter for their own benefit. Of course only
considerable capitalists and, as the state looked strictly to tangible
security, in the main only large landholders, could enter into such
engagements: and thus there grew up a class of tax-farmers and
contractors, who, in the rapid growth of their wealth, in their
power over the state to which they appeared to be servants, and
in the absurd and sterile basis of their moneyed dominion, quite
admit of comparison with the speculators on the stock exchange
of the present day.
Public Land
The concentrated aspect assumed by the administration of finance
showed itself first and most palpably in the treatment of the public
lands, which tended almost directly to accomplish the material and
moral annihilation of the middle classes. The use of the public
pasture and of the state-domains generally was from its very nature
a privilege of burgesses; formal law excluded the plebeian from
the joint use of the common pasture. As however, apart from
the conversion of the public land into private property or its
assignation, Roman law knew no fixed rights of usufruct on the part
of individual burgesses to be respected like those of property, it
depended solely on the pleasure of the king, so long as the public
land remained such, to grant and to define its joint enjoyment; and it
is not to be doubted that he frequently made use of his right, or at
least his power, as to this matter in favour of plebeians. But on the
introduction of the republic the principle was again strictly insisted
on, that the use of the common pasture belonged in law merely to the
burgess of best right, or in other words to the patrician; and, though
the senate still as before allowed exceptions in favour of the wealthy
plebeian houses represented in it, the small plebeian landholders and
the day-labourers, who stood most in need of the common pasture, had
its joint enjoyment injuriously withheld from them. Moreover there
had hitherto been paid for the cattle driven out on the common pasture
a grazing-tax, which was moderate enough to make the right of using
that pasture still be regarded as a privilege, and yet yielded no
inconsiderable revenue to the public purse. The patrician quaestors
were now remiss and indulgent in levying it, and gradually allowed it
to fall into desuetude. Hitherto, particularly when new domains were
acquired by conquest, allocations of land had been regularly arranged,
in which all the poorer burgesses and --metoeci-- were provided for;
it was only the land which was not suitable for agriculture that was
annexed to the common pasture. The ruling class did not venture
wholly to give up such assignations, and still less to propose them
merely in favour of the rich; but they became fewer and scantier, and
were replaced by the pernicious system of occupation-that is to say,
the cession of domain-lands, not in property or under formal lease for
a definite term, but in special usufruct until further notice, to the
first occupant and his heirs-at-law, so that the state was at any time
entitled to resume them, and the occupier had to pay the tenth sheaf,
or in oil and wine the fifth part of the produce, to the exchequer.
This was simply the -precarium- already described(2) applied to the
state-domains, and may have been already in use as to the public land
at an earlier period, particularly as a temporary arrangement until
its assignation should be carried out. Now, however, not only did
this occupation-tenure become permanent, but, as was natural, none but
privileged persons or their favourites participated, and the tenth and
fifth were collected with the same negligence as the grazing-money.
A threefold blow was thus struck at the intermediate and smaller
landholders: they were deprived of the common usufructs of burgesses;
the burden of taxation was increased in consequence of the domain
revenues no longer flowing regularly into the public chest; and those
land-allocations were stopped, which had provided a constant outlet
for the agricultural proletariate somewhat as a great and well-regulated
system of emigration would do at the present day. To these
evils was added the farming on a large scale, which was probably
already beginning to come into vogue, dispossessing the small agrarian
clients, and in their stead cultivating the estates by rural slaves;
a blow, which was more difficult to avert and perhaps more pernicious
than all those political usurpations put together. The burdensome and
partly unfortunate wars, and the exorbitant taxes and task-works to
which these gave rise, filled up the measure of calamity, so as either
to deprive the possessor directly of his farm and to make him the
bondsman if not the slave of his creditor-lord, or to reduce him
through encumbrances practically to the condition of a temporary
lessee of his creditor. The capitalists, to whom a new field was
here opened of lucrative speculation unattended by trouble or risk,
sometimes augmented in this way their landed property; sometimes they
left to the farmer, whose person and estate the law of debt placed in
their hands, nominal proprietorship and actual possession. The latter
course was probably the most common as well as the most pernicious;
for while utter ruin might thereby be averted from the individual,
this precarious position of the farmer, dependent at all times on the
mercy of his creditor--a position in which he knew nothing of property
but its burdens--threatened to demoralise and politically to
annihilate the whole farmer-class. The intention of the legislator,
when instead of mortgaging he prescribed the immediate transfer of
the property to the creditor with a view to prevent insolvency and to
devolve the burdens of the state on the real holders of the soil,(3)
was evaded by the rigorous system of personal credit, which might
be very suitable for merchants, but ruined the farmers. The free
divisibility of the soil always involved the risk of an insolvent
agricultural proletariate; and under such circumstances, when all
burdens were increasing and all means of deliverance were foreclosed,
distress and despair could not but spread with fearful rapidity among
the agricultural middle class.
Relations of the Social Question to the Question between Orders
The distinction between rich and poor, which arose out of these
relations, by no means coincided with that between the clans and the
plebeians. If far the greater part of the patricians were wealthy
landholders, opulent and considerable families were, of course,
not wanting among the plebeians; and as the senate, which even then
perhaps consisted in greater part of plebeians, had assumed the
superintendence of the finances to the exclusion even of the patrician
magistrates, it was natural that all those economic advantages, for
which the political privileges of the nobility were abused, should go
to the benefit of the wealthy collectively; and the pressure fell the
more heavily upon the commons, since those who were the ablest and
the most capable of resistance were by their admission to the senate
transferred from the class of the oppressed to the ranks of
the oppressors.
But this state of things prevented the political position of the
aristocracy from being permanently tenable. Had it possessed the
self-control to govern justly and to protect the middle class--as
individual consuls from its ranks endeavoured, but from the reduced
position of the magistracy were unable effectually, to do--it might
have long maintained itself in sole possession of the offices of
state. Had it been willing to admit the wealthy and respectable
plebeians to full equality of rights--possibly by connecting the
acquisition of the patriciate with admission into the senate--both
might long have governed and speculated with impunity. But neither
of these courses was adopted; the narrowness of mind and short-
sightedness, which are the proper and inalienable privileges of
all genuine patricianism, were true to their character also in Rome,
and rent the powerful commonwealth asunder in useless, aimless,
and inglorious strife.
Secession to the Sacred Mount
The immediate crisis however proceeded not from those who felt the
disabilities of their order, but from the distress of the farmers.
The rectified annals place the political revolution in the year 244,
the social in the years 259 and 260; they certainly appear to have
followed close upon each other, but the interval was probably longer.
The strict enforcement of the law of debt--so runs the story--excited
the indignation of the farmers at large. When in the year 259 the
levy was called forth for a dangerous war, the men bound to serve
refused to obey the command. Thereupon the consul Publius Servilius
suspended for a time the application of the debtor-laws, and gave
orders to liberate the persons already imprisoned for debt as well as
prohibited further arrests; so that the farmers took their places in
the ranks and helped to secure the victory. On their return from the
field of battle the peace, which had been achieved by their exertions,
brought back their prison and their chains: with merciless rigour
the second consul, Appius Claudius, enforced the debtor-laws and his
colleague, to whom his former soldiers appealed for aid, dared not
offer opposition. It seemed as if collegiate rule had been introduced
not for the protection of the people, but to facilitate breach of
faith and despotism; they endured, however, what could not be changed.
But when in the following year the war was renewed, the word of the
consul availed no longer. It was not till Manius Valerius was
nominated dictator that the farmers submitted, partly from their awe
of the higher magisterial authority, partly from their confidence in
his friendly feeling to the popular cause--for the Valerii were one of
those old patrician clans by whom government was esteemed a privilege
and an honour, not a source of gain. The victory was again with the
Roman standards; but when the victors came home and the dictator
submitted his proposals of reform to the senate, they were thwarted
by its obstinate opposition. The army still stood in its array, as
usual, before the gates of the city. When the news arrived, the long
threatening storm burst forth; the -esprit de corps- and the compact
military organization carried even the timid and the indifferent along
with the movement. The army abandoned its general and its encampment,
and under the leadership of the commanders of the legions--the
military tribunes, who were at least in great part plebeians--marched
in martial order into the district of Crustumeria between the Tiber
and the Anio, where it occupied a hill and threatened to establish
in this most fertile part of the Roman territory a new plebeian city.
This secession showed in a palpable manner even to the most obstinate
of the oppressors that such a civil war must end with economic ruin
to themselves; and the senate gave way. The dictator negotiated an
agreement; the citizens returned within the city walls; unity was
outwardly restored. The people gave Manius Valerius thenceforth the
name of "the great" (-maximus-)--and called the mount beyond the Anio
"the sacred mount." There was something mighty and elevating in such
a revolution, undertaken by the multitude itself without definite
guidance under generals whom accident supplied, and accomplished
without bloodshed; and with pleasure and pride the citizens recalled
its memory. Its consequences were felt for many centuries: it was
the origin of the tribunate of the plebs.
Plebian Tribunes and Plebian Aediles
In addition to temporary enactments, particularly for remedying the
most urgent distress occasioned by debt, and for providing for a
number of the rural population by the founding of various colonies,
the dictator carried in constitutional form a law, which he moreover
--doubtless in order to secure amnesty to the burgesses for the
breach of their military oath--caused every individual member of the
community to swear to, and then had it deposited in a temple under the
charge and custody of two magistrates specially appointed from the
plebs for the purpose, the two "house-masters" (-aediles-). This law
placed by the side of the two patrician consuls two plebeian tribunes,
who were to be elected by the plebeians assembled in curies. The
power of the tribunes was of no avail in opposition to the military
-imperium-, that is, in opposition to the authority of the dictator
everywhere or to that of the consuls beyond the city; but it
confronted, on a footing of independence and equality, the ordinary
civil powers which the consuls exercised. There was, however, no
partition of powers. The tribunes obtained the right which pertained
to the consul against his fellow-consul and all the more against an
inferior magistrate,(4) namely, the right to cancel any command issued
by a magistrate, as to which the burgess whom it affected held himself
aggrieved and lodged a complaint, through their protest timeously
and personally interposed, and likewise of hindering or cancelling
at discretion any proposal made by a magistrate to the burgesses,
in other words, the right of intercession or the so-called
tribunician veto.
Intercession
The power of the tribunes, therefore, primarily involved the right
of putting a stop to administration and to judicial action at their
pleasure, of enabling a person bound to military service to withhold
himself from the levy with impunity, of preventing or cancelling the
raising of an action and legal execution against the debtor, the
initiation of a criminal process and the arrest of the accused while
the investigation was pending, and other powers of the same sort.
That this legal help might not be frustrated by the absence of the
helpers, it was further ordained that the tribune should not spend
a night out of the city, and that his door must stand open day and
night. Moreover, it lay in the power of the tribunate of the people
through a single word of a single tribune to restrain the adoption
of a resolution by the community, which otherwise by virtue of its
sovereign right might have without ceremony recalled the privileges
conferred by it on the plebs.
But these rights would have been ineffective, if there had not
belonged to the tribune of the people an instantaneously operative
and irresistible power of enforcing them against him who did not
regard them, and especially against the magistrate contravening them.
This was conferred in such a form that the acting in opposition to
the tribune when making use of his right, above all things the laying
hands on his person, which at the Sacred Mount every plebeian, man by
man for himself and his descendants, had sworn to protect now and in
all time to come from all harm, should be a capital crime; and the
exercise of this criminal justice was committed not to the magistrates
of the community but to those of the plebs. The tribune might in
virtue of this his judicial office call to account any burgess,
especially the consul in office, have him seized if he should not
voluntarily submit, place him under arrest during investigation or
allow him to find bail, and then sentence him to death or to a fine.
For this purpose the two plebeian aediles appointed at the same
time were attached to the tribunes as their servants and assistants,
primarily to effect arrest, on which account the same inviolable
character was assured to them also by the collective oath of the
plebeians. Moreover the aediles themselves had judicial powers like
the tribunes, but only for the minor causes that might be settled by
fines. If an appeal was lodged against the decision of tribune or
aedile, it was addressed not to the whole body of the burgesses, with
which the officials of the plebs were not entitled at all to transact
business, but to the whole body of the plebeians, which in this case
met by curies and finally decided by majority of votes.
This procedure certainly savoured of violence rather than of justice,
especially when it was adopted against a non-plebeian, as must in fact
have been ordinarily the case. It was not to be reconciled either
with the letter or the spirit of the constitution that a patrician
should be called to account by authorities who presided not over the
body of burgesses, but over an association formed within it, and that
he should be compelled to appeal, not to the burgesses, but to this
very association. This was originally without question Lynch justice;
but the self-help was doubtless carried into effect from early times
in form of law, and was after the legal recognition of the tribunate
of the plebs regarded as lawfully admissible.
In point of intention this new jurisdiction of the tribunes and the
aediles, and the appellate decision of the plebeian assembly therein
originating, were beyond doubt just as much bound to the laws as the
jurisdiction of the consuls and quaestors and the judgment of the
centuries on appeal; the legal conceptions of crime against the
community(5) and of offences against order(6) were transferred from
the community and its magistrates to the plebs and its champions.
But these conceptions were themselves so little fixed, and their
statutory definition was so difficult and indeed impossible, that
the administration of justice under these categories from its very
nature bore almost inevitably the stamp of arbitrariness. And now
when the very idea of right had become obscured amidst the struggles
of the orders, and when the legal party--leaders on both sides were
furnished with a co-ordinate jurisdiction, this jurisdiction must have
more and more approximated to a mere arbitrary police. It affected
in particular the magistrate. Hitherto the latter according to
Roman state law, so long as he was a magistrate, was amenable to no
jurisdiction at all, and, although after demitting his office he might
have been legally made responsible for each of his acts, the exercise
of this right lay withal in the hands of the members of his own order
and ultimately of the collective community, to which these likewise
belonged. Now in the tribunician jurisdiction there emerged a new
power, which on the one hand might interfere against the supreme
magistrate even during his tenure of office, and on the other hand
was wielded against the noble burgesses exclusively by the non-noble,
and which was the more oppressive that neither the crime nor its
punishment was formally defined by law. In reality through the
co-ordinate jurisdiction of the plebs and the community the estates,
limbs, and lives of the burgesses were abandoned to the arbitrary
pleasure of the party assemblies.
In civil jurisdiction the plebeian institutions interfered only so
far, that in the processes affecting freedom, which were so important
for the plebs, the nomination of jurymen was withdrawn from the
consuls, and the decisions in such cases were pronounced by the
"ten-men-judges" destined specially for that purpose (-iudices-,
-decemviri-, afterwards -decemviri litibus iudicandis-).
Legislation
With this co-ordinate jurisdiction there was further associated a
co-ordinate initiative in legislation. The right of assembling the
members and of procuring decrees on their part already pertained to
the tribunes, in so far as no association at all can be conceived
without such a right. But it was conferred upon them, in a marked
way, by legally securing that the autonomous right of the plebs to
assemble and pass resolutions should not be interfered with on the
part of the magistrates of the community or, in fact, of the community
itself. At all events it was the necessary preliminary to the legal
recognition of the plebs generally, that the tribunes could not be
hindered from having their successors elected by the assembly of the
plebs and from procuring the confirmation of their criminal sentences
by the same body; and this right accordingly was further specially
guaranteed to them by the Icilian law (262), which threatened with
severe punishment any one who should interrupt the tribune while
speaking, or should bid the assembly disperse. It is evident that
under such circumstances the tribune could not well be prevented from
taking a vote on other proposals than the choice of his successor and
the confirmation of his sentences. Such "resolves of the multitude"
(-plebi scita-) were not indeed strictly valid decrees of the
people; on the contrary, they were at first little more than are
the resolutions of our modern public meetings; but, as the distinction
between the comitia of the people and the councils of the multitude
was of a formal nature rather than aught else, the validity of these
resolves as autonomous determinations of the community was at once
claimed at least on the part of the plebeians, and the Icilian law for
instance was immediately carried in this way. Thus was the tribune of
the people appointed as a shield and protection for the individual,
and as leader and manager for all, provided with unlimited judicial
power in criminal proceedings, that in this way he might give emphasis
to his command, and lastly even pronounced to be in his person
inviolable (-sacrosanctus-), inasmuch as whoever laid hands upon
him or his servant was not merely regarded as incurring the vengeance
of the gods, but was also among men accounted as if, after legally
proven crime, deserving of death.
Relation of the Tribune to the Consul
The tribunes of the multitude (-tribuni plebis-) arose out
of the military tribunes and derived from them their name; but
constitutionally they had no further relation to them. On the
contrary, in respect of powers the tribunes of the plebs stood on a
level with the consuls. The appeal from the consul to the tribune,
and the tribune's right of intercession in opposition to the consul,
were, as has been already said, precisely of the same nature with the
appeal from consul to consul and the intercession of the one consul in
opposition to the other; and both cases were simply applications of
the general principle of law that, where two equal authorities differ,
the veto prevails over the command. Moreover the original number
(which indeed was soon augmented), and the annual duration of the
magistracy, which in the case of the tribunes changed its occupants
on the 10th of December, were common to the tribunes and the consuls.
They shared also the peculiar collegiate arrangement, which placed the
full powers of the office in the hands of each individual consul and
of each individual tribune, and, when collisions occurred within the
college, did not count the votes, but gave the Nay precedence over
the Yea; for which reason, when a tribune forbade, the veto of the
individual was sufficient notwithstanding the opposition of his
colleagues, while on the other hand, when he brought an accusation,
he could be thwarted by any one of those colleagues. Both consuls and
tribunes had full and co-ordinate criminal jurisdiction, although the
former exercised it indirectly, and the latter directly; as the two
quaestors were attached to the former, the two aediles were associated
with the latter.(7) The consuls were necessarily patricians, the
tribunes necessarily plebeians. The former had the ampler power, the
latter the more unlimited, for the consul submitted to the prohibition
and the judgment of the tribunes, but the tribune did not submit
himself to the consul. Thus the tribunician power was a copy of the
consular; but it was none the less a contrast to it. The power of
the consuls was essentially positive, that of the tribunes essentially
negative. The consuls alone were magistrates of the Roman people, not
the tribunes; for the former were elected by the whole burgesses, the
latter only by the plebeian association. In token of this the consul
appeared in public with the apparel and retinue pertaining to state-
officials; the tribunes sat on a stool instead of the "chariot seat,"
and lacked the official attendants, the purple border, and generally
all the insignia of magistracy: even in the senate the tribune had
neither presidency nor so much as a seat. Thus in this remarkable
institution absolute prohibition was in the most stern and abrupt
fashion opposed to absolute command; the quarrel was settled by
legally recognizing and regulating the discord between rich and poor.
Political Value of the Tribunate
But what was gained by a measure which broke up the unity of the
state; which subjected the magistrates to a controlling authority
unsteady in its action and dependent on all the passions of
the moment; which in the hour of peril might have brought the
administration to a dead-lock at the bidding of any one of the
opposition chiefs elevated to the rival throne; and which, by
investing all the magistrates with co-ordinate jurisdiction in
the administration of criminal law, as it were formally transferred
that administration from the domain of law to that of politics
and corrupted it for all time coming? It is true indeed that the
tribunate, if it did not directly contribute to the political
equalization of the orders, served as a powerful weapon in the hands
of the plebeians when these soon afterwards desired admission to the
offices of state. But this was not the real design of the tribunate.
It was a concession wrung not from the politically privileged order,
but from the rich landlords and capitalists; it was designed to ensure
to the commons equitable administration of law, and to promote a more
judicious administration of finance. This design it did not, and
could not, fulfil. The tribune might put a stop to particular
iniquities, to individual instances of crying hardship; but the fault
lay not in the unfair working of a righteous law, but in a law which
was itself unrighteous, and how could the tribune regularly obstruct
the ordinary course of justice? Could he have done so, it would have
served little to remedy the evil, unless the sources of impoverishment
were stopped--the perverse taxation, the wretched system of credit,
and the pernicious occupation of the domain-lands. But such measures
were not attempted, evidently because the wealthy plebeians themselves
had no less interest in these abuses than the patricians. So this
singular magistracy was instituted, which presented to the commons an
obvious and available aid, and yet could not possibly carry out the
necessary economic reform. It was no proof of political wisdom, but a
wretched compromise between the wealthy aristocracy and the leaderless
multitude. It has been affirmed that the tribunate of the people
preserved Rome from tyranny. Were it true, it would be of little
moment: a change in the form of the state is not in itself an evil
for a people; on the contrary, it was a misfortune for the Romans
that monarchy was introduced too late, after the physical and mental
energies of the nation were exhausted. But the assertion is not
even correct; as is shown by the circumstance that the Italian states
remained as regularly free from tyrants as the Hellenic states
regularly witnessed their emergence. The reason lies simply in the
fact that tyranny is everywhere the result of universal suffrage,
and that the Italians excluded the burgesses who had no land from
their public assemblies longer than the Greeks did: when Rome departed
from this course, monarchy did not fail to emerge, and was in fact
associated with this very tribunician orifice. That the tribunate had
its use, in pointing out legitimate paths of opposition and averting
many a wrong, no one will fail to acknowledge; but it is equally
evident that, where it did prove useful, it was employed for very
different objects from those for which it had been established.
The bold experiment of allowing the leaders of the opposition a
constitutional veto, and of investing them with power to assert it
regardless of the consequences, proved to be an expedient by which
the state was politically unhinged; and social evils were prolonged
by the application of useless palliatives.
Further Dissensions
Now that civil war was organized, it pursued its course. The parties
stood face to face as if drawn up for battle, each under its leaders.
Restriction of the consular and extension of the tribunician power
were the objects contended for on the one side; the annihilation of
the tribunate was sought on the other. Legal impunity secured for
insubordination, refusal to enter the ranks for the defence of the
land, impeachments involving fines and penalties directed specially
against magistrates who had violated the rights of the commons or
who had simply provoked their displeasure, were the weapons of the
plebeians; and to these the patricians opposed violence, concert with
the public foes, and occasionally also the dagger of the assassin.
Hand-to-hand conflicts took place in the streets, and on both sides
the sacredness of the magistrate's person was violated. Many families
of burgesses are said to have migrated, and to have sought more
peaceful abodes in neighbouring communities; and we may well believe
it. The strong patriotism of the people is obvious from the fact,
not that they adopted this constitution, but that they endured it,
and that the community, notwithstanding the most vehement convulsions,
still held together.
Coriolanus
The best-known incident in these conflicts of the orders is the
history of Gnaeus Marcius, a brave aristocrat, who derived his
surname from the storming of Corioli. Indignant at the refusal of
the centuries to entrust to him the consulate in the year 263, he is
reported to have proposed, according to one version, the suspension of
the sales of corn from the state-stores, till the hungry people should
give up the tribunate; according to another version, the direct
abolition of the tribunate itself. Impeached by the tribunes so that
his life was in peril, it is said that he left the city, but only to
return at the head of a Volscian army; that when he was on the point
of conquering the city of his fathers for the public foe, the earnest
appeal of his mother touched his conscience; and that thus he expiated
his first treason by a second, and both by death. How much of this
is true cannot be determined; but the story, over which the naive
misrepresentations of the Roman annalists have shed a patriotic glory,
affords a glimpse of the deep moral and political disgrace of these
conflicts between the orders. Of a similar stamp was the surprise
of the Capitol by a band of political refugees, led by a Sabine chief,
Appius Herdonius, in the year 294; they summoned the slaves to arms,
and it was only after a violent conflict, and by the aid of the
Tusculans who hastened to render help, that the Roman burgess-force
overcame the Catilinarian band. The same character of fanatical
exasperation marks other events of this epoch, the historical
significance of which can no longer be apprehended in the lying
family narratives; such as the predominance of the Fabian clan which
furnished one of the two consuls from 269 to 275, and the reaction
against it, the emigration of the Fabii from Rome, and their
annihilation by the Etruscans on the Cremera (277). Still more odious
was the murder of the tribune of the people, Gnaeus Genucius, who had
ventured to call two consulars to account, and who on the morning of
the day fixed for the impeachment was found dead in bed (281). The
immediate effect of this misdeed was the Publilian law (283), one of
the most momentous in its consequences with which Roman history has to
deal. Two of the most important arrangements--the introduction of the
plebeian assembly of tribes, and the placing of the -plebiscitum- on
a level, although conditionally, with the formal law sanctioned by the
whole community--are to be referred, the former certainly, the latter
probably, to the proposal of Volero Publilius the tribune of the
people in 283. The plebs had hitherto adopted its resolutions by
curies; accordingly in these its separate assemblies, on the one hand,
the voting had been by mere number without distinction of wealth or
of freehold property, and, on the other hand, in consequence of that
standing side by side on the part of the clansmen, which was implied
in the very nature of the curial assembly, the clients of the great
patrician families had voted with one another in the assembly of the
plebeians. These two circumstances had given to the nobility various
opportunities of exercising influence on that assembly, and especially
of managing the election of tribunes according to their views; and
both were henceforth done away by means of the new method of voting
according to tribes. Of these, four had been formed under the Servian
constitution for the purposes of the levy, embracing town and country
alike;(8) subsequently-perhaps in the year 259--the Roman territory
had been divided into twenty districts, of which the first four
embraced the city and its immediate environs, while the other sixteen
were formed out of the rural territory on the basis of the clan-cantons
of the earliest Roman domain.(9) To these was added--probably
only in consequence of the Publilian law, and with a view to bring
about the inequality, which was desirable for voting purposes, in
the total number of the divisions--as a twenty-first tribe the
Crustuminian, which derived its name from the place where the plebs
had constituted itself as such and had established the tribunate;(10)
and thenceforth the special assemblies of the plebs took place, no
longer by curies, but by tribes. In these divisions, which were based
throughout on the possession of land, the voters were exclusively
freeholders: but they voted without distinction as to the size of
their possession, and just as they dwelt together in villages and
hamlets. Consequently, this assembly of the tribes, which otherwise
was externally modelled on that of the curies, was in reality an
assembly of the independent middle class, from which, on the one hand,
the great majority of freedmen and clients were excluded as not being
freeholders, and in which, on the other hand, the larger landholders
had no such preponderance as in the centuries. This "meeting of the
multitude" (-concilium plebis-) was even less a general assembly of
the burgesses than the plebeian assembly by curies had been, for it
not only, like the latter, excluded all the patricians, but also the
plebeians who had no land; but the multitude was powerful enough to
carry the point that its decree should have equal legal validity
with that adopted by the centuries, in the event of its having been
previously approved by the whole senate. That this last regulation
had the force of established law before the issuing of the Twelve
Tables, is certain; whether it was directly introduced on occasion
of the Publilian -plebiscitum-, or whether it had already been called
into existence by some other--now forgotten--statute, and was only
applied to the Publilian -plebiscitum- cannot be any longer
ascertained. In like manner it remains uncertain whether the number
of tribunes was raised by this law from two to four, or whether that
increase had taken place previously.
Agrarian Law of Spurius Cassius
More sagacious in plan than all these party steps was the attempt
of Spurius Cassius to break down the financial omnipotence of the
rich, and so to put a stop to the true source of the evil. He was
a patrician, and none in his order surpassed him in rank and renown.
After two triumphs, in his third consulate (268), he submitted to the
burgesses a proposal to have the public domain measured and to lease
part of it for the benefit of the public treasury, while a further
portion was to be distributed among the necessitous. In other words,
he attempted to wrest the control of the public lands from the senate,
and, with the support of the burgesses, to put an end to the selfish
system of occupation. He probably imagined that his personal
distinction, and the equity and wisdom of the measure, might carry
it even amidst that stormy sea of passion and of weakness. But he
was mistaken. The nobles rose as one man; the rich plebeians took
part with them; the commons were displeased because Spurius Cassius
desired, in accordance with federal rights and equity, to give to
the Latin confederates their share in the assignation. Cassius had
to die. There is some truth in the charge that he had usurped regal
power, for he had indeed endeavoured like the kings to protect the
free commons against his own order. His law was buried along with
him; but its spectre thenceforward incessantly haunted the eyes of
the rich, and again and again it rose from the tomb against them,
until amidst the conflicts to which it led the commonwealth perished.
Decemvirs
A further attempt was made to get rid of the tribunician power by
securing to the plebeians equality of rights in a more regular and
more effectual way. The tribune of the people, Gaius Terentilius
Arsa, proposed in 292 the nomination of a commission of five men to
prepare a general code of law by which the consuls should in future be
bound in exercising their judicial powers. But the senate refused to
sanction this proposal, and ten years elapsed ere it was carried into
effect--years of vehement strife between the orders, and variously
agitated moreover by wars and internal troubles. With equal obstinacy
the party of the nobles hindered the concession of the law in the
senate, and the plebs nominated again and again the same men as
tribunes. Attempts were made to obviate the attack by other
concessions. In the year 297 an increase of the tribunes from four to
ten was sanctioned--a very dubious gain; and in the following year, by
an Icilian -plebiscitum- which was admitted among the sworn privileges
of the plebs, the Aventine, which had hitherto been a temple-grove and
uninhabited, was distributed among the poorer burgesses as sites for
buildings in heritable occupancy. The plebs took what was offered
to them, but never ceased to insist in their demand for a legal code.
At length, in the year 300, a compromise was effected; the senate in
substance gave way. The preparation of a legal code was resolved
upon; for that purpose, as an extraordinary measure, the centuries
were to choose ten men who were at the same time to act as supreme
magistrates in room of the consuls (-decemviri consulari imperio
legibus scribundls-), and to this office not merely patricians, but
plebeians also might be elected. These were here for the first time
designated as eligible, though only for an extraordinary office. This
was a great step in the progress towards full political equality; and
it was not too dearly purchased, when the tribunate of the people as
well as the right of appeal were suspended while the decemvirate
lasted, and the decemvirs were simply bound not to infringe the sworn
liberties of the community. Previously however an embassy was sent
to Greece to bring home the laws of Solon and other Greek laws; and
it was only on its return that the decemvirs were chosen for the year
303. Although they were at liberty to elect plebeians, the choice
fell on patricians alone--so powerful was the nobility still--and
it was only when a second election became necessary for 304, that
some plebeians were chosen--the first non-patrician magistrates that
the Roman community had.
Taking a connected view of these measures, we can scarcely attribute
to them any other design than that of substituting for tribunician
intercession a limitation of the consular powers by written law.
On both sides there must have been a conviction that things could not
remain as they were, and the perpetuation of anarchy, while it ruined
the commonwealth, was in reality of no benefit to any one. People in
earnest could not but discern that the interference of the tribunes
in administration and their action as prosecutors had an absolutely
pernicious effect; and the only real gain which the tribunate brought
to the plebeians was the protection which it afforded against a
partial administration of justice, by operating as a sort of court
of cassation to check the caprice of the magistrate. Beyond doubt,
when the plebeians desired a written code, the patricians replied that
in that event the legal protection of tribunes would be superfluous;
and upon this there appears to have been concession by both sides.
Perhaps there was never anything definitely expressed as to what
was to be done after the drawing up of the code; but that the plebs
definitely renounced the tribunate is not to be doubted, since it was
brought by the decemvirate into such a position that it could not get
back the tribunate otherwise than by illegal means. The promise given
to the plebs that its sworn liberties should not be touched, may be
referred to the rights of the plebeians independent of the tribunate,
such as the -provocatio- and the possession of the Aventine. The
intention seems to have been that the decemvirs should, on their
retiring, propose to the people to re-elect the consuls who should
now judge no longer according to their arbitrary pleasure but
according to written law.
Legislation of the Twelve Tables
The plan, if it should stand, was a wise one; all depended on whether
men's minds exasperated on either side with passion would accept that
peaceful adjustment. The decemvirs of the year 303 submitted their
law to the people, and it was confirmed by them, engraven on ten
tables of copper, and affixed in the Forum to the rostra in front
of the senate-house. But as a supplement appeared necessary,
decemvirs were again nominated in the year 304, who added two more
tables. Thus originated the first and only Roman code, the law of the
Twelve Tables. It proceeded from a compromise between parties, and
for that very reason could not well have contained any changes in the
existing law of a comprehensive nature, going beyond the regulation of
secondary matters and of the mere adaptation of means and ends. Even
in the system of credit no further alleviation was introduced than the
establishment of a--probably low--maximum of interest (10 per cent)
and the threatening of heavy penalties against the usurer-penalties,
characteristically enough, far heavier than those of the thief; the
harsh procedure in actions of debt remained at least in its leading
features unaltered. Still less, as may easily be conceived, were
changes contemplated in the rights of the orders. On the contrary the
legal distinction between burgesses liable to be taxed and those who
were without estate, and the invalidity of marriage between patricians
and plebeians, were confirmed anew in the law of the city. In like
manner, with a view to restrict the caprice of the magistrate and
to protect the burgess, it was expressly enacted that the later law
should uniformly have precedence over the earlier, and that no decree
of the people should be issued against a single burgess. The most
remarkable feature was the exclusion of appeal to the -comitia
tributa- in capital causes, while the privilege of appeal to the
centuries was guaranteed; which admits of explanation from the
circumstance that the penal jurisdiction was in fact usurped by the
plebs and its presidents,(11) and with the tribunate there necessarily
fell the tribunician capital process, while it was perhaps the
intention to retain the aedilician process of fine (-multa-).
The essential political significance of the measure resided far less
in the contents of the legislation than in the formal obligation now
laid upon the consuls to administer justice according to these forms
of process and these rules of law, and in the public exhibition of
the code, by which the administration of justice was subjected to the
control of publicity and the consul was compelled to dispense equal
and truly common justice to all.
Fall of the Decemvirs
The end of the decemvirate is involved in much obscurity. It only
remained--so runs the story--for the decemvirs to publish the last
two tables, and then to give place to the ordinary magistracy. But
they delayed to do so: under the pretext that the laws were not yet
ready, they themselves prolonged their magistracy after the expiry
of their official year--which was so far possible, as under Roman
constitutional law the magistracy called in an extraordinary way to
the revision of the constitution could not become legally bound by
the term set for its ending. The moderate section of the aristocracy,
with the Valerii and Horatii at their head, are said to have attempted
in the senate to compel the abdication of the decemvirate; but the
head of the decemvirs Appius Claudius, originally a rigid aristocrat,
but now changing into a demagogue and a tyrant, gained the ascendancy
in the senate, and the people submitted. The levy of two armies
was accomplished without opposition, and war was begun against the
Volscians as well as against the Sabines. Thereupon the former
tribune of the people, Lucius Siccius Dentatus, the bravest man in
Rome, who had fought in a hundred and twenty battles and had forty-five
honourable scars to show, was found dead in front of the camp,
foully murdered, as it was said, at the instigation of the decemvirs.
A revolution was fermenting in men's minds; and its outbreak was
hastened by the unjust sentence pronounced by Appius in the process as
to the freedom of the daughter of the centurion Lucius Verginius, the
bride of the former tribune of the people Lucius Icilius--a sentence
which wrested the maiden from her relatives with a view to make her
non-free and beyond the pale of the law, and induced her father
himself to plunge his knife into the heart of his daughter in the
open Forum, to rescue her from certain shame. While the people in
amazement at the unprecedented deed surrounded the dead body of the
fair maiden, the decemvir commanded his lictors to bring the father
and then the bridegroom before his tribunal, in order to render to
him, from whose decision there lay no appeal, immediate account
for their rebellion against his authority. The cup was now full.
Protected by the furious multitude, the father and the bridegroom of
the maiden made their escape from the lictors of the despot, and
while the senate trembled and wavered in Rome, the pair presented
themselves, with numerous witnesses of the fearful deed, in the two
camps. The unparalleled tale was told; the eyes of all were opened
to the gap which the absence of tribunician protection had made in the
security of law; and what the fathers had done their sons repeated.
Once more the armies abandoned their leaders: they marched in warlike
order through the city, and proceeded once more to the Sacred Mount,
where they again nominated their own tribunes. Still the decemvirs
refused to lay down their power; then the army with its tribunes
appeared in the city, and encamped on the Aventine. Now at length,
when civil war was imminent and the conflict in the streets might
hourly begin, the decemvirs renounced their usurped and dishonoured
power; and the consuls Lucius Valerius and Marcus Horatius negotiated
a second compromise, by which the tribunate of the plebs was again
established. The impeachment of the decemvirs terminated in the two
most guilty, Appius Claudius and Spurius Oppius, committing suicide
in prison, while the other eight went into exile and the state
confiscated their property. The prudent and moderate tribune of
the plebs, Marcus Duilius, prevented further judicial prosecutions
by a seasonable use of his veto.
So runs the story as recorded by the pen of the Roman aristocrats;
but, even leaving out of view the accessory circumstances, the great
crisis out of which the Twelve Tables arose cannot possibly have
ended in such romantic adventures, and in political issues so
incomprehensible. The decemvirate was, after the abolition of the
monarchy and the institution of the tribunate of the people, the
third great victory of the plebs; and the exasperation of the opposite
party against the institution and against its head Appius Claudius
is sufficiently intelligible. The plebeians had through its means
secured the right of eligibility to the highest magistracy of the
community and a general code of law; and it was not they that had
reason to rebel against the new magistracy, and to restore the
purely patrician consular government by force of arms. This end
can only have been pursued by the party of the nobility, and if the
patricio-plebeian decemvirs made the attempt to maintain themselves
in office beyond their time, the nobility were certainly the first to
enter the lists against them; on which occasion doubtless the nobles
would not neglect to urge that the stipulated rights of the plebs should
be curtailed and the tribunate, in particular, should be taken from it.
If the nobility thereupon succeeded in setting aside the decemvirs,
it is certainly conceivable that after their fall the plebs should
once more assemble in arms with a view to secure the results both
of the earlier revolution of 260 and of the latest movement; and the
Valerio-Horatian laws of 305 can only be understood as forming a
compromise in this conflict.
The Valerio-Horatian Laws
The compromise, as was natural, proved very favourable to the
plebeians, and again imposed severely felt restrictions on the
power of the nobility. As a matter of course the tribunate of the
people was restored, the code of law wrung from the aristocracy was
definitively retained, and the consuls were obliged to judge according
to it. Through the code indeed the tribes lost their usurped
jurisdiction in capital causes; but the tribunes got it back, as a way
was found by which it was possible for them to transact business as
to such cases with the centuries. Besides they retained, in the right
to award fines without limitation and to submit this sentence to the
-comitia tributa-, a sufficient means of putting an end to the civic
existence of a patrician opponent. Further, it was on the proposition
of the consuls decreed by the centuries that in future every
magistrate--and therefore the dictator among the rest--should be bound
at his nomination to allow the right of appeal: any one who should
nominate a magistrate on other terms was to expiate the offence with
his life. In other respects the dictator retained his former powers;
and in particular his official acts could not, like those of the
consuls, be cancelled by a tribune.
The plenitude of the consular power was further restricted in so far
as the administration of the military chest was committed to two
paymasters (-quaestores-) chosen by the community, who were nominated
for the first time in 307. The nomination as well of the two new
paymasters for war as of the two administering the city-chest now
passed over to the community; the consul retained merely the conduct
of the election instead of the election itself. The assembly in which
the paymasters were elected was that of the whole patricio-plebeian
freeholders, and voted by districts; an arrangement which likewise
involved a concession to the plebeian farmers, who had far more
command of these assemblies than of the centuriate -comitia-.
A concession of still greater consequence was that which allowed the
tribunes to share in the discussions of the senate. To admit the
tribunes to the hall where the senate sat, appeared to that body
beneath its dignity; so a bench was placed for them at the door that
they might from that spot follow its proceedings. The tribunician
right of intercession had extended also to the decrees of the senate
as a collective body, after the latter had become not merely a
deliberative but a decretory board, which probably occurred at first
in the case of a -plebiscitum- that was meant to be binding for the
whole community;(12) it was natural that there should thenceforth be
conceded to the tribunes a certain participation in the discussions
of the senate-house. In order also to secure the decrees of the
senate-- with the validity of which indeed that of the most important
-plebiscita- was bound up--from being tampered with or forged, it
was enacted that in future they should be deposited not merely under
charge of the patrician -quaestores urbani- in the temple of Saturn,
but also under that of the plebian aediles in the temple of Ceres.
Thus this struggle, which was begun in order to get rid of the
tribunician power, terminated in the renewed and now definitive
sanctioning of its right to annul not only particular acts of
administration on the appeal of the person aggrieved, but also any
resolution of the constituent powers of the state at pleasure.
The persons of the tribunes, and the uninterrupted maintenance of
the college at its full number, were once more secured by the most
sacred oaths and by every element of reverence that religion could
present, and not less by the most formal laws. No attempt to abolish
this magistracy was ever from this time forward made in Rome.
Notes for Book II Chapter II
1. II. I. Right of Appeal
2. I. XIII. Landed proprietors
3. I. VI. Character of the Roman Law
4. II. I. Collegiate Arrangement
5. I. XI. Property
6. I. XI. Punishment of Offenses against Order
7. That the plebeian aediles were formed after the model of the
patrician quaestors in the same way as the plebeian tribunes after
the model of the patrician consuls, is evident both as regards their
criminal functions (in which the distinction between the two
magistracies seems to have lain in their tendencies only, not in their
powers) and as regards their charge of the archives. The temple of
Ceres was to the aediles what the temple of Saturn was to the
quaestors, and from the former they derived their name. Significant
in this respect is the enactment of the law of 305 (Liv. iii. 55),
that the decrees of the senate should be delivered over to the aediles
there (p. 369), whereas, as is well known, according to the ancient
--and subsequently after the settlement of the struggles between the
orders, again preponderant--practice those decrees were committed to
the quaestors for preservation in the temple of Saturn.
8. I. VI. Levy Districts
9. I. III. Clan-Villages
10. II. II. Secession to the Sacred mount
11. II. II. Intercession
12. II. II. Legislation
CHAPTER III
The Equalization of the Orders, and the New Aristocracy
Union of the Plebians
The tribunician movements appear to have mainly originated in social
rather than political discontent, and there is good reason to suppose
that some of the wealthy plebeians admitted to the senate were no
less opposed to these movements than the patricians. For they too
benefited by the privileges against which the agitation was mainly
directed; and although in other respects they found themselves treated
as inferior, it probably seemed to them by no means an appropriate
time for asserting their claim to participate in the magistracies,
when the exclusive financial power of the whole senate was assailed.
This explains why during the first fifty years of the republic no step
was taken aiming directly at the political equalization of the orders.
But this league between the patricians and the wealthy plebeians by no
means bore within itself any guarantee of permanence. Beyond doubt
from the very first a portion of the leading plebeian families had
attached themselves to the movement-party, partly from a sense of what
was due to the fellow-members of their order, partly in consequence
of the natural bond which unites all who are treated as inferior,
and partly because they perceived that concessions to the multitude
were inevitable in the issue, and that, if turned to due account,
they would result in the abrogation of the exclusive rights of
the patriciate and would thereby give to the plebeian aristocracy a
decisive preponderance in the state. Should this conviction become
--as was inevitable--more and more prevalent, and should the plebeian
aristocracy at the head of its order take up the struggle with the
patrician nobility, it would wield in the tribunate a legalized
instrument of civil warfare, and it might, with the weapon of social
distress, so fight its battles as to dictate to the nobility the terms
of peace and, in the position of mediator between the two parties,
compel its own admission to the offices of state.
Such a crisis in the position of parties occurred after the fall of
the decemvirate. It had now become perfectly clear that the tribunate
of the plebs could never be set aside; the plebeian aristocracy could
not do better than seize this powerful lever and employ it for the
removal of the political disabilities of their order.
Throwing Open of Marriage and of Magistracies--
Military Tribunes with Consular Powers
Nothing shows so clearly the defencelessness of the clan-nobility
when opposed to the united plebs, as the fact that the fundamental
principle of the exclusive party--the invalidity of marriage between
patricians and plebeians--fell at the first blow scarcely four years
after the decemviral revolution. In the year 309 it was enacted by
the Canuleian plebiscite, that a marriage between a patrician and
a plebeian should be valid as a true Roman marriage, and that the
children begotten of such a marriage should follow the rank of the
father. At the same time it was further carried that, in place of
consuls, military tribunes--of these there were at that time, before
the division of the army into legions, six, and the number of these
magistrates was adjusted accordingly-with consular powers(1) and
consular duration of office should be elected by the centuries.
The proximate cause was of a military nature, as the various wars
required a greater number of generals in chief command than the
consular constitution allowed; but the change came to be of essential
importance for the conflicts of the orders, and it may be that
that military object was rather the pretext than the reason for
this arrangement. According to the ancient law every burgess or
--metoikos-- liable to service might attain the post of an officer,(2)
and in virtue of that principle the supreme magistracy, after having
been temporarily opened up to the plebeians in the decemvirate, was
now after a more comprehensive fashion rendered equally accessible to
all freeborn burgesses. The question naturally occurs, what interest
the aristocracy could have--now that it was under the necessity of
abandoning its exclusive possession of the supreme magistracy and of
yielding in the matter--in refusing to the plebeians the title, and
conceding to them the consulate under this singular form?(3) But,
in the first place, there were associated with the holding of the
supreme magistracy various honorary rights, partly personal, partly
hereditary; thus the honour of a triumph was regarded as legally
dependent on the occupancy of the supreme magistracy, and was never
given to an officer who had not administered the latter office in
person; and the descendants of a curule magistrate were at liberty to
set up the image of such an ancestor in the family hall and to exhibit
it in public on fitting occasions, while this was not allowed in the
case of other ancestors.(4) It is as easy to be explained as it is
difficult to be vindicated, that the governing aristocratic order
should have allowed the government itself to be wrested from their
hands far sooner than the honorary rights associated with it,
especially such as were hereditary; and therefore, when it was obliged
to share the former with the plebeians, it gave to the actual supreme
magistrate the legal standing not of the holder of a curule chair, but
of a simple staff-officer, whose distinction was one purely personal.
Of greater political importance, however, than the refusal of the
-ius imaginum- and of the honour of a triumph was the circumstance,
that the exclusion of the plebeians sitting in the senate from
debate necessarily ceased in respect to those of their number who,
as designated or former consuls, ranked among the senators whose
opinion had to be asked before the rest; so far it was certainly
of great importance for the nobility to admit the plebeian only to
a consular office, and not to the consulate itself.
Opposition of the Patriciate
But notwithstanding these vexatious disabilities the privileges of the
clans, so far as they had a political value, were legally superseded
by the new institution; and, had the Roman nobility been worthy of its
name, it must now have given up the struggle. But it did not. Though
a rational and legal resistance was thenceforth impossible, spiteful
opposition still found a wide field of petty expedients, of chicanery
and intrigue; and, far from honourable or politically prudent as such
resistance was, it was still in a certain sense fruitful of results.
It certainly procured at length for the commons concessions which
could not easily have been wrung from the united Roman aristocracy;
but it also prolonged civil war for another century and enabled
the nobility, in defiance of those laws, practically to retain the
government in their exclusive possession for several generations
longer.
Their Expedients
The expedients of which the nobility availed themselves were as
various as political paltriness could suggest. Instead of deciding
at once the question as to the admission or exclusion of the plebeians
at the elections, they conceded what they were compelled to concede
only with reference to the elections immediately impending. The vain
struggle was thus annually renewed whether patrician consuls or
military tribunes from both orders with consular powers should be
nominated; and among the weapons of the aristocracy this mode of
conquering an opponent by wearying and annoying him proved by no
means the least effective.
Subdivision of the Magistracy--
Censorship
Moreover they broke up the supreme power which had hitherto been
undivided, in order to delay their inevitable defeat by multiplying
the points to be assailed. Thus the adjustment of the budget and of
the burgess--and taxation-rolls, which ordinarily took place every
fourth year and had hitherto been managed by the consuls, was
entrusted as early as the year 319 to two valuators (-censores-),
nominated by the centuries from among the nobles for a period, at
the most, of eighteen months. The new office gradually became the
palladium of the aristocratic party, not so much on account of its
financial influence as on account of the right annexed to it of
filling up the vacancies in the senate and in the equites, and of
removing individuals from the lists of the senate, equites, and
burgesses on occasion of their adjustment. At this epoch, however,
the censorship by no means possessed the great importance and moral
supremacy which afterwards were associated with it.
Quaestorship
But the important change made in the year 333 in respect to the
quaestorship amply compensated for this success of the patrician
party. The patricio-plebeian assembly of the tribes--perhaps taking
up the ground that at least the two military paymasters were in fact
officers rather than civil functionaries, and that so far the plebeian
appeared as well entitled to the quaestorship as to the military
tribuneship--carried the point that plebeian candidates also were
admitted for the quaestorial elections, and thereby acquired for
the first time the privilege of eligibility as well as the right of
election for one of the ordinary magistracies. With justice it was
felt on the one side as a great victory, on the other as a severe
defeat, that thenceforth patrician and plebeian were equally capable
of electing and being elected to the military as well as to the urban
quaestorship.
Attempts at Counterrevolution
The nobility, in spite of the most obstinate resistance, only
sustained loss after loss; and their exasperation increased as their
power decreased. Attempts were doubtless still made directly to
assail the rights secured by agreement to the commons; but such
attempts were not so much the well-calculated manoeuvres of party as
the acts of an impotent thirst for vengeance. Such in particular was
the process against Maelius as reported by the tradition--certainly
not very trustworthy--that has come down to us. Spurius Maelius,
a wealthy plebeian, during a severe dearth (315) sold corn at such
prices as to put to shame and annoy the patrician store-president
(-praefectus annonae-) Gaius Minucius. The latter accused him of
aspiring to kingly power; with what amount of reason we cannot decide,
but it is scarcely credible that a man who had not even filled the
tribunate should have seriously thought of sovereignty. Nevertheless
the authorities took up the matter in earnest, and the cry of "King"
always produced on the multitude in Rome an effect similar to that
of the cry of "Pope" on the masses in England. Titus Quinctius
Capitolinus, who was for the sixth time consul, nominated Lucius
Quinctius Cincinnatus, who was eighty years of age, as dictator
without appeal, in open violation of the solemnly sworn laws.(5)
Maelius, summoned before him, seemed disposed to disregard the
summons; and the dictator's master of the horse, Gaius Servilius
Ahala, slew him with his own hand. The house of the murdered man was
pulled down, the corn from his granaries was distributed gratuitously
to the people, and those who threatened to avenge his death were
secretly made away with. This disgraceful judicial murder--a disgrace
even more to the credulous and blind people than to the malignant
party of young patricians--passed unpunished; but if that party had
hoped by such means to undermine the right of appeal, it violated
the laws and shed innocent blood in vain.
Intrigues of the Nobility
Electioneering intrigues and priestly trickery proved in the hands
of the nobility more efficient than any other weapons. The extent
to which the former must have prevailed is best seen in the fact
that in 322 it appeared necessary to issue a special law against
electioneering practices, which of course was of little avail. When
the voters could not be influenced by corruption or threatening, the
presiding magistrates stretched their powers--admitting, for example,
so many plebeian candidates that the votes of the opposition were
thrown away amongst them, or omitting from the list of candidates
those whom the majority were disposed to choose. If in spite of all
this an obnoxious election was carried, the priests were consulted
whether no vitiating circumstance had occurred in the auspices or
other religious ceremonies on the occasion; and some such flaw they
seldom failed to discover. Taking no thought as to the consequences
and unmindful of the wise example of their ancestors, the people
allowed the principle to be established that the opinion of the
skilled colleges of priests as to omens of birds, portents, and the
like was legally binding on the magistrate, and thus put it into their
power to cancel any state-act--whether the consecration of a temple
or any other act of administration, whether law or election--on the
ground of religious informality. In this way it became possible that,
although the eligibility of plebeians had been established by law
already in 333 for the quaestorship and thenceforward continued to
be legally recognized, it was only in 345 that the first plebeian
attained the quaestorship; in like manner patricians almost
exclusively held the military tribunate with consular powers down
to 354. It was apparent that the legal abolition of the privileges of
the nobles had by no means really and practically placed the plebeian
aristocracy on a footing of equality with the clan-nobility. Many
causes contributed to this result: the tenacious opposition of the
nobility far more easily allowed itself to be theoretically superseded
in a moment of excitement, than to be permanently kept down in the
annually recurring elections; but the main cause was the inward
disunion between the chiefs of the plebeian aristocracy and the mass
of the farmers. The middle class, whose votes were decisive in the
comitia, did not feel itself specially called on to advance the
interests of genteel non-patricians, so long as its own demands were
disregarded by the plebeian no less than by the patrician aristocracy.
The Suffering Farmers
During these political struggles social questions had lain on the
whole dormant, or were discussed at any rate with less energy. After
the plebeian aristocracy had gained possession of the tribunate for
its own ends, no serious notice was taken either of the question of
the domains or of a reform in the system of credit; although there was
no lack either of newly acquired lands or of impoverished or decaying
farmers. Instances indeed of assignations took place, particularly in
the recently conquered border-territories, such as those of the domain
of Ardea in 312, of Labici in 336, and of Veii in 361--more however on
military grounds than for the relief of the farmer, and by no means to
an adequate extent. Individual tribunes doubtless attempted to revive
the law of Cassius--for instance Spurius Maecilius and Spurius
Metilius instituted in the year 337 a proposal for the distribution
of the whole state-lands--but they were thwarted, in a manner
characteristic of the existing state of parties, by the opposition
of their own colleagues or in other words of the plebeian aristocracy.
Some of the patricians also attempted to remedy the common distress;
but with no better success than had formerly attended Spurius Cassius.
A patrician like Cassius and like him distinguished by military renown
and personal valour, Marcus Manlius, the saviour of the Capitol during
the Gallic siege, is said to have come forward as the champion of
the oppressed people, with whom he was connected by the ties of
comradeship in war and of bitter hatred towards his rival, the
celebrated general and leader of the optimate party, Marcus Furius
Camillus. When a brave officer was about to be led away to a debtor's
prison, Manlius interceded for him and released him with his own
money; at the same time he offered his lands to sale, declaring
loudly that, as long as he possessed a foot's breadth of land, such
iniquities should not occur. This was more than enough to unite the
whole government party, patricians as well as plebeians, against the
dangerous innovator. The trial for high treason, the charge of having
meditated a renewal of the monarchy, wrought on the blind multitude
with the insidious charm which belongs to stereotyped party-phrases.
They themselves condemned him to death, and his renown availed him
nothing save that it was deemed expedient to assemble the people for
the bloody assize at a spot whence the voters could not see the rock
of the citadel--the dumb monitor which might remind them how their
fatherland had been saved from the extremity of danger by the hands of
the very man whom they were now consigning to the executioner (370).
While the attempts at reformation were thus arrested in the bud,
the social disorders became still more crying; for on the one
hand the domain-possessions were ever extending in consequence of
successful wars, and on the other hand debt and impoverishment were
ever spreading more widely among the farmers, particularly from the
effects of the severe war with Veii (348-358) and of the burning of
the capital in the Gallic invasion (364). It is true that, when in
the Veientine war it became necessary to prolong the term of service
of the soldiers and to keep them under arms not--as hitherto at the
utmost--only during summer, but also throughout the winter, and when
the farmers, foreseeing their utter economic ruin, were on the point
of refusing their consent to the declaration of war, the senate
resolved on making an important concession. It charged the pay, which
hitherto the tribes had defrayed by contribution, on the state-chest,
or in other words, on the produce of the indirect revenues and the
domains (348). It was only in the event of the state-chest being at
the moment empty that a general contribution (-tributum-) was imposed
on account of the pay; and in that case it was considered as a forced
loan and was afterwards repaid by the community. The arrangement was
equitable and wise; but, as it was not placed upon the essential
foundation of turning the domains to proper account for the benefit
of the exchequer, there were added to the increased burden of service
frequent contributions, which were none the less ruinous to the man
of small means that they were officially regarded not as taxes
but as advances.
Combination of the Plebian Aristocracy and the Farmers against the
Nobility--
Licinio-Sextian Laws
Under such circumstances, when the plebeian aristocracy saw itself
practically excluded by the opposition of the nobility and the
indifference of the commons from equality of political rights,
and the suffering farmers were powerless as opposed to the close
aristocracy, it was natural that they should help each other by a
compromise. With this view the tribunes of the people, Gaius Licinius
and Lucius Sextius, submitted to the commons proposals to the
following effect: first, to abolish the consular tribunate; secondly,
to lay it down as a rule that at least one of the consuls should be
a plebeian; thirdly, to open up to the plebeians admission to one
of the three great colleges of priests--that of the custodiers of
oracles, whose number was to be increased to ten (-duoviri-,
afterwards -decemviri sacris faciundis-(6)); fourthly, as respected
the domains, to allow no burgess to maintain upon the common pasture
more than a hundred oxen and five hundred sheep, or to hold more than
five hundred -jugera- (about 300 acres) of the domain lands left free
for occupation; fifthly, to oblige the landlords to employ in the
labours of the field a number of free labourers proportioned to that
of their rural slaves; and lastly, to procure alleviation for debtors
by deduction of the interest which had been paid from the capital,
and by the arrangement of set terms for the payment of arrears.
The tendency of these enactments is obvious. They were designed
to deprive the nobles of their exclusive possession of the curule
magistracies and of the hereditary distinctions of nobility therewith
associated; which, it was characteristically conceived, could only be
accomplished by the legal exclusion of the nobles from the place of
second consul. They were designed, as a consequence, to emancipate
the plebeian members of the senate from the subordinate position which
they occupied as silent by-sitters,(7) in so far as those of them at
least who had filled the consulate thereby acquired a title to deliver
their opinion with the patrician consulars before the other patrician
senators.(8) They were intended, moreover, to withdraw from the
nobles the exclusive possession of spiritual dignities; and in
carrying out this purpose for reasons sufficiently obvious the old
Latin priesthoods of the augurs and Pontifices were left to the old
burgesses, but these were obliged to open up to the new burgesses the
third great college of more recent origin and belonging to a worship
that was originally foreign. They were intended, in fine, to procure
a share in the common usufructs of burgesses for the poorer commons,
alleviation for the suffering debtors, and employment for the
day-labourers that were destitute of work. Abolition of privileges,
civil equality, social reform--these were the three great ideas, of
which it was the design of this movement to secure the recognition.
Vainly the patricians exerted all the means at their command in
opposition to these legislative proposals; even the dictatorship and
the old military hero Camillus were able only to delay, not to avert
their accomplishment. Willingly would the people have separated the
proposals; of what moment to it were the consulate and custodiership
of oracles, if only the burden of debt were lightened and the public
lands were free! But it was not for nothing that the plebeian
nobility had adopted the popular cause; it included the proposals in
one single project of law, and after a long struggle--it is said of
eleven years--the senate at length gave its consent and they passed
in the year 387.
Political Abolition of the Patriciate
With the election of the first non-patrician consul--the choice fell
on one of the authors of this reform, the late tribune of the people,
Lucius Sextius Lateranus--the clan-aristocracy ceased both in fact and
in law to be numbered among the political institutions of Rome. When
after the final passing of these laws the former champion of the
clans, Marcus Furius Camillus, founded a sanctuary of Concord at the
foot of the Capitol--upon an elevated platform, where the senate was
wont frequently to meet, above the old meeting-place of the burgesses,
the Comitium--we gladly cherish the belief that he recognized in the
legislation thus completed the close of a dissension only too long
continued. The religious consecration of the new concord of the
community was the last public act of the old warrior and statesman,
and a worthy termination of his long and glorious career. He was
not wholly mistaken; the more judicious portion of the clans
evidently from this time forward looked upon their exclusive political
privileges as lost, and were content to share the government with the
plebeian aristocracy. In the majority, however, the patrician spirit
proved true to its incorrigible character. On the strength of the
privilege which the champions of legitimacy have at all times claimed
of obeying the laws only when these coincide with their party
interests, the Roman nobles on various occasions ventured, in open
violation of the stipulated arrangement, to nominate two patrician
consuls. But, when by way of answer to an election of that sort for
the year 411 the community in the year following formally resolved
to allow both consular positions to be filled by non-patricians, they
understood the implied threat, and still doubtless desired, but never
again ventured, to touch the second consular place.
Praetorship--
Curule Aedileship--
Complete Opening Up of Magistracies and Priesthoods
In like manner the aristocracy simply injured itself by the attempt
which it made, on the passing of the Licinian laws, to save at least
some remnant of its ancient privileges by means of a system of
political clipping and paring. Under the pretext that the nobility
were exclusively cognizant of law, the administration of justice was
detached from the consulate when the latter had to be thrown open
to the plebeians; and for this purpose there was nominated a special
third consul, or, as he was commonly called, a praetor. In like
manner the supervision of the market and the judicial police-duties
connected with it, as well as the celebration of the city-festival,
were assigned to two newly nominated aediles, who--by way of
distinction from the plebeian aediles--were named from their standing
jurisdiction "aediles of the judgment seat" (-aediles curules-).
But the curule aedileship became immediately so far accessible to
the plebeians, that it was held by patricians and plebeians
alternately. Moreover the dictatorship was thrown open to plebeians
in 398, as the mastership of the horse had already been in the year
before the Licinian laws (386); both the censorships were thrown open
in 403, and the praetorship in 417; and about the same time (415) the
nobility were by law excluded from one of the censorships, as they
had previously been from one of the consulships. It was to no purpose
that once more a patrician augur detected secret flaws, hidden from
the eyes of the uninitiated, in the election of a plebeian dictator
(427), and that the patrician censor did not up to the close of our
present period (474) permit his colleague to present the solemn
sacrifice with which the census closed; such chicanery served merely
to show the ill humour of patricianism. Of as little avail were the
complaints which the patrician presidents of the senate would not fail
to raise regarding the participation of the plebeians in its debates;
it became a settled rule that no longer the patrician members,
but those who had attained to one of the three supreme ordinary
magistracies--the consulship, praetorship, and curule aedileship
--should be summoned to give their opinion in this order and without
distinction of class, while the senators who had held none of these
offices still even now took part merely in the division. The right,
in fine, of the patrician senate to reject a decree of the community
as unconstitutional--a right, however, which in all probability it
rarely ventured to exercise--was withdrawn from it by the Publilian
law of 415 and by the Maenian law which was not passed before the
middle of the fifth century, in so far that it had to bring forward
its constitutional objections, if it had any such, when the list
of candidates was exhibited or the project of law was brought in;
which practically amounted to a regular announcement of its consent
beforehand. In this character, as a purely formal right, the
confirmation of the decrees of the people still continued in
the hands of the nobility down to the last age of the republic.
The clans retained, as may naturally be conceived, their religious
privileges longer. Indeed, several of these, which were destitute
of political importance, were never interfered with, such as their
exclusive eligibility to the offices of the three supreme -flamines-
and that of -rex sacrorum- as well as to the membership of the
colleges of Salii. On the other hand the two colleges of Pontifices
and of augurs, with which a considerable influence over the courts
and the comitia were associated, were too important to remain in the
exclusive possession of the patricians. The Ogulnian law of 454
accordingly threw these also open to plebeians, by increasing the
number both of the pontifices and of the augurs from six to nine, and
equally distributing the stalls in the two colleges between patricians
and plebeians.
Equivalence of Law and Plebiscitum
The two hundred years' strife was brought at length to: a close by the
law of the dictator Q. Hortensius (465, 468) which was occasioned by a
dangerous popular insurrection, and which declared that the decrees of
the plebs should stand on an absolute footing of equality--instead of
their earlier conditional equivalence--with those of the whole
community. So greatly had the state of things been changed that
that portion of the burgesses which had once possessed exclusively
the right of voting was thenceforth, under the usual form of taking
votes binding for the whole burgess-body, no longer so much as asked
the question.
The Later Patricianism
The struggle between the Roman clans and commons was thus
substantially at an end. While the nobility still preserved out
of its comprehensive privileges the -de facto- possession of one of
the consulships and one of the censorships, it was excluded by law
from the tribunate, the plebeian aedileship, the second consulship
and censorship, and from participation in the votes of the plebs
which were legally equivalent to votes of the whole body of burgesses.
As a righteous retribution for its perverse and stubborn resistance,
the patriciate had seen its former privileges converted into so many
disabilities. The Roman clan-nobility, however, by no means
disappeared because it had become an empty name. The less the
significance and power of the nobility, the more purely and
exclusively the patrician spirit developed itself. The haughtiness
of the "Ramnians" survived the last of their class-privileges for
centuries; after they had steadfastly striven "to rescue the consulate
from the plebeian filth" and had at length become reluctantly
convinced of the impossibility of such an achievement, they continued
at least rudely and spitefully to display their aristocratic spirit.
To understand rightly the history of Rome in the fifth and sixth
centuries, we must never overlook this sulking patricianism; it could
indeed do little more than irritate itself and others, but this it
did to the best of its ability. Some years after the passing of the
Ogulnian law (458) a characteristic instance of this sort occurred.
A patrician matron, who was married to a leading plebeian that had
attained to the highest dignities of the state, was on account of this
misalliance expelled from the circle of noble dames and was refused
admission to the common festival of Chastity; and in consequence of
that exclusion separate patrician and plebeian goddesses of Chastity
were thenceforward worshipped in Rome. Doubtless caprices of this
sort were of very little moment, and the better portion of the
clans kept themselves entirely aloof from this miserable policy of
peevishness; but it left behind on both sides a feeling of discontent,
and, while the struggle of the commons against the clans was in itself
a political and even moral necessity, these convulsive efforts to
prolong the strife--the aimless combats of the rear-guard after the
battle had been decided, as well as the empty squabbles as to rank
and standing--needlessly irritated and disturbed the public and
private life of the Roman community.
The Social Distress, and the Attempt to Relieve It
Nevertheless one object of the compromise concluded by the two
portions of the plebs in 387, the abolition of the patriciate, had
in all material points been completely attained. The question next
arises, how far the same can be affirmed of the two positive objects
aimed at in the compromise?--whether the new order of things in
reality checked social distress and established political equality?
The two were intimately connected; for, if economic embarrassments
ruined the middle class and broke up the burgesses into a minority of
rich men and a suffering proletariate, such a state of things would at
once annihilate civil equality and in reality destroy the republican
commonwealth. The preservation and increase of the middle class, and
in particular of the farmers, formed therefore for every patriotic
statesman of Rome a problem not merely important, but the most
important of all. The plebeians, moreover, recently called to take
part in the government, greatly indebted as they were for their new
political rights to the proletariate which was suffering and expecting
help at their hands, were politically and morally under special
obligation to attempt its relief by means of government measures,
so far as relief was by such means at all attainable.
The Licinian Agrarian Laws
Let us first consider how far any real relief was contained in that
part of the legislation of 387 which bore upon the question. That
the enactment in favour of the free day-labourers could not possibly
accomplish its object--namely, to check the system of farming on
a large scale and by means of slaves, and to secure to the free
proletarians at least a share of work--is self-evident. In this
matter legislation could afford no relief, without shaking the
foundations of the civil organization of the period in a way that
would reach far beyond its immediate horizon. In the question of the
domains, on the other hand, it was quite possible for legislation to
effect a change; but what was done was manifestly inadequate. The new
domain-arrangement, by granting the right of driving very considerable
flocks and herds upon the public pastures, and that of occupying
domain-land not laid out in pasture up to a maximum fixed on a
high scale, conceded to the wealthy an important and perhaps even
disproportionate prior share in the produce of the domains; and by
the latter regulation conferred upon the domain-tenure, although it
remained in law liable to pay a tenth and revocable at pleasure,
as well as upon the system of occupation itself, somewhat of a legal
sanction. It was a circumstance still more suspicious, that the
new legislation neither supplemented the existing and manifestly
unsatisfactory provisions for the collection of the pasture-money
and the tenth by compulsory measures of a more effective kind, nor
prescribed any thorough revision of the domanial possessions, nor
appointed a magistracy charged with the carrying of the new laws into
effect. The distribution of the existing occupied domain-land partly
among the holders up to a fair maximum, partly among the plebeians
who had no property, in both cases in full ownership; the abolition
in future of the system of occupation; and the institution of
an authority empowered to make immediate distribution of any
future acquisitions of territory, were so clearly demanded by the
circumstances of the case, that it certainly was not through want
of discernment that these comprehensive measures were neglected.
We cannot fail to recollect that it was the plebeian aristocracy,
in other words, a portion of the very class that was practically
privileged in respect to the usufructs of the domains, which proposed
the new arrangement, and that one of its very authors, Gaius Licinius
Stolo, was among the first to be condemned for having exceeded the
agrarian maximum; and we cannot but ask whether the legislators dealt
altogether honourably, and whether they did not on the contrary
designedly evade a solution, really tending to the common benefit,
of the unhappy question of the domains. We do not mean, however, to
express any doubt that the regulations of the Licinian laws, such as
they were, might and did substantially benefit the small farmer and
the day-labourer. It must, moreover, be acknowledged that in the
period immediately succeeding the passing of the law the authorities
watched with at least comparative strictness over the observance of
its rules as to the maximum, and frequently condemned the possessors
of large herds and the occupiers of the domains to heavy fines.
Laws Imposing Taxes--
Laws of Credit
In the system of taxation and of credit also efforts were made with
greater energy at this period than at any before or subsequent to it
to remedy the evils of the national economy, so far as legal measures
could do so. The duty levied in 397 of five per cent on the value of
slaves that were to be manumitted was--irrespective of the fact that
it imposed a check on the undesirable multiplication of freedmen--the
first tax in Rome that was really laid upon the rich. In like manner
efforts were made to remedy the system of credit. The usury laws,
which the Twelve Tables had established,(9) were renewed and gradually
rendered more stringent, so that the maximum of interest was
successively lowered from 10 per cent (enforced in 397) to 5 per cent
(in 407) for the year of twelve months, and at length (412) the taking
of interest was altogether forbidden. The latter foolish law remained
formally in force, but, of course, it was practically inoperative; the
standard rate of interest afterwards usual, viz. 1 per cent per month,
or 12 per cent for the civil common year--which, according to the
value of money in antiquity, was probably at that time nearly the same
as, according to its modern value, a rate of 5 or 6 per cent--must
have been already about this period established as the maximum of
appropriate interest. Any action at law for higher rates must have
been refused, perhaps even judicial claims for repayment may have been
allowed; moreover notorious usurers were not unfrequently summoned
before the bar of the people and readily condemned by the tribes to
heavy fines. Still more important was the alteration of the procedure
in cases of debt by the Poetelian law (428 or 441). On the one hand
it allowed every debtor who declared on oath his solvency to save his
personal freedom by the cession of his property; on the other hand it
abolished the former summary proceedings in execution on a loan-debt,
and laid down the rule that no Roman burgess could be led away to
bondage except upon the sentence of jurymen.
Continued Distress
It is plain that all these expedients might perhaps in some respects
mitigate, but could not remove, the existing economic disorders.
The continuance of the distress is shown by the appointment of a
bank-commission to regulate the relations of credit and to provide
advances from the state-chest in 402, by the fixing of legal payment
by instalments in 407, and above all by the dangerous popular
insurrection about 467, when the people, unable to obtain new
facilities for the payment of debts, marched out to the Janiculum,
and nothing but a seasonable attack by external enemies, and the
concessions contained in the Hortensian law,(10) restored peace to
the community. It is, however, very unjust to reproach these earnest
attempts to check the impoverishment of the middle class with their
inadequacy. The belief that it is useless to employ partial and
palliative means against radical evils, because they only remedy
them in part, is an article of faith never preached unsuccessfully
by baseness to simplicity, but it is none the less absurd. On the
contrary, we may ask whether the vile spirit of demagogism had not
even thus early laid hold of this matter, and whether expedients were
really needed so violent and dangerous as, for example, the deduction
of the interest paid from the capital. Our documents do not enable
us to decide the question of right or wrong in the case. But we
recognize clearly enough that the middle class of freeholders
still continued economically in a perilous and critical position;
that various endeavours were made by those in power to remedy it by
prohibitory laws and by respites, but of course in vain; and that the
aristocratic ruling class continued to be too weak in point of control
over its members, and too much entangled in the selfish interests of
its order, to relieve the middle class by the only effectual means at
the disposal of the government--the entire and unreserved abolition
of the system of occupying the state-lands--and by that course to free
the government from the reproach of turning to its own advantage the
oppressed position of the governed.
Influence of the Extension of the Roman Dominion in Elevating the
Farmer-Class
A more effectual relief than any which the government was willing
or able to give was derived by the middle classes from the political
successes of the Roman community and the gradual consolidation of the
Roman sovereignty over Italy. The numerous and large colonies which
it was necessary to found for the securing of that sovereignty, the
greater part of which were sent forth in the fifth century, furnished
a portion of the agricultural proletariate with farms of their own,
while the efflux gave relief to such as remained at home. The
increase of the indirect and extraordinary sources of revenue, and
the flourishing condition of the Roman finances in general, rendered
it but seldom necessary to levy any contribution from the farmers in
the form of a forced loan. While the earlier small holdings were
probably lost beyond recovery, the rising average of Roman prosperity
must have converted the former larger landholders into farmers, and
in so far added new members to the middle class. People of rank
sought principally to secure the large newly-acquired districts for
occupation; the mass of wealth which flowed to Rome through war and
commerce must have reduced the rate of interest; the increase in the
population of the capital benefited the farmer throughout Latium;
a wise system of incorporation united a number of neighbouring and
formerly subject communities with the Roman state, and thereby
strengthened especially the middle class; finally, the glorious
victories and their mighty results silenced faction. If the distress
of the farmers was by no means removed and still less were its sources
stopped, it yet admits of no doubt that at the close of this period
the Roman middle class was on the whole in a far less oppressed
condition than in the first century after the expulsion of the kings.
Civic Equality
Lastly civic equality was in a certain sense undoubtedly attained
or rather restored by the reform of 387, and the development of its
legitimate consequences. As formerly, when the patricians still in
fact formed the burgesses, these had stood upon a footing of absolute
equality in rights and duties, so now in the enlarged burgess-body
there existed in the eye of the law no arbitrary distinctions.
The gradations to which differences of age, sagacity, cultivation, and
wealth necessarily give rise in civil society, naturally also pervaded
the sphere of public life; but the spirit animating the burgesses and
the policy of the government uniformly operated so as to render these
differences as little conspicuous as possible. The whole system of
Rome tended to train up her burgesses on an average as sound and
capable, but not to bring into prominence the gifts of genius. The
growth of culture among the Romans did not at all keep pace with the
development of the power of their community, and it was instinctively
repressed rather than promoted by those in power. That there should
be rich and poor, could not be prevented; but (as in a genuine
community of farmers) the farmer as well as the day-labourer
personally guided the plough, and even for the rich the good economic
rule held good that they should live with uniform frugality and above
all should hoard no unproductive capital at home--excepting the
salt-cellar and the sacrificial ladle, no silver articles were at
this period seen in any Roman house. Nor was this of little moment.
In the mighty successes which the Roman community externally achieved
during the century from the last Veientine down to the Pyrrhic war we
perceive that the patriciate has now given place to the farmers; that
the fall of the highborn Fabian would have been not more and not less
lamented by the whole community than the fall of the plebeian Decian
was lamented alike by plebeians and patricians; that the consulate did
not of itself fall even to the wealthiest aristocrat; and that a poor
husbandman from Sabina, Manius Curius, could conquer king Pyrrhus in
the field of battle and chase him out of Italy, without ceasing to be
a simple Sabine farmer and to cultivate in person his own bread-corn.
New Aristocracy
In regard however to this imposing republican equality we must not
overlook the fact that it was to a considerable extent only formal,
and that an aristocracy of a very decided stamp grew out of it or
rather was contained in it from the very first. The non-patrician
families of wealth and consideration had long ago separated from the
plebs, and leagued themselves with the patriciate in the participation
of senatorial rights and in the prosecution of a policy distinct from
that of the plebs and very often counteracting it. The Licinian laws
abrogated the legal distinctions within the ranks of the aristocracy,
and changed the character of the barrier which excluded the plebeian
from the government, so that it was no longer a hindrance unalterable
in law, but one, not indeed insurmountable, but yet difficult to be
surmounted in practice. In both ways fresh blood was mingled with
the ruling order in Rome; but in itself the government still remained,
as before, aristocratic. In this respect the Roman community was a
genuine farmer-commonwealth, in which the rich holder of a whole hide
was little distinguished externally from the poor cottager and held
intercourse with him on equal terms, but aristocracy nevertheless
exercised so all-powerful a sway that a man without means far sooner
rose to be master of the burgesses in the city than mayor in his own
village. It was a very great and valuable gain, that under the new
legislation even the poorest burgess might fill the highest office
of the state; nevertheless it was a rare exception when a man from
the lower ranks of the population reached such a position,(11) and
not only so, but probably it was, at least towards the close of
this period, possible only by means of an election carried by
the opposition.
New Opposition
Every aristocratic government of itself calls forth a corresponding
opposition party; and as the formal equalization of the orders only
modified the aristocracy, and the new ruling order not only succeeded
the old patriciate but engrafted itself on it and intimately coalesced
with it, the opposition also continued to exist and in all respects
pursued a similar course. As it was now no longer the plebeian
burgesses as such, but the common people, that were treated as
inferior, the new opposition professed from the first to be the
representative of the lower classes and particularly of the small
farmers; and as the new aristocracy attached itself to the patriciate,
so the first movements of this new opposition were interwoven with the
final struggles against the privileges of the patricians. The first
names in the series of these new Roman popular leaders were Manius
Curius (consul 464, 479, 480; censor 481) and Gaius Fabricius (consul
472, 476, 481; censor 479); both of them men without ancestral lineage
and without wealth, both summoned--in opposition to the aristocratic
principle of restricting re-election to the highest office of the
state--thrice by the votes of the burgesses to the chief magistracy,
both, as tribunes, consuls, and censors, opponents of patrician
privileges and defenders of the small farmer-class against the
incipient arrogance of the leading houses. The future parties were
already marked out; but the interests of party were still suspended
on both sides in presence of the interests of the commonweal. The
patrician Appius Claudius and the farmer Manius Curius--vehement in
their personal antagonism--jointly by wise counsel and vigorous action
conquered king Pyrrhus; and while Gaius Fabricius as censor inflicted
penalties on Publius Cornelius Rufinus for his aristocratic sentiments
and aristocratic habits, this did not prevent him from supporting the
claim of Rufinus to a second consulate on account of his recognized
ability as a general. The breach was already formed; but the
adversaries still shook hands across it.
The New Government
The termination of the struggles between the old and new burgesses,
the various and comparatively successful endeavours to relieve the
middle class, and the germs--already making their appearance amidst
the newly acquired civic equality--of the formation of a new
aristocratic and a new democratic party, have thus been passed
in review. It remains that we describe the shape which the new
government assumed amidst these changes, and the positions in which
after the political abolition of the nobility the three elements of
the republican commonwealth--the burgesses, the magistrates, and
the senate--stood towards each other.
The Burgess-Body--
Its Composition
The burgesses in their ordinary assemblies continued as hitherto to
be the highest authority in the commonwealth and the legal sovereign.
But it was settled by law that--apart from the matters committed once
for all to the decision of the centuries, such as the election of
consuls and censors--voting by districts should be just as valid
as voting by centuries: a regulation introduced as regards the
patricio-plebeian assembly by the Valerio-Horatian law of 305(12) and
extended by the Publilian law of 415, but enacted as regards the
plebeian separate assembly by the Hortensian law about 467.(13) We have
already noticed that the same individuals, on the whole, were entitled
to vote in both assemblies, but that--apart from the exclusion of
the patricians from the plebeian separate assembly--in the general
assembly of the districts all entitled to vote were on a footing of
equality, while in the centuriate comitia the working of the suffrage
was graduated with reference to the means of the voters, and in so
far, therefore, the change was certainly a levelling and democratic
innovation. It was a circumstance of far greater importance that,
towards the end of this period, the primitive freehold basis of the
right of suffrage began for the first time to be called in question.
Appius Claudius, the boldest innovator known in Roman history, in his
censorship in 442 without consulting the senate or people so adjusted
the burgess-roll, that a man who had no land was received into
whatever tribe he chose and then according to his means into the
corresponding century. But this alteration was too far in advance
of the spirit of the age to obtain full acceptance. One of the
immediate successors of Appius, Quintus Fabius Rullianus, the famous
conqueror of the Samnites, undertook in his censorship of 450 not to
set it aside entirely, but to confine it within such limits that the
real power in the burgess-assemblies should continue to be vested in
the holders of land and of wealth. He assigned those who had no land
collectively to the four city tribes, which were now made to rank not
as the first but as the last. The rural tribes, on the other hand,
the number of which gradually increased between 367 and 513 from
seventeen to thirty-one--thus forming a majority, greatly
preponderating from the first and ever increasing in preponderance,
of the voting-divisions--were reserved by law for the whole of the
burgesses who were freeholders. In the centuries the equalization of
the freeholders and non-freeholders remained as Appius had introduced
it. In this manner provision was made for the preponderance of the
freeholders in the comitia of the tribes, while for the centuriate
comitia in themselves the wealthy already turned the scale. By this
wise and moderate arrangement on the part of a man who for his warlike
feats and still more for this peaceful achievement justly received the
surname of the Great (-Maximus-), on the one hand the duty of bearing
arms was extended, as was fitting, also to the non-freehold burgesses;
on the other hand care was taken that their influence, especially
that of those who had once been slaves and who were for the most part
without property in land, should be subjected to that check which
is unfortunately, in a state allowing slavery, an indispensable
necessity. A peculiar moral jurisdiction, moreover, which gradually
came to be associated with the census and the making up of the
burgess-roll, excluded from the burgess-body all individuals
notoriously unworthy, and guarded the full moral and political
purity of citizenship.
Increasing Powers of the Burgesses
The powers of the comitia exhibited during this period a tendency to
enlarge their range, but in a manner very gradual. The increase in
the number of magistrates to be elected by the people falls, to some
extent, under this head; it is an especially significant fact that
from 392 the military tribunes of one legion, and from 443 four
tribunes in each of the first four legions respectively, were
nominated no longer by the general, but by the burgesses. During this
period the burgesses did not on the whole interfere in administration;
only their right of declaring war was, as was reasonable, emphatically
maintained, and held to extend also to cases in which a prolonged
armistice concluded instead of a peace expired and what was not in
law but in fact a new war began (327). In other instances a question
of administration was hardly submitted to the people except when the
governing authorities fell into collision and one of them referred
the matter to the people--as when the leaders of the moderate party
among the nobility, Lucius Valerius and Marcus Horatius, in 305, and
the first plebeian dictator, Gaius Marcius Rutilus, in 398, were not
allowed by the senate to receive the triumphs they had earned; when
the consuls of 459 could not agree as to their respective provinces of
jurisdiction; and when the senate, in 364, resolved to give up to the
Gauls an ambassador who had forgotten his duty, and a consular tribune
carried the matter to the community. This was the first occasion on
which a decree of the senate was annulled by the people; and heavily
the community atoned for it. Sometimes in difficult cases the
government left the decision to the people, as first, when Caere sued
for peace, after the people had declared war against it but before
war had actually begun (401); and at a subsequent period, when the
senate hesitated to reject unceremoniously the humble entreaty of
the Samnites for peace (436). It is not till towards the close of
this epoch that we find a considerably extended intervention of the
-comitia tributa- in affairs of administration, particularly through
the practice of consulting it as to the conclusion of peace and of
alliances: this extension probably dates from the Hortensian law
of 467.
Decreasing Importance of the Burgess-Body
But notwithstanding these enlargements of the powers of the
burgess-assemblies, their practical influence on state affairs began,
particularly towards the close of this period, to wane. First of all,
the extension of the bounds of Rome deprived her primary assembly of
its true basis. As an assembly of the freeholders of the community,
it formerly might very well meet in sufficiently full numbers, and
might very well know its own wishes, even without discussion; but the
Roman burgess-body had now become less a civic community than a state.
The fact that those dwelling together voted also with each other, no
doubt, introduced into the Roman comitia, at least when the voting
was by tribes, a sort of inward connection and into the voting now
and then energy and independence; but under ordinary circumstances
the composition of the comitia and their decision were left dependent
on the person who presided or on accident, or were committed to the
hands of the burgesses domiciled in the capital. It is, therefore,
quite easy to understand how the assemblies of the burgesses, which
had great practical importance during the first two centuries of
the republic, gradually became a mere instrument in the hands of
the presiding magistrate, and in truth a very dangerous instrument,
because the magistrates called to preside were so numerous, and
every resolution of the community was regarded as the ultimate legal
expression of the will of the people. But the enlargement of the
constitutional rights of the burgesses was not of much moment,
inasmuch as these were less than formerly capable of a will and action
of their own, and there was as yet no demagogism, in the proper sense
of that term, in Rome. Had any such demagogic spirit existed, it
would have attempted not to extend the powers of the burgesses, but to
remove the restrictions on political debate in their presence; whereas
throughout this whole period there was undeviating acquiescence in the
old maxims, that the magistrate alone could convoke the burgesses,
and that he was entitled to exclude all debate and all proposal
of amendments. At the time this incipient breaking up of the
constitution made itself felt chiefly in the circumstance that
the primary assemblies assumed an essentially passive attitude,
and did not on the whole interfere in government either to help
or to hinder it.
The Magistrates. Partition and Weakening of the Consular Powers
As regards the power of the magistrates, its diminution, although not
the direct design of the struggles between the old and new burgesses,
was doubtless one of their most important results. At the beginning
of the struggle between the orders or, in other words, of the strife
for the possession of the consular power, the consulate was still
the one and indivisible, essentially regal, magistracy; and the
consul, like the king in former times, still had the appointment
of all subordinate functionaries left to his own free choice.
At the termination of that contest its most important functions
--jurisdiction, street-police, election of senators and equites,
the census and financial administration --were separated from the
consulship and transferred to magistrates, who like the consul
were nominated by the community and occupied a position far more
co-ordinate than subordinate. The consulate, formerly the single
ordinary magistracy of the state, was now no longer even absolutely
the first. In the new arrangement as to the ranking and usual order
of succession of the public offices the consulate stood indeed above
the praetorship, aedileship, and quaestorship, but beneath the
censorship, which--in addition to the most important financial duties
--was charged with the adjustment of the rolls of burgesses, equites,
and senators, and thereby wielded a wholly arbitrary moral control
over the entire community and every individual burgess, the humblest
as well as the most prominent. The conception of limited magisterial
power or special function, which seemed to the original Roman state-law
irreconcilable with the conception of supreme office, gradually
gained a footing and mutilated and destroyed the earlier idea of the
one and indivisible -imperium-. A first step was already taken in
this direction by the institution of the standing collateral offices,
particularly the quaestorship;(14) it was completely carried out by
the Licinian laws (387), which prescribed the functions of the three
supreme magistrates, and assigned administration and the conduct of
war to the two first, and the management of justice to the third. But
the change did not stop here. The consuls, although they were in law
wholly and everywhere co-ordinate, naturally from the earliest times
divided between them in practice the different departments of duty
(-provinciae-). Originally this was done simply by mutual concert, or
in default of it by casting lots; but by degrees the other constituent
authorities in the commonwealth interfered with this practical
definition of functions. It became usual for the senate to define
annually the spheres of duty; and, while it did not directly
distribute them among the co-ordinate magistrates, it exercised
decided influence on the personal distribution by advice and request.
In an extreme case the senate doubtless obtained a decree of the
community, definitively to settle the question of distribution;(15)
the government, however, very seldom employed this dangerous
expedient. Further, the most important affairs, such as the
concluding of peace, were withdrawn from the consuls, and they
were in such matters obliged to have recourse to the senate and
to act according to its instructions. Lastly, in cases of extremity
the senate could at any time suspend the consuls from office; for,
according to an usage never established by law but never violated
in practice, the creation of a dictatorship depended simply upon
the resolution of the senate, and the fixing of the person to be
nominated, although constitutionally vested in the nominating
consul, really under ordinary circumstances lay with the senate.
Limitation of the Dictatorship
The old unity and plenary legal power of the -imperium- were retained
longer in the case of the dictatorship than in that of the consulship.
Although of course as an extraordinary magistracy it had in reality
from the first its special functions, it had in law far less of a
special character than the consulate. But it also was gradually
affected by the new idea of definite powers and functions introduced
into the legal life of Rome. In 391 we first meet with a dictator
expressly nominated from theological scruples for the mere
accomplishment of a religious ceremony; and though that dictator
himself, doubtless in formal accordance with the constitution,
treated the restriction of his powers as null and took the command
of the army in spite of it, such an opposition on the part of the
magistrate was not repeated on occasion of the subsequent similarly
restricted nominations, which occurred in 403 and thenceforward very
frequently. On the contrary, the dictators thenceforth accounted
themselves bound by their powers as specially defined.
Restriction as to the Accumulation and the Reoccupation of Offices
Lastly, further seriously felt restrictions of the magistracy were
involved in the prohibition issued in 412 against the accumulation
of the ordinary curule offices, and in the enactment of the same date,
that the same person should not again administer the same office under
ordinary circumstances before an interval of ten years had elapsed, as
well as in the subsequent regulation that the office which practically
was the highest, the censorship, should not be held a second time
at all (489). But the government was still strong enough not to be
afraid of its instruments or to desist purposely on that account
from employing those who were the most serviceable. Brave officers
were very frequently released from these rules,(16) and cases still
occurred like those of Quintus Fabius Rullianus, who was five times
consul in twenty-eight years, and of Marcus Valerius Corvus (384-483)
who, after he had filled six consulships, the first in his twenty-third,
the last in his seventy-second year, and had been throughout three
generations the protector of his countrymen and the terror
of the foe, descended to the grave at the age of a hundred.
The Tribunate of the People as an Instrument of Government
While the Roman magistrate was thus more and more completely and
definitely transformed from the absolute lord into the limited
commissioner and administrator of the community, the old
counter-magistracy, the tribunate of the people, was undergoing at
the same time a similar transformation internal rather than external.
It served a double purpose in the commonwealth. It had been from
the beginning intended to protect the humble and the weak by a
somewhat revolutionary assistance (-auxilium-) against the overbearing
violence of the magistrates; it had subsequently been employed to get
rid of the legal disabilities of the commons and the privileges of the
gentile nobility. The latter end was attained. The original object
was not only in itself a democratic ideal rather than a political
possibility, but it was also quite as obnoxious to the plebeian
aristocracy into whose hands the tribunate necessarily fell, and
quite as incompatible with the new organization which originated
in the equalization of the orders and had if possible a still more
decided aristocratic hue than that which preceded it, as it was
obnoxious to the gentile nobility and incompatible with the patrician
consular constitution. But instead of abolishing the tribunate, they
preferred to convert it from a weapon of opposition into an instrument
of government, and now introduced the tribunes of the people, who were
originally excluded from all share in administration and were neither
magistrates nor members of the senate, into the class of governing
authorities.
While in jurisdiction they stood from the beginning on an equality
with the consuls and in the early stages of the conflicts between the
orders acquired like the consuls the right of initiating legislation,
they now received--we know not exactly when, but presumably at or soon
after the final equalization of the orders--a position of equality
with the consuls as confronting the practically governing authority,
the senate. Hitherto they had been present at the proceedings of the
senate, sitting on a bench at the door; now they obtained, like the
other magistrates and by their side, a place in the senate itself and
the right to interpose their word in its discussions. If they were
precluded from the right of voting, this was simply an application of
the general principle of Roman state-law, that those only should give
counsel who were not called to act; in accordance with which the whole
of the acting magistrates possessed during their year of office only a
seat, not a vote, in the council of the state.(17) But concession did
not rest here. The tribunes received the distinctive prerogative of
supreme magistracy, which among the ordinary magistrates belonged
only to the consuls and praetors besides--the right of convoking the
senate, of consulting it, and of procuring decrees from it.(18) This
was only as it should be; the heads of the plebeian aristocracy
could not but be placed on an equality with those of the patrician
aristocracy in the senate, when once the government had passed
from the clan-nobility to the united aristocracy. Now that this
opposition-college, originally excluded from all share in the public
administration, became--particularly with reference to strictly urban
affairs--a second supreme executive and one of the most usual and most
serviceable instruments of the government, or in other words of the
senate, for managing the burgesses and especially for checking the
excesses of the magistrates, it was certainly, as respected its
original character, absorbed and politically annihilated; but this
course was really enjoined by necessity. Clearly as the defects of
the Roman aristocracy were apparent, and decidedly as the steady
growth of aristocratic ascendency was connected with the practical
setting aside of the tribunate, none can fail to see that government
could not be long carried on with an authority which was not only
aimless and virtually calculated to put off the suffering proletariate
with a deceitful prospect of relief, but was at the same time
decidedly revolutionary and possessed of a--strictly speaking
--anarchical prerogative of obstruction to the authority of the
magistrates and even of the state itself. But that faith in an ideal,
which is the foundation of all the power and of all the impotence
of democracy, had come to be closely associated in the minds of the
Romans with the tribunate of the plebs; and we do not need to
recall the case of Cola Rienzi in order to perceive that, however
unsubstantial might be the advantage thence arising to the multitude,
it could not be abolished without a formidable convulsion of the
state. Accordingly with genuine political prudence they contented
themselves with reducing it to a nullity under forms that should
attract as little attention as possible. The mere name of this
essentially revolutionary magistracy was still retained within
the aristocratically governed commonwealth--an incongruity for the
present, and for the future, in the hands of a coming revolutionary
party, a sharp and dangerous weapon. For the moment, however, and for
a long time to come the aristocracy was so absolutely powerful and
so completely possessed control over the tribunate, that no trace at
all is to be met with of a collegiate opposition on the part of
the tribunes to the senate; and the government overcame the forlorn
movements of opposition that now and then proceeded from individual
tribunes, always without difficulty, and ordinarily by means of
the tribunate itself.
The Senate. Its Composition
In reality it was the senate that governed the commonwealth, and did
so almost without opposition after the equalization of the orders.
Its very composition had undergone a change. The free prerogative of
the chief magistrates in this matter, as it had been exercised after
the setting aside of the old clan-representation,(19) had been already
subjected to very material restrictions on the abolition of the
presidency for life.(20)
A further step towards the emancipation of the senate from the power
of the magistrates took place, when the adjustment of the senatorial
lists was transferred from the supreme magistrates to subordinate
functionaries--from the consuls to the censors.(21) Certainly,
whether immediately at that time or soon afterwards, the right of
the magistrate entrusted with the preparation of the list to omit
from it individual senators on account of a stain attaching to them
and thereby to exclude them from the senate was, if not introduced,
at least more precisely defined,(22) and in this way the foundations
were laid of that peculiar jurisdiction over morals on which the high
repute of the censors was chiefly based.(23) But censures of that
sort--especially since the two censors had to be at one on the matter
--might doubtless serve to remove particular persons who did not
contribute to the credit of the assembly or were hostile to the spirit
prevailing there, but could not bring the body itself into dependence
on the magistracy.
But the right of the magistrates to constitute the senate according
to their judgment was decidedly restricted by the Ovinian law, which
was passed about the middle of this period, probably soon after the
Licinian laws. That law at once conferred a seat and vote in the
senate provisionally on every one who had been curule aedile, praetor,
or consul, and bound the next censors either formally to inscribe
these expectants in the senatorial roll, or at any rate to exclude
them from the roll only for such reasons as sufficed for the rejection
of an actual senator. The number of those, however, who had been
magistrates was far from sufficing to keep the senate up to the normal
number of three hundred; and below that point it could not be allowed
to fall, especially as the list of senators was at the same time that
of jurymen. Considerable room was thus always left for the exercise
of the censorial right of election; but those senators who were chosen
not in consequence of having held office, but by selection on the part
of the censor--frequently burgesses who had filled a non-curule public
office, or distinguished themselves by personal valour, who had killed
an enemy in battle or saved the life of a burgess--took part in
voting, but not in debate.(24) The main body of the senate, and
that portion of it into whose hands government and administration
were concentrated, was thus according to the Ovinian law substantially
based no longer on the arbitrary will of a magistrate, but indirectly
on election by the people. The Roman state in this way made some
approach to, although it did not reach, the great institution of
modern times, representative popular government, while the aggregate
of the non-debating senators furnished--what it is so necessary and
yet so difficult to get in governing corporations--a compact mass
of members capable of forming and entitled to pronounce an opinion,
but voting in silence.
Powers of the Senate
The powers of the senate underwent scarcely any change in form. The
senate carefully avoided giving a handle to opposition or to ambition
by unpopular changes, or manifest violations, of the constitution; it
permitted, though it did nor promote, the enlargement in a democratic
direction of the power of the burgesses. But while the burgesses
acquired the semblance, the senate acquired the substance of power
--a decisive influence over legislation and the official elections,
and the whole control of the state.
Its Influence in Legislation
Every new project of law was subjected to a preliminary deliberation
in the senate, and scarcely ever did a magistrate venture to lay a
proposal before the community without or in opposition to the senate's
opinion. If he did so, the senate had--in the intercessory powers of
the magistrates and the annulling powers of the priests--an ample set
of means at hand to nip in the bud, or subsequently to get rid of,
obnoxious proposals; and in case of extremity it had in its hands
as the supreme administrative authority not only the executing, but
the power of refusing to execute, the decrees of the community. The
senate further with tacit consent of the community claimed the right
in urgent cases of absolving from the laws, under the reservation that
the community should ratify the proceeding--a reservation which from
the first was of little moment, and became by degrees so entirely a
form that in later times they did not even take the trouble to propose
the ratifying decree.
Influence on the Elections
As to the elections, they passed, so far as they depended on the
magistrates and were of political importance, practically into the
hands of the senate. In this way it acquired, as has been mentioned
already,(25) the right to appoint the dictator. Great regard had
certainly to be shown to the community; the right of bestowing the
public magistracies could not be withdrawn from it; but, as has
likewise been already observed, care was taken that this election of
magistrates should not be constructed into the conferring of definite
functions, especially of the posts of supreme command when war was
imminent. Moreover the newly introduced idea of special functions on
the one hand, and on the other the right practically conceded to the
senate of dispensation from the laws, gave to it an important share
in official appointments. Of the influence which the senate exercised
in settling the official spheres of the consuls in particular, we have
already spoken.(26) One of the most important applications of the
dispensing right was the dispensation of the magistrate from the legal
term of his tenure of office--a dispensation which, as contrary to the
fundamental laws of the community, might not according to Roman state-law
be granted in the precincts of the city proper, but beyond these
was at least so far valid that the consul or praetor, whose term was
prolonged, continued after its expiry to discharge his functions
"in a consul's or praetor's stead" (-pro consule- -pro praetore-).
Of course this important right of extending the term of office
--essentially on a par with the right of nomination--belonged by
law to the community alone, and at the beginning was in fact exercised
by it; but in 447, and regularly thenceforward, the command of the
commander-in-chief was prolonged by mere decree of the senate. To this
was added, in fine, the preponderating and skilfully concerted influence
of the aristocracy over the elections, which guided them ordinarily,
although not always, to the choice of candidates agreeable to
the government.
Senatorial Government
Finally as regards administration, war, peace and alliances, the
founding of colonies, the assignation of lands, building, in fact
every matter of permanent and general importance, and in particular
the whole system of finance, depended absolutely on the senate.
It was the senate which annually issued general instructions to the
magistrates, settling their spheres of duty and limiting the troops
and moneys to be placed at the disposal of each; and recourse was
had to its counsel in every case of importance. The keepers of the
state-chest could make no payment to any magistrate with the exception
of the consul, or to any private person, unless authorized by a previous
decree of the senate. In the management, however, of current affairs
and in the details of judicial and military administration the supreme
governing corporation did not interfere; the Roman aristocracy had too
much political judgment and tact to desire to convert the control of
the commonwealth into a guardianship over the individual official,
or to turn the instrument into a machine.
That this new government of the senate amidst all its retention
of existing forms involved a complete revolutionizing of the old
commonwealth, is clear. That the free action of the burgesses should
be arrested and benumbed; that the magistrates should be reduced to
be the presidents of its sittings and its executive commissioners;
that a corporation for the mere tendering of advice should seize the
inheritance of both the authorities sanctioned by the constitution
and should become, although under very modest forms, the central
government of the state--these were steps of revolution and
usurpation. Nevertheless, if any revolution or any usurpation appears
justified before the bar of history by exclusive ability to govern,
even its rigorous judgment must acknowledge that this corporation
timeously comprehended and worthily fulfilled its great task. Called
to power not by the empty accident of birth, but substantially by the
free choice of the nation; confirmed every fifth year by the stern
moral judgment of the worthiest men; holding office for life, and so
not dependent on the expiration of its commission or on the varying
opinion of the people; having its ranks close and united ever after
the equalization of the orders; embracing in it all the political
intelligence and practical statesmanship that the people possessed;
absolute in dealing with all financial questions and in the guidance
of foreign policy; having complete power over the executive by virtue
of its brief duration and of the tribunician intercession which was
at the service of the senate after the termination of the quarrels
between the orders--the Roman senate was the noblest organ of the
nation, and in consistency and political sagacity, in unanimity and
patriotism, in grasp of power and unwavering courage, the foremost
political corporation of all times--still even now an "assembly of
kings," which knew well how to combine despotic energy with republican
self-devotion. Never was a state represented in its external
relations more firmly and worthily than Rome in its best times by
its senate. In matters of internal administration it certainly
cannot be concealed that the moneyed and landed aristocracy, which
was especially represented in the senate, acted with partiality in
affairs that bore upon its peculiar interests, and that the sagacity
and energy of the body were often in such cases employed far from
beneficially to the state. Nevertheless the great principle
established amidst severe conflicts, that all Roman burgesses were
equal in the eye of the law as respected rights and duties, and the
opening up of a political career (or in other words, of admission
to the senate) to every one, which was the result of that principle,
concurred with the brilliance of military and political successes in
preserving the harmony of the state and of the nation, and relieved
the distinction of classes from that bitterness and malignity which
marked the struggle of the patricians and plebeians. And, as the
fortunate turn taken by external politics had the effect of giving the
rich for more than a century ample space for themselves and rendered
it unnecessary that they should oppress the middle class, the Roman
people was enabled by means of its senate to carry out for a longer
term than is usually granted to a people the grandest of all human
undertakings--a wise and happy self-government.
Notes for Book II Chapter III
1. The hypothesis that legally the full -imperium- belonged to the
patrician, and only the military -imperium- to the plebeian, consular
tribunes, not only provokes various questions to which there is no
answer--as to the course followed, for example, in the event of the
election falling, as was by law quite possible, wholly on plebeians
--but specially conflicts with the fundamental principle of Roman
constitutional law, that the -imperium-, that is to say, the right
of commanding the burgess in name of the community, was functionally
indivisible and capable of no other limitation at all than a
territorial one. There was a province of urban law and a province
of military law, in the latter of which the -provocatio- and other
regulations of urban law were not applicable; there were magistrates,
such as the proconsuls, who were empowered to discharge functions
simply in the latter; but there were, in the strict sense of law,
no magistrates with merely jurisdictional, as there were none with
merely military, -imperium-. The proconsul was in his province, just
like the consul, at once commander-in-chief and supreme judge, and was
entitled to send to trial actions not only between non-burgesses and
soldiers, but also between one burgess and another. Even when, on the
institution of the praetorship, the idea rose of apportioning special
functions to the -magistratus maiores-, this division of powers had
more of a practical than of a strictly legal force; the -praetor
urbanus- was primarily indeed the supreme judge, but he could also
convoke the centuries, at least for certain cases, and could
command an army; the consul in the city held primarily the supreme
administration and the supreme command, but he too acted as a judge
in cases of emancipation and adoption--the functional indivisibility
of the supreme magistracy was therefore, even in these instances,
very strictly adhered to on both sides. Thus the military as well as
jurisdictional authority, or, laying aside these abstractions foreign
to the Roman law of this period, the absolute magisterial power, must
have virtually pertained to the plebeian consular tribunes as well as
to the patrician. But it may well be, as Becker supposes (Handb. ii.
2, 137), that, for the same reasons, for which at a subsequent period
there was placed alongside of the consulship common to both orders
the praetorship actually reserved for a considerable time for the
patricians, even during the consular tribunate the plebeian members
of the college were -de facto- kept aloof from jurisdiction, and so
far the consular tribunate prepared the way for the subsequent actual
division of jurisdiction between consuls and praetors.
2. I. VI. Political Effects of the Servian Military Organization
3. The defence, that the aristocracy clung to the exclusion of
the plebeians from religious prejudice, mistakes the fundamental
character of the Roman religion, and imports into antiquity the modern
distinction between church and state. The admittance of a non-burgess
to a religious ceremony of the citizens could not indeed but appear
sinful to the orthodox Roman; but even the most rigid orthodoxy never
doubted that admittance to civic communion, which absolutely and
solely depended on the state, involved also full religious equality.
All such scruples of conscience, the honesty of which in themselves
we do not mean to doubt, were precluded, when once they granted to the
plebeians -en masse- at the right time the patriciate. This only may
perhaps be alleged by way of excuse for the nobility, that after it
had neglected the right moment for this purpose at the abolition of
the monarchy, it was no longer in a position subsequently of itself
to retrieve the neglect (II. I. The New Community).
4. Whether this distinction between these "curule houses" and the
other families embraced within the patriciate was ever of serious
political importance, cannot with certainty be either affirmed or
denied; and as little do we know whether at this epoch there really
was any considerable number of patrician families that were not yet
curule.
5. II. II. The Valerio-Horatian Laws
6. I. XII. Foreign Worships
7. II. I. Senate,
8. II. I. Senate, II. III. Opposition of the Patriciate
9. II. II. Legislation of the Twelve Tables
10. II. III. Equivalence Law and Plebiscitum
11. The statements as to the poverty of the consulars of this period,
which play so great a part in the moral anecdote-books of a later age,
mainly rest on a misunderstanding on the one hand of the old frugal
economy--which might very well consist with considerable prosperity
--and on the other hand of the beautiful old custom of burying men who
had deserved well of the state from the proceeds of penny collections
--which was far from being a pauper burial. The method also of
explaining surnames by etymological guess-work, which has imported
so many absurdities into Roman history, has furnished its quota to
this belief (-Serranus-).
12. II. II. The Valerio-Horatian Laws
13. II. III. Equivalence Law and Plebiscitum
14. II. I. Restrictions on the Delegation of Powers
15. II. III. Increasing Powers of the Burgesses
16. Any one who compares the consular Fasti before and after 412
will have no doubt as to the existence of the above-mentioned law
respecting re-election to the consulate; for, while before that year
a return to office, especially after three or four years, was a
common occurrence, afterwards intervals of ten years and more were
as frequent. Exceptions, however, occur in very great numbers,
particularly during the severe years of war 434-443. On the other
hand, the principle of not allowing a plurality of offices was
strictly adhered to. There is no certain instance of the combination
of two of the three ordinary curule (Liv. xxxix. 39, 4) offices (the
consulate, praetorship, and curule aedileship), but instances occur
of other combinations, such as of the curule aedileship and the office
of master of the horse (Liv. xxiii. 24, 30); of the praetorship
and censorship (Fast. Cap. a. 501); of the praetorship and the
dictatorship (Liv. viii. 12); of the consulate and the dictatorship
(Liv. viii. 12).
17. II. I. Senate
18. Hence despatches intended for the senate were addressed to
Consuls, Praetors, Tribunes of the Plebs, and Senate (Cicero, ad
Fam. xv. 2, et al.)
19. I. V. The Senate
20. II. I. Senate
21. II. III. Censorship
22. This prerogative and the similar ones with reference to the
equestrian and burgess-lists were perhaps not formally and legally
assigned to the censors, but were always practically implied in
their powers. It was the community, not the censor, that conferred
burgess-rights; but the person, to whom the latter in making up the
list of persons entitled to vote did not assign a place or assigned an
inferior one, did not lose his burgess-right, but could not exercise
the privileges of a burgess, or could only exercise them in the
inferior place, till the preparation of a new list. The same was the
case with the senate; the person omitted by the censor from his list
ceased to attend the senate, as long as the list in question remained
valid--unless the presiding magistrate should reject it and reinstate
the earlier list. Evidently therefore the important question in this
respect was not so much what was the legal liberty of the censors,
as how far their authority availed with those magistrates who had to
summon according to their lists. Hence it is easy to understand
how this prerogative gradually rose in importance, and how with the
increasing consolidation of the nobility such erasures assumed
virtually the form of judicial decisions and were virtually respected
as such. As to the adjustment of the senatorial list undoubtedly the
enactment of the Ovinian -plebiscitum- exercised a material share of
influence--that the censors should admit to the senate "the best men
out of all classes."
23. II. III. The Burgess-Body. Its Composition
24. II. III. Complete Opening Up of Magistracies and Priesthoods
25. II. III. Restrictions as to the Accumulation and the Reoccupation
of Offices
26. II. III. Partition and Weakening of Consular Powers
CHAPTER IV
Fall of the Etruscan Power-the Celts
Etrusco-Carthaginian Maritime Supremacy
In the previous chapters we have presented an outline of the
development of the Roman constitution during the first two centuries
of the republic; we now recur to the commencement of that epoch for
the purpose of tracing the external history of Rome and of Italy.
About the time of the expulsion of the Tarquins from Rome the Etruscan
power had reached its height. The Tuscans, and the Carthaginians who
were in close alliance with them, possessed undisputed supremacy on
the Tyrrhene Sea. Although Massilia amidst continual and severe
struggles maintained her independence, the seaports of Campania and
of the Volscian land, and after the battle of Alalia Corsica also,(1)
were in the possession of the Etruscans. In Sardinia the sons of the
Carthaginian general Mago laid the foundation of the greatness both of
their house and of their city by the complete conquest of the island
(about 260); and in Sicily, while the Hellenic colonies were occupied
with their internal feuds, the Phoenicians retained possession of
the western half without material opposition. The vessels of the
Etruscans were no less dominant in the Adriatic; and their pirates
were dreaded even in the more eastern waters.
Subjugation of Latium by Etruria
By land also their power seemed to be on the increase. To acquire
possession of Latium was of the most decisive importance to Etruria,
which was separated by the Latins alone from the Volscian towns that
were dependent on it and from its possessions in Campania. Hitherto
the firm bulwark of the Roman power had sufficiently protected Latium,
and had successfully maintained against Etruria the frontier line of
the Tiber. But now, when the whole Tuscan league, taking advantage of
the confusion and the weakness of the Roman state after the expulsion
of the Tarquins, renewed its attack more energetically than before
under the king Lars Porsena of Clusium, it no longer encountered the
wonted resistance. Rome surrendered, and in the peace (assigned to
247) not only ceded all her possessions on the right bank of the Tiber
to the adjacent Tuscan communities and thus abandoned her exclusive
command of the river, but also delivered to the conqueror all her
weapons of war and promised to make use of iron thenceforth only for
the ploughshare. It seemed as if the union of Italy under Tuscan
supremacy was not far distant.
Etruscans Driven Back from Latium--
Fall of the Etrusco-Carthaginian Maritime Supremacy--
Victories of Salamis and Himera, and Their Effects
But the subjugation, with which the coalition of the Etruscan and
Carthaginian nations had threatened both Greeks and Italians, was
fortunately averted by the combination of peoples drawn towards each
other by family affinity as well as by common peril. The Etruscan
army, which after the fall of Rome had penetrated into Latium, had
its victorious career checked in the first instance before the walls
of Aricia by the well-timed intervention of the Cumaeans who had
hastened to the succour of the Aricines (248). We know not how the
war ended, nor, in particular, whether Rome even at that time tore up
the ruinous and disgraceful peace. This much only is certain, that
on this occasion also the Tuscans were unable to maintain their ground
permanently on the left bank of the Tiber.
Soon the Hellenic nation was forced to engage in a still more
comprehensive and still more decisive conflict with the barbarians
both of the west and of the east. It was about the time of the
Persian wars. The relation in which the Tyrians stood to the great
king led Carthage also to follow in the wake of Persian policy
--there exists a credible tradition even as to an alliance between
the Carthaginians and Xerxes--and, along with the Carthaginians, the
Etruscans. It was one of the grandest of political combinations which
simultaneously directed the Asiatic hosts against Greece, and the
Phoenician hosts against Sicily, to extirpate at a blow liberty and
civilization from the face of the earth. The victory remained with
the Hellenes. The battle of Salamis (274) saved and avenged Hellas
proper; and on the same day--so runs the story--the rulers of Syracuse
and Agrigentum, Gelon and Theron, vanquished the immense army of the
Carthaginian general Hamilcar, son of Mago, at Himera so completely,
that the war was thereby terminated, and the Phoenicians, who by no
means cherished at that time the project of subduing the whole of
Sicily on their own account, returned to their previous defensive
policy. Some of the large silver pieces are still preserved which
were coined for this campaign from the ornaments of Damareta, the
wife of Gelon, and other noble Syracusan dames: and the latest times
gratefully remembered the gentle and brave king of Syracuse and
the glorious victory whose praises Simonides sang.
The immediate effect of the humiliation of Carthage was the fall of
the maritime supremacy of her Etruscan allies. Anaxilas, ruler of
Rhegium and Zancle, had already closed the Sicilian straits against
their privateers by means of a standing fleet (about 272); soon
afterwards (280) the Cumaeans and Hiero of Syracuse achieved a
decisive victory near Cumae over the Tyrrhene fleet, to which the
Carthaginians vainly attempted to render aid. This is the victory
which Pindar celebrates in his first Pythian ode; and there is still
extant an Etruscan helmet, which Hiero sent to Olympia, with the
inscription: "Hiaron son of Deinomenes and the Syrakosians to Zeus,
Tyrrhane spoil from Kyma."(2)
Maritime Supremacy of the Tarentines and Syracusans--
Dionysius of Syracuse
While these extraordinary successes against the Carthaginians and
Etruscans placed Syracuse at the head of the Greek cities in Sicily,
the Doric Tarentum rose to undisputed pre-eminence among the Italian
Hellenes, after the Achaean Sybaris had fallen about the time of the
expulsion of the kings from Rome (243). The terrible defeat of the
Tarentines by the Iapygians (280), the most severe disaster which a
Greek army had hitherto sustained, served only, like the Persian
invasion of Hellas, to unshackle the whole might of the national
spirit in the development of an energetic democracy. Thenceforth
the Carthaginians and the Etruscans were no longer paramount in the
Italian waters; the Tarentines predominated in the Adriatic and Ionic,
the Massiliots and Syracusans in the Tyrrhene, seas. The latter in
particular restricted more and more the range of Etruscan piracy.
After the victory at Cumae, Hiero had occupied the island of Aenaria
(Ischia), and by that means interrupted the communication between the
Campanian and the northern Etruscans. About the year 302, with a
view thoroughly to check Tuscan piracy, Syracuse sent forth a special
expedition, which ravaged the island of Corsica and the Etruscan
coast and occupied the island of Aethalia (Elba). Although
Etrusco-Carthaginian piracy was not wholly repressed--Antium,
for example, having apparently continued a haunt of privateering down
to the beginning of the fifth century of Rome--the powerful Syracuse
formed a strong bulwark against the allied Tuscans and Phoenicians.
For a moment, indeed, it seemed as if the Syracusan power must be broken
by the attack of the Athenians, whose naval expedition against Syracuse
in the course of the Peloponnesian war (339-341) was supported by the
Etruscans, old commercial friends of Athens, with three fifty-oared
galleys. But the victory remained, as is well known, both in the west
and in the east with the Dorians. After the ignominious failure of
the Attic expedition, Syracuse became so indisputably the first Greek
maritime power that the men, who were there at the head of the state,
aspired to the sovereignty of Sicily and Lower Italy, and of both the
Italian seas; while on the other hand the Carthaginians, who saw their
dominion in Sicily now seriously in danger, were on their part also
obliged to make, and made, the subjugation of the Syracusans and the
reduction of the whole island the aim of their policy. We cannot
here narrate the decline of the intermediate Sicilian states, and
the increase of the Carthaginian power in the island, which were the
immediate results of these struggles; we notice their effect only so
far as Etruria is concerned. The new ruler of Syracuse, Dionysius
(who reigned 348-387), inflicted on Etruria blows which were severely
felt. The far-scheming king laid the foundation of his new colonial
power especially in the sea to the east of Italy, the more northern
waters of which now became, for the first time, subject to a Greek
maritime power. About the year 367, Dionysius occupied and colonized
the port of Lissus and island of Issa on the Illyrian coast, and the
ports of Ancona, Numana, and Atria, on the coast of Italy. The memory
of the Syracusan dominion in this remote region is preserved not only
by the "trenches of Philistus," a canal constructed at the mouth
of the Po beyond doubt by the well-known historian and friend of
Dionysius who spent the years of his exile (368 et seq.) at Atria,
but also by the alteration in the name of the Italian eastern sea
itself, which from this time forth, instead of its earlier designation
of the "Ionic Gulf",(3) received the appellation still current at the
present day, and probably referable to these events, of the sea
"of Hadria."(4) But not content with these attacks on the possessions
and commercial communications of the Etruscans in the eastern sea,
Dionysius assailed the very heart of the Etruscan power by storming
and plundering Pyrgi, the rich seaport of Caere (369). From this blow
it never recovered. When the internal disturbances that followed the
death of Dionysius in Syracuse gave the Carthaginians freer scope, and
their fleet resumed in the Tyrrhene sea that ascendency which with but
slight interruptions they thenceforth maintained, it proved a burden
no less grievous to Etruscans than to Greeks; so that, when Agathocles
of Syracuse in 444 was making preparations for war with Carthage, he
was even joined by eighteen Tuscan vessels of war. The Etruscans
perhaps had their fears in regard to Corsica, which they probably
still at that time retained. The old Etrusco-Phoenician symmachy,
which still existed in the time of Aristotle (370-432), was thus
broken up; but the Etruscans never recovered their maritime strength.
The Romans Opposed to the Etruscans in Veii
This rapid collapse of the Etruscan maritime power would be
inexplicable but for the circumstance that, at the very time when
the Sicilian Greeks were attacking them by sea, the Etruscans found
themselves assailed with the severest blows oil every side by land.
About the time of the battles of Salamis, Himera, and Cumae a furious
war raged for many years, according to the accounts of the Roman
annals, between Rome and Veii (271-280). The Romans suffered in its
course severe defeats. Tradition especially preserved the memory of
the catastrophe of the Fabii (277), who had in consequence of internal
commotions voluntarily banished themselves from the capital(4) and had
undertaken the defence of the frontier against Etruria, and who were
slain to the last man capable of bearing arms at the brook Cremera.
But the armistice for 400 months, which in room of a peace terminated
the war, was so far favourable to the Romans that it at least restored
the -status quo- of the regal period; the Etruscans gave up Fidenae
and the district won by them on the right bank of the Tiber. We
cannot ascertain how far this Romano-Etruscan war was connected
directly with the war between the Hellenes and the Persians, and with
that between the Sicilians and Carthaginians; but whether the Romans
were or were not allies of the victors of Salamis and of Himera, there
was at any rate a coincidence of interests as well as of results.
The Samnites Opposed to the Etruscans in Campania
The Samnites as well as the Latins threw themselves upon the
Etruscans; and hardly had their Campanian settlement been cut off
from the motherland in consequence of the battle of Cumae, when it
found itself no longer able to resist the assaults of the Sabellian
mountain tribes. Capua, the capital, fell in 330; and the Tuscan
population there was soon after the conquest extirpated or expelled by
the Samnites. It is true that the Campanian Greeks also, isolated and
weakened, suffered severely from the same invasion: Cumae itself was
conquered by the Sabellians in 334. But the Hellenes maintained their
ground at Neapolis especially, perhaps with the aid of the Syracusans,
while the Etruscan name in Campania disappeared from history
--excepting some detached Etruscan communities, which prolonged
a pitiful and forlorn existence there.
Events still more momentous, however, occurred about the same time in
Northern Italy. A new nation was knocking at the gates of the Alps:
it was the Celts; and their first pressure fell on the Etruscans.
The Celtic, Galatian, or Gallic nation received from the common mother
endowments different from those of its Italian, Germanic, and Hellenic
sisters. With various solid qualities and still more that were
brilliant, it was deficient in those deeper moral and political
qualifications which lie at the root of all that is good and great
in human development. It was reckoned disgraceful, Cicero tells us,
for the free Celts to till their fields with their own hands. They
preferred a pastoral life to agriculture; and even in the fertile
plains of the Po they chiefly practised the rearing of swine, feeding
on the flesh of their herds, and staying with them in the oak forests
day and night. Attachment to their native soil, such as characterized
the Italians and the Germans, was wanting in the Celts; while on the
other hand they delighted to congregate in towns and villages, which
accordingly acquired magnitude and importance among the Celts earlier
apparently than in Italy. Their political constitution was imperfect.
Not only was the national unity recognized but feebly as a bond of
connection--as is, in fact, the case with all nations at first--but
the individual communities were deficient in concord and firm
control, in earnest public spirit and consistency of aim. The only
organization for which they were fitted was a military one, where the
bonds of discipline relieved the individual from the troublesome task
of self-control. "The prominent qualities of the Celtic race," says
their historian Thierry, "were personal bravery, in which they
excelled all nations; an open impetuous temperament, accessible to
every impression; much intelligence, but at the same time extreme
mobility, want of perseverance, aversion to discipline and order,
ostentation and perpetual discord--the result of boundless vanity."
Cato the Elder more briefly describes them, nearly to the same effect;
"the Celts devote themselves mainly to two things--fighting and
-esprit-."(6) Such qualities--those of good soldiers but of bad
citizens--explain the historical fact, that the Celts have shaken all
states and have founded none. Everywhere we find them ready to rove
or, in other words, to march; preferring moveable property to landed
estate, and gold to everything else; following the profession of arms
as a system of organized pillage or even as a trade for hire, and
with such success at all events that even the Roman historian Sallust
acknowledges that the Celts bore off the prize from the Romans in
feats of arms. They were the true soldiers-of-fortune of antiquity,
as figures and descriptions represent them: with big but not sinewy
bodies, with shaggy hair and long mustaches--quite a contrast to the
Greeks and Romans, who shaved the head and upper lip; in variegated
embroidered dresses, which in combat were not unfrequently thrown off;
with a broad gold ring round the neck; wearing no helmets and without
missile weapons of any sort, but furnished instead with an immense
shield, a long ill-tempered sword, a dagger and a lance--all
ornamented with gold, for they were not unskilful at working in
metals. Everything was made subservient to ostentation, even wounds,
which were often subsequently enlarged for the purpose of boasting
a broader scar. Usually they fought on foot, but certain tribes on
horseback, in which case every freeman was followed by two attendants
likewise mounted; war-chariots were early in use, as they were among
the Libyans and the Hellenes in the earliest times. Various traits
remind us of the chivalry of the Middle Ages; particularly the custom
of single combat, which was foreign to the Greeks and Romans. Not
only were they accustomed during war to challenge a single enemy to
fight, after having previously insulted him by words and gestures;
during peace also they fought with each other in splendid suits of
armour, as for life or death. After such feats carousals followed as
a matter of course. In this way they led, whether under their own or
a foreign banner, a restless soldier-life; they were dispersed from
Ireland and Spain to Asia Minor, constantly occupied in fighting and
so-called feats of heroism. But all their enterprises melted away
like snow in spring; and nowhere did they create a great state or
develop a distinctive culture of their own.
Celtic Migrations--
The Celts Assail the Etruscans in Northern Italy
Such is the description which the ancients give us of this nation.
Its origin can only be conjectured. Sprung from the same cradle from
which the Hellenic, Italian, and Germanic peoples issued,(7) the
Celts doubtless like these migrated from their eastern motherland into
Europe, where at a very early period they reached the western ocean
and established their headquarters in what is now France, crossing
to settle in the British isles on the north, and on the south passing
the Pyrenees and contending with the Iberian tribes for the possession
of the peninsula. This, their first great migration, flowed past the
Alps, and it was from the lands to the westward that they first began
those movements of smaller masses in the opposite direction--movements
which carried them over the Alps and the Haemus and even over the
Bosporus, and by means of which they became and for many centuries
continued to be the terror of the whole civilized nations of
antiquity, till the victories of Caesar and the frontier defence
organized by Augustus for ever broke their power.
The native legend of their migrations, which has been preserved to us
mainly by Livy, relates the story of these later retrograde movements
as follows.(8) The Gallic confederacy, which was headed then as in
the time of Caesar by the canton of the Bituriges (around Bourges),
sent forth in the days of king Ambiatus two great hosts led by the
two nephews of the king. One of these nephews, Sigovesus, crossed
the Rhine and advanced in the direction of the Black Forest, while the
second, Bellovesus, crossed the Graian Alps (the Little St. Bernard)
and descended into the valley of the Po. From the former proceeded
the Gallic settlement on the middle Danube; from the latter the oldest
Celtic settlement in the modern Lombardy, the canton of the Insubres
with Mediolanum (Milan) as its capital. Another host soon followed,
which founded the canton of the Cenomani with the towns of Brixia
(Brescia) and Verona. Ceaseless streams thenceforth poured over the
Alps into the beautiful plain; the Celtic tribes with the Ligurians
whom they dislodged and swept along with them wrested place after
place from the Etruscans, till the whole left bank of the Po was
in their hands. After the fall of the rich Etruscan town Melpum
(presumably in the district of Milan), for the subjugation of which
the Celts already settled in the basin of the Po had united with newly
arrived tribes (358?), these latter crossed to the right bank of the
river and began to press upon the Umbrians and Etruscans in their
original abodes. Those who did so were chiefly the Boii, who are
alleged to have penetrated into Italy by another route, over the
Poenine Alps (the Great St. Bernard): they settled in the modern
Romagna, where the old Etruscan town Felsina, with its name changed
by its new masters to Bononia, became their capital. Finally came
the Senones, the last of the larger Celtic tribes which made their
way over the Alps; they took up their abode along the coast of the
Adriatic from Rimini to Ancona. But isolated bands of Celtic settlers
must have advanced even far in the direction of Umbria, and up to
the border of Etruria proper; for stone-inscriptions in the Celtic
language have been found even at Todi on the upper Tiber. The limits
of Etruria on the north and east became more and more contracted,
and about the middle of the fourth century the Tuscan nation found
themselves substantially restricted to the territory which thenceforth
bore and still bears their name.
Attack on Etruria by the Romans
Subjected to these simultaneous and, as it were, concerted assaults on
the part of very different peoples--the Syracusans, Latins, Samnites,
and above all the Celts--the Etruscan nation, that had just acquired
so vast and sudden an ascendency in Latium and Campania and on both
the Italian seas, underwent a still more rapid and violent collapse.
The loss of their maritime supremacy and the subjugation of the
Campanian Etruscans belong to the same epoch as the settlement of
the Insubres and Cenomani on the Po; and about this same period the
Roman burgesses, who had not very many years before been humbled to
the utmost and almost reduced to bondage by Porsena, first assumed an
attitude of aggression towards Etruria. By the armistice with Veii in
280 Rome had recovered its ground, and the two nations were restored
in the main to the state in which they had stood in the time of the
kings. When it expired in the year 309, the warfare began afresh; but
it took the form of border frays and pillaging excursions which led to
no material result on either side. Etruria was still too powerful for
Rome to be able seriously to attack it. At length the revolt of the
Fidenates, who expelled the Roman garrison, murdered the Roman envoys,
and submitted to Lars Tolumnius, king of the Veientes, gave rise to
a more considerable war, which ended favourably for the Romans; the
king Tolumnius fell in combat by the hand of the Roman consul Aulus
Cornelius Cossus (326?), Fidenae was taken, and a new armistice for
200 months was concluded in 329. During this truce the troubles of
Etruria became more and more aggravated, and the Celtic arms were
already approaching the settlements that hitherto had been spared on
the right bank of the Po. When the armistice expired in the end of
346, the Romans on their part resolved to undertake a war of conquest
against Etruria; and on this occasion the war was carried on not
merely to vanquish Veii, but to crush it.
Conquest of Veii
The history of the war against the Veientes, Capenates, and Falisci,
and of the siege of Veii, which is said, like that of Troy, to have
lasted ten years, rests on evidence far from trustworthy. Legend and
poetry have taken possession of these events as their own, and with
reason; for the struggle in this case was waged, with unprecedented
exertions, for an unprecedented prize. It was the first occasion on
which a Roman army remained in the field summer and winter, year
after year, till its object was attained. It was the first occasion
on which the community paid the levy from the resources of the state.
But it was also the first occasion on which the Romans attempted
to subdue a nation of alien stock, and carried their arms beyond
the ancient northern boundary of the Latin land. The struggle was
vehement, but the issue was scarcely doubtful. The Romans were
supported by the Latins and Hernici, to whom the overthrow of their
dreaded neighbour was productive of scarcely less satisfaction and
advantage than to the Romans themselves; whereas Veii was abandoned
by its own nation, and only the adjacent towns of Capena and Falerii,
along with Tarquinii, furnished contingents to its help. The
contemporary attacks of the Celts would alone suffice to explain
the nonintervention of the northern communities; it is affirmed
however, and there is no reason to doubt, that this inaction of the
other Etruscans was primarily occasioned by internal factions in the
league of the Etruscan cities, and particularly by the opposition
which the regal form of government retained or restored by the
Veientes encountered from the aristocratic governments of the other
cities. Had the Etruscan nation been able or willing to take part
in the conflict, the Roman community would hardly have been able
--undeveloped as was the art of besieging at that time--to accomplish
the gigantic task of subduing a large and strong city. But isolated
and forsaken as Veii was, it succumbed (358) after a valiant
resistance to the persevering and heroic spirit of Marcus Furius
Camillus, who first opened up to his countrymen the brilliant and
perilous career of foreign conquest. The joy which this great success
excited in Rome had its echo in the Roman custom, continued down to a
late age, of concluding the festal games with a "sale of Veientes," at
which, among the mock spoils submitted to auction, the most wretched
old cripple who could be procured wound up the sport in a purple
mantle and ornaments of gold as "king of the Veientes." The city was
destroyed, and the soil was doomed to perpetual desolation. Falerii
and Capena hastened to make peace; the powerful Volsinii, which with
federal indecision had remained quiet during the agony of Veii and
took up arms after its capture, likewise after a few years (363)
consented to peace. The statement that the two bulwarks of the
Etruscan nation, Melpum and Veii, yielded on the same day, the former
to the Celts, the latter to the Romans, may be merely a melancholy
legend; but it at any rate involves a deep historical truth. The
double assault from the north and from the south, and the fall of
the two frontier strongholds, were the beginning of the end of the
great Etruscan nation.
The Celts Attack Rome--
Battle on the Allia--
Capture of Rome
For a moment, however, it seemed as if the two peoples, through whose
co-operation Etruria saw her very existence put in jeopardy, were
about to destroy each other, and the reviving power of Rome was to
be trodden under foot by foreign barbarians. This turn of things,
so contrary to what might naturally have been expected, the Romans
brought upon themselves by their own arrogance and shortsightedness.
The Celtic swarms, which had crossed the river after the fall of
Melpum, rapidly overflowed northern Italy--not merely the open country
on the right bank of the Po and along the shore of the Adriatic, but
also Etruria proper to the south of the Apennines. A few years
afterwards (363) Clusium situated in the heart of Etruria (Chiusi, on
the borders of Tuscany and the Papal State) was besieged by the Celtic
Senones; and so humbled were the Etruscans that the Tuscan city in
its straits invoked aid from the destroyers of Veii. Perhaps it would
have been wise to grant it and to reduce at once the Gauls by arms,
and the Etruscans by according to them protection, to a state of
dependence on Rome; but an intervention with aims so extensive, which
would have compelled the Romans to undertake a serious struggle on the
northern Tuscan frontier, lay beyond the horizon of the Roman policy
at that time. No course was therefore left but to refrain from all
interference. Foolishly, however, while declining to send auxiliary
troops, they despatched envoys. With still greater folly these sought
to impose upon the Celts by haughty language, and, when this failed,
they conceived that they might with impunity violate the law of
nations in dealing with barbarians; in the ranks of the Clusines they
took part in a skirmish, and in the course of it one of them stabbed
and dismounted a Gallic officer. The barbarians acted in this case
with moderation and prudence. They sent in the first instance to the
Roman community to demand the surrender of those who had outraged the
law of nations, and the senate was ready to comply with the reasonable
request. But with the multitude compassion for their countrymen
outweighed justice towards the foreigners; satisfaction was refused by
the burgesses; and according to some accounts they even nominated the
brave champions of their fatherland as consular tribunes for the
year 364,(9) which was to be so fatal in the Roman annals. Then the
Brennus or, in other words, the "king of the army" of the Gauls broke
up the siege of Clusium, and the whole Celtic host--the numbers of
which are stated at 70,000 men--turned against Rome. Such expeditions
into unknown land distant regions were not unusual for the Gauls, who
marched as bands of armed emigrants, troubling themselves little as
to the means of cover or of retreat; but it was evident that none in
Rome anticipated the dangers involved in so sudden and so mighty an
invasion. It was not till the Gauls were marching upon Rome that a
Roman military force crossed the Tiber and sought to bar their way.
Not twelve miles from the gates, opposite to the confluence of the
rivulet Allia with the Tiber, the armies met, and a battle took place
on the 18th July, 364. Even now they went into battle--not as against
an army, but as against freebooters--with arrogance and foolhardiness
and under inexperienced leaders, Camillus having in consequence of
the dissensions of the orders withdrawn from taking part in affairs.
Those against whom they were to fight were but barbarians; what need
was there of a camp, or of securing a retreat? These barbarians,
however, were men whose courage despised death, and their mode of
fighting was to the Italians as novel as it was terrible; sword in
hand the Celts precipitated themselves with furious onset on the Roman
phalanx, and shattered it at the first shock. The overthrow was
complete; of the Romans, who had fought with the river in their rear,
a large portion met their death in the attempt to cross it; such as
escaped threw themselves by a flank movement into the neighbouring
Veii. The victorious Celts stood between the remnant of the beaten
army and the capital. The latter was irretrievably abandoned to the
enemy; the small force that was left behind, or that had fled thither,
was not sufficient to garrison the walls, and three days after the
battle the victors marched through the open gates into Rome. Had they
done so at first, as they might have done, not only the city, but the
state also must have been lost; the brief interval gave opportunity
to carry away or to bury the sacred objects, and, what was more
important, to occupy the citadel and to furnish it with provisions for
the exigency. No one was admitted to the citadel who was incapable of
bearing arms--there was not food for all. The mass of the defenceless
dispersed among the neighbouring towns; but many, and in particular a
number of old men of high standing, would not survive the downfall
of the city and awaited death in their houses by the sword of the
barbarians. They came, murdered all they met with, plundered whatever
property they found, and at length set the city on fire on all sides
before the eyes of the Roman garrison in the Capitol. But they had
no knowledge of the art of besieging, and the blockade of the steep
citadel rock was tedious and difficult, because subsistence for the
great host could only be procured by armed foraging parties, and the
citizens of the neighbouring Latin cities, the Ardeates in particular,
frequently attacked the foragers with courage and success.
Nevertheless the Celts persevered, with an energy which in their
circumstances was unparalleled, for seven months beneath the rock,
and the garrison, which had escaped a surprise on a dark night only
in consequence of the cackling of the sacred geese in the Capitoline
temple and the accidental awaking of the brave Marcus Manlius, already
found its provisions beginning to fail, when the Celts received
information as to the Veneti having invaded the Senonian territory
recently acquired on the Po, and were thus induced to accept the
ransom money that was offered to procure their withdrawal. The
scornful throwing down of the Gallic sword, that it might be
outweighed by Roman gold, indicated very truly how matters stood.
The iron of the barbarians had conquered, but they sold their
victory and by selling lost it.
Fruitlessness of the Celtic Victory
The fearful catastrophe of the defeat and the conflagration, the
18th of July and the rivulet of the Allia, the spot where the sacred
objects were buried, and the spot where the surprise of the citadel
had been repulsed--all the details of this unparalleled event--were
transferred from the recollection of contemporaries to the imagination
of posterity; and we can scarcely realize the fact that two thousand
years have actually elapsed since those world-renowned geese showed
greater vigilance than the sentinels at their posts. And yet
--although there was an enactment in Rome that in future, on occasion
of a Celtic invasion no legal privilege should give exemption from
military service; although dates were reckoned by the years from
the conquest of the city; although the event resounded throughout
the whole of the then civilized world and found its way even into
the Grecian annals--the battle of the Allia and its results can
scarcely be numbered among those historical events that are fruitful
of consequences. It made no alteration at all in political relations.
When the Gauls had marched off again with their gold--which only a
legend of late and wretched invention represents the hero Camillus as
having recovered for Rome--and when the fugitives had again made their
way home, the foolish idea suggested by some faint-hearted prudential
politicians, that the citizens should migrate to Veii, was set aside
by a spirited speech of Camillus; houses arose out of the ruins
hastily and irregularly--the narrow and crooked streets of Rome owed
their origin to this epoch; and Rome again stood in her old commanding
position. Indeed it is not improbable that this occurrence
contributed materially, though not just at the moment, to diminish
the antagonism between Rome and Etruria, and above all to knit more
closely the ties of union between Latium and Rome. The conflict
between the Gauls and the Romans was not, like that between Rome and
Etruria or between Rome and Samnium, a collision of two political
powers which affect and modify each other; it may be compared to
those catastrophes of nature, after which the organism, if it is not
destroyed, immediately resumes its equilibrium. The Gauls often
returned to Latium: as in the year 387, when Camillus defeated them
at Alba--the last victory of the aged hero, who had been six times
military tribune with consular powers, and five times dictator, and
had four times marched in triumph to the Capitol; in the year 393,
when the dictator Titus Quinctius Pennus encamped opposite to them
not five miles from the city at the bridge of the Anio, but before any
encounter took place the Gallic host marched onward to Campania; in
the year 394, when the dictator Quintus Servilius Ahala fought in
front of the Colline gate with the hordes returning from Campania; in
the year 396, when the dictator Gaius Sulpicius Peticus inflicted on
them a signal defeat; in the year 404, when they even spent the winter
encamped upon the Alban mount and joined with the Greek pirates along
the coast for plunder, till Lucius Furius Camillus, the son of the
celebrated general, in the following year dislodged them--an incident
which came to the ears of Aristotle who was contemporary (370-432) in
Athens. But these predatory expeditions, formidable and troublesome
as they may have been, were rather incidental misfortunes than events
of political significance; and their most essential result was, that
the Romans were more and more regarded by themselves and by foreigners
as the bulwark of the civilized nations of Italy against the onset
of the dreaded barbarians--a view which tended more than is usually
supposed to further their subsequent claim to universal empire.
Further Conquests of Rome in Etruria--
South Etruria Roman
The Tuscans, who had taken advantage of the Celtic attack on Rome to
assail Veii, had accomplished nothing, because they had appeared in
insufficient force; the barbarians had scarcely departed, when the
heavy arm of Latium descended on the Tuscans with undiminished weight.
After the Etruscans had been repeatedly defeated, the whole of
southern Etruria as far as the Ciminian hills remained in the hands
of the Romans, who formed four new tribes in the territories of Veii,
Capena, and Falerii (367), and secured the northern boundary by
establishing the fortresses of Sutrium (371) and Nepete (381).
With rapid steps this fertile region, covered with Roman colonists,
became completely Romanized. About 396 the nearest Etruscan towns,
Tarquinii, Caere, and Falerii, attempted to revolt against the Roman
encroachments, and the deep exasperation which these had aroused in
Etruria was shown by the slaughter of the whole of the Roman prisoners
taken in the first campaign, three hundred and seven in number, in the
market-place of Tarquinii; but it was the exasperation of impotence.
In the peace (403) Caere, which as situated nearest to the Romans
suffered the heaviest retribution, was compelled to cede half its
territory to Rome, and with the diminished domain which was left
to it to withdraw from the Etruscan league, and to enter into the
relationship of subjects to Rome which had in the meanwhile been
constituted primarily for individual Latin communities. It seemed,
however, not advisable to leave to this more remote community alien in
race from the Roman such communal independence as was still retained
by the subject communities of Latium; the Caerite community received
the Roman franchise not merely without the privilege of electing or
of being elected at Rome, but also subject to the withholding of
self-administration, so that the place of magistrates of its own
was as regards justice and the census taken by those of Rome, and
a representative (-praefectus-) of the Roman praetor conducted
the administration on the spot--a form of subjection, which in
state-law first meets us here, whereby a state which had hitherto
been independent became converted into a community continuing to
subsist -de jure-, but deprived of all power of movement on its own part.
Not long afterwards (411) Falerii, which had preserved its original
Latin nationality even under Tuscan rule, abandoned the Etruscan league
and entered into perpetual alliance with Rome; and thereby the whole
of southern Etruria became in one form or other subject to Roman
supremacy. In the case of Tarquinii and perhaps of northern Etruria
generally, the Romans were content with restraining them for a
lengthened period by a treaty of peace for 400 months (403).
Pacification of Northern Italy
In northern Italy likewise the peoples that had come into collision
and conflict gradually settled on a permanent footing and within more
defined limits. The migrations over the Alps ceased, partly perhaps
in consequence of the desperate defence which the Etruscans made
in their more restricted home, and of the serious resistance of the
powerful Romans, partly perhaps also in consequence of changes unknown
to us on the north of the Alps. Between the Alps and the Apennines,
as far south as the Abruzzi, the Celts were now generally the ruling
nation, and they were masters more especially of the plains and rich
pastures; but from the lax and superficial nature of their settlement
their dominion took no deep root in the newly acquired land and by no
means assumed the shape of exclusive possession. How matters stood in
the Alps, and to what extent Celtic settlers became mingled there with
earlier Etruscan or other stocks, our unsatisfactory information as
to the nationality of the later Alpine peoples does not permit us
to ascertain; only the Raeti in the modern Grisons and Tyrol may be
described as a probably Etruscan stock. The Umbrians retained the
valleys of the Apennines, and the Veneti, speaking a different
language, kept possession of the north-eastern portion of the valley
of the Po. Ligurian tribes maintained their footing in the western
mountains, dwelling as far south as Pisa and Arezzo, and separating
the Celt-land proper from Etruria. The Celts dwelt only in the
intermediate flat country, the Insubres and Cenomani to the north
of the Po, the Boii to the south, and--not to mention smaller tribes
--the Senones on the coast of the Adriatic, from Ariminum to Ancona,
in the so-called "country of the Gauls" (-ager Gallicus-). But even
there Etruscan settlements must have continued partially at least to
subsist, somewhat as Ephesus and Miletus remained Greek under the
supremacy of the Persians. Mantua at any rate, which was protected
by its insular position, was a Tuscan city even in the time of the
empire, and Atria on the Po also, where numerous discoveries of vases
have been made, appears to have retained its Etruscan character; the
description of the coasts that goes under the name of Scylax, composed
about 418, calls the district of Atria and Spina Tuscan land. This
alone, moreover, explains how Etruscan corsairs could render the
Adriatic unsafe till far into the fifth century, and why not only
Dionysius of Syracuse covered its coasts with colonies, but even
Athens, as a remarkable document recently discovered informs us,
resolved about 429 to establish a colony in the Adriatic for
the protection of seafarers against the Tyrrhene pirates.
But while more or less of an Etruscan character continued to mark
these regions, it was confined to isolated remnants and fragments of
their earlier power; the Etruscan nation no longer reaped the benefit
of such gains as were still acquired there by individuals in peaceful
commerce or in maritime war. On the other hand it was probably
from these half-free Etruscans that the germs proceeded of such
civilization as we subsequently find among the Celts and Alpine
peoples in general.(10) The very fact that the Celtic hordes in
the plains of Lombardy, to use the language of the so-called Scylax,
abandoned their warrior-life and took to permanent settlement, must
in part be ascribed to this influence; the rudiments moreover of
handicrafts and arts and the alphabet came to the Celts in Lombardy,
and in fact to the Alpine peoples as far as the modern Styria,
through the medium of the Etruscans.
Etruria Proper at Peace and on the Decline
Thus the Etruscans, after the loss of their possessions in Campania
and of the whole district to the north of the Apennines and to the
south of the Ciminian Forest, remained restricted to very narrow
bounds; their season of power and of aspiration had for ever passed
away. The closest reciprocal relations subsisted between this
external decline and the internal decay of the nation, the seeds
of which indeed were doubtless already deposited at a far earlier
period. The Greek authors of this age are full of descriptions of
the unbounded luxury of Etruscan life: poets of Lower Italy in the
fifth century of the city celebrate the Tyrrhenian wine, and the
contemporary historians Timaeus and Theopompus delineate pictures of
Etruscan unchastity and of Etruscan banquets, such as fall nothing
short of the worst Byzantine or French demoralization. Unattested as
may be the details in these accounts, the statement at least appears
to be well founded, that the detestable amusement of gladiatorial
combats--the gangrene of the later Rome and of the last epoch of
antiquity generally--first came into vogue among the Etruscans. At
any rate on the whole they leave no doubt as to the deep degeneracy
of the nation. It pervaded even its political condition. As far
as our scanty information reaches, we find aristocratic tendencies
prevailing, in the same way as they did at the same period in Rome,
but more harshly and more perniciously. The abolition of royalty,
which appears to have been carried out in all the cities of Etruria
about the time of the siege of Veii, called into existence in the
several cities a patrician government, which experienced but slight
restraint from the laxity of the federal bond. That bond but seldom
succeeded in combining all the Etruscan cities even for the defence of
the land, and the nominal hegemony of Volsinii does not admit of the
most remote comparison with the energetic vigour which the leadership
of Rome communicated to the Latin nation. The struggle against the
exclusive claim put forward by the old burgesses to all public offices
and to all public usufructs, which must have destroyed even the Roman
state, had not its external successes enabled it in some measure to
satisfy the demands of the oppressed proletariate at the expense of
foreign nations and to open up other paths to ambition--that struggle
against the exclusive rule and (what was specially prominent in
Etruria) the priestly monopoly of the clan-nobility--must have ruined
Etruria politically, economically, and morally. Enormous wealth,
particularly in landed property, became concentrated in the hands of a
few nobles, while the masses were impoverished; the social revolutions
which thence arose increased the distress which they sought to remedy;
and, in consequence of the impotence of the central power, no course
at last remained to the distressed aristocrats-- e. g. in Arretium
in 453, and in Volsinii in 488--but to call in the aid of the Romans,
who accordingly put an end to the disorder but at the same time
extinguished the remnant of independence. The energies of the nation
were broken from the day of Veii and Melpum. Earnest attempts were
still once or twice made to escape from the Roman supremacy, but in
such instances the stimulus was communicated to the Etruscans from
without--from another Italian stock, the Samnites.
Notes for Book II Chapter IV
1. I. X. Phoenicians and Italians in Opposition to the Hellenes
2. --Fiaron o Deinomeneos kai toi Surakosioi toi Di Turan
apo Kumas.--
3. I. X. Home of the Greek Immigrants
4. Hecataeus (after 257 u. c.) and Herodotus also (270-after 345)
only know Hatrias as the delta of the Po and the sea that washes
its shores (O. Muller, Etrusker, i. p. 140; Geogr. Graeci min. ed.
C. Muller, i. p. 23). The appellation of Adriatic sea, in its more
extended sense, first occurs in the so-called Scylax about 418 U. C.
5. II. II. Coriolanus
6. -Pleraque Gallia duas res industriosissime persequitur: rem
militarem et argute loqui- (Cato, Orig, l. ii. fr. 2. Jordan).
7. It has recently been maintained by expert philologists that there
is a closer affinity between the Celts and Italians than there is even
between the latter and the Hellenes. In other words they hold that
the branch of the great tree, from which the peoples of Indo-Germanic
extraction in the west and south of Europe have sprung, divided itself
in the first instance into Greeks and Italo-Celts, and that the latter
at a considerably later period became subdivided into Italians and
Celts. This hypothesis commends itself much to acceptance in a
geographical point of view, and the facts which history presents may
perhaps be likewise brought into harmony with it, because what has
hitherto been regarded as Graeco-Italian civilization may very
well have been Graeco-Celto-Italian--in fact we know nothing of the
earliest stage of Celtic culture. Linguistic investigation, however,
seems not to have made as yet such progress as to warrant the
insertion of its results in the primitive history of the peoples.
8. The legend is related by Livy, v. 34, and Justin, xxiv. 4, and
Caesar also has had it in view (B. G. vi. 24). But the association
of the migration of Bellovesus with the founding of Massilia, by which
the former is chronologically fixed down to the middle of the second
century of Rome, undoubtedly belongs not to the native legend, which
of course did not specify dates, but to later chronologizing research;
and it deserves no credit. Isolated incursions and immigrations may
have taken place at a very early period; but the great overflowing of
northern Italy by the Celts cannot be placed before the age of the
decay of the Etruscan power, that is, not before the second half
of the third century of the city.
In like manner, after the judicious investigations of Wickham and
Cramer, we cannot doubt that the line of march of Bellovesus, like
that of Hannibal, lay not over the Cottian Alps (Mont Genevre) and
through the territory of the Taurini, but over the Graian Alps (the
Little St. Bernard) and through the territory of the Salassi. The
name of the mountain is given by Livy doubtless not on the authority
of the legend, but on his own conjecture.
Whether the representation that the Italian Boii came through the more
easterly pass of the Poenine Alps rested on the ground of a genuine
legendary reminiscence, or only on the ground of an assumed connection
with the Boii dwelling to the north of the Danube, is a question that
must remain undecided.
9. This is according to the current computation 390 B. C.; but, in
fact, the capture of Rome occurred in Ol. 98, 1 = 388 B. C., and has
been thrown out of its proper place merely by the confusion of the
Roman calendar.
10. I. XIV. Development of Alphabets in Italy
CHAPTER V
Subjugation of the Latins and Campanians by Rome
The Hegemony of Rome over Latium Shaken and Re-established
The great achievement of the regal period was the establishment of the
sovereignty of Rome over Latium under the form of hegemony. It is in
the nature of the case evident that the change in the constitution of
Rome could not but powerfully affect both the relations of the Roman
state towards Latium and the internal organization of the Latin
communities themselves; and that it did so, is obvious from tradition.
The fluctuations which the revolution in Rome occasioned in the
Romano-Latin confederacy are attested by the legend, unusually vivid
and various in its hues, of the victory at the lake Regillus, which
the dictator or consul Aulus Postumius (255? 258?) is said to have
gained over the Latins with the help of the Dioscuri, and still more
definitely by the renewal of the perpetual league between Rome and
Latium by Spurius Cassius in his second consulate (261). These
narratives, however, give us no information as to the main matter,
the legal relation between the new Roman republic and the Latin
confederacy; and what from other sources we learn regarding that
relation comes to us without date, and can only be inserted here
with an approximation to probability.
Original Equality of Rights between Rome and Latium
The nature of a hegemony implies that it becomes gradually converted
into sovereignty by the mere inward force of circumstances; and the
Roman hegemony over Latium formed no exception to the rule. It was
based upon the essential equality of rights between the Roman state
on the one side and the Latin confederacy on the other;(1) but at
least in matters of war and in the treatment of the acquisitions
thereby made this relation between the single state on the one hand
and the league of states on the other virtually involved a hegemony.
According to the original constitution of the league not only was the
right of making wars and treaties with foreign states--in other words,
the full right of political self-determination--reserved in all
probability both to Rome and to the individual towns of the Latin
league; and when a joint war took place, Rome and Latium probably
furnished the like contingent, each, as a rule, an "army" of 8400
men;(2) but the chief command was held by the Roman general, who then
nominated the officers of the staff, and so the leaders-of-division
(-tribuni militum-), according to his own choice. In case of victory
the moveable part of the spoil, as well as the conquered territory,
was shared between Rome and the confederacy; when the establishment of
fortresses in the conquered territory was resolved on, their garrisons
and population were composed partly of Roman, partly of confederate
colonists; and not only so, but the newly-founded community was
received as a sovereign federal state into the Latin confederacy
and furnished with a seat and vote in the Latin diet.
Encroachments on That Equality of Rights--
As to Wars and Treaties--
As to the Officering of the Army--
As to Acquisitions in War
These stipulations must probably even in the regal period, certainly
in the republican epoch, have undergone alteration more and more to
the disadvantage of the confederacy and to the further development of
the hegemony of Rome. The earliest that fell into abeyance was beyond
doubt the right of the confederacy to make wars and treaties with
foreigners;(3) the decision of war and treaty passed once for all to
Rome. The staff officers for the Latin troops must doubtless in
earlier times have been likewise Latins; afterwards for that
purpose Roman citizens were taken, if not exclusively, at any rate
predominantly.(4) On the other hand, afterwards as formerly, no
stronger contingent could be demanded from the Latin confederacy
as a whole than was furnished by the Roman community; and the Roman
commander-in-chief was likewise bound not to break up the Latin
contingents, but to keep the contingent sent by each community as a
separate division of the army under the leader whom that community had
appointed.(5) The right of the Latin confederacy to an equal share in
the moveable spoil and in the conquered land continued to subsist in
form; in reality, however, the substantial fruits of war beyond doubt
went, even at an early period, to the leading state. Even in the
founding of the federal fortresses or the so-called Latin colonies
as a rule presumably most, and not unfrequently all, of the colonists
were Romans; and although by the transference they were converted from
Roman burgesses into members of an allied community, the newly planted
township in all probability frequently retained a preponderant--and
for the confederacy dangerous--attachment to the real mother-city.
Private Rights
The rights, on the contrary, which were secured by the federal
treaties to the individual burgess of one of the allied communities
in every city belonging to the league, underwent no restriction.
These included, in particular, full equality of rights as to the
acquisition of landed property and moveable estate, as to traffic
and exchange, marriage and testament, and an unlimited liberty of
migration; so that not only was a man who had burgess-rights in a
town of the league legally entitled to settle in any other, but
whereever he settled, he as a right-sharer (-municeps-) participated
in all private and political rights and duties with the exception of
eligibility to office, and was even--although in a limited fashion
--entitled to vote at least in the -comitia tributa-.(6)
Of some such nature, in all probability, was the relation between
the Roman community and the Latin confederacy in the first period
of the republic. We cannot, however ascertain what elements are
to be referred to earlier stipulations, and what to the revision
of the alliance in 261.
With somewhat greater certainty the remodelling of the arrangements of
the several communities belonging to the Latin confederacy, after the
pattern of the consular constitution in Rome, may be characterized as
an innovation and introduced in this connection. For, although the
different communities may very well have arrived at the abolition
of royalty in itself independently of each other,(7) the identity
in the appellation of the new annual kings in the Roman and other
commonwealths of Latium, and the comprehensive application of the
peculiar principle of collegiateness,(8) evidently point to some
external connection. At some time or other after the expulsion of
the Tarquins from Rome the arrangements of the Latin communities must
have been throughout revised in accordance with the scheme of the
consular constitution. This adjustment of the Latin constitutions in
conformity with that of the leading city may possibly belong only to a
later period; but internal probability rather favours the supposition
that the Roman nobility, after having effected the abolition of
royalty for life at home, suggested a similar change of constitution
to the communities of the Latin confederacy, and at length introduced
aristocratic government everywhere in Latium-- notwithstanding the
serious resistance, imperilling the stability of the Romano-Latin
league itself, which seems to have been offered on the one hand by
the expelled Tarquins, and on the other by the royal clans and by
partisans well affected to monarchy in the other communities of
Latium. The mighty development of the power of Etruria that occurred
at this very time, the constant assaults of the Veientes, and the
expedition of Porsena, may have materially contributed to secure the
adherence of the Latin nation to the once-established form of union,
or, in other words, to the continued recognition of the supremacy
of Rome, and disposed them for its sake to acquiesce in a change
of constitution for which, beyond doubt, the way had been in many
respects prepared even in the bosom of the Latin communities, nay
perhaps to submit even to an enlargement of the rights of hegemony.
Extension of Rome and Latium to the East and South
The permanently united nation was able not only to maintain, but
also to extend on all sides its power. We have already(9) mentioned
that the Etruscans remained only for a short time in possession of
supremacy over Latium, and that the relations there soon returned to
the position in which they stood during the regal period; but it was
not till more than a century after the expulsion of the kings from
Rome that any real extension of the Roman boundaries took place
in this direction.
With the Sabines who occupied the middle mountain range from the
borders of the Umbrians down to the region between the Tiber and
the Anio, and who, at the epoch when the history of Rome begins,
penetrated fighting and conquering as far as Latium itself, the
Romans notwithstanding their immediate neighbourhood subsequently came
comparatively little into contact. The feeble sympathy of the Sabines
with the desperate resistance offered by the neighbouring peoples in
the east and south, is evident even from the accounts of the annals;
and--what is of more importance--we find here no fortresses to keep
the land in subjection, such as were so numerously established
especially in the Volscian plain. Perhaps this lack of opposition
was connected with the fact that the Sabine hordes probably about
this very time poured themselves over Lower Italy. Allured by the
pleasantness of the settlements on the Tifernus and Volturnus, they
appear to have interfered but little in the conflicts of which the
region to the south of the Tiber was the arena.
At the Expense of the Aequi and Volsci--
League with the Hernici
Far more vehement and lasting was the resistance of the Aequi, who,
having their settlements to the eastward of Rome as far as the valleys
of the Turano and Salto and on the northern verge of the Fucine lake,
bordered with the Sabines and Marsi,(10) and of the Volsci, who to the
south of the Rutuli settled around Ardea, and of the Latins extending
southward as far as Cora, possessed the coast almost as far as the
river Liris along with the adjacent islands and in the interior the
whole region drained by the Liris. We do not intend to narrate the
feuds annually renewed with these two peoples--feuds which are related
in the Roman chronicles in such a way that the most insignificant
foray is scarcely distinguishable from a momentous war, and historical
connection is totally disregarded; it is sufficient to indicate the
permanent results. We plainly perceive that it was the especial aim
of the Romans and Latins to separate the Aequi from the Volsci, and
to become masters of the communications between them; in the region
between the southern slope of the Alban range, the Volscian mountains
and the Pomptine marshes, moreover, the Latins and the Volscians
appear to have come first into contact and to have even had their
settlements intermingled.(11) In this region the Latins took
the first steps beyond the bounds of their own land, and federal
fortresses on foreign soil--Latin colonies, as they were called--were
first established, namely: in the plain Velitrae (as is alleged, about
260) beneath the Alban range itself, and Suessa in the Pomptine low
lands, in the mountains Norba (as is alleged, in 262) and Signia
(alleged to have been strengthened in 259), both of which lie at
the points of connection between the Aequian and Volscian territories.
The object was attained still more fully by the accession of the
Hernici to the league of the Romans and Latins (268), an accession
which isolated the Volscians completely, and provided the league with
a bulwark against the Sabellian tribes dwelling on the south and east;
it is easy therefore to perceive why this little people obtained the
concession of full equality with the two others in counsel and in
distribution of the spoil. The feebler Aequi were thenceforth but
little formidable; it was sufficient to undertake from time to time
a plundering expedition against them. The Rutuli also, who bordered
with Latium on the south in the plain along the coast, early
succumbed; their town Ardea was converted into a Latin colony as
early as 312.(12) The Volscians opposed a more serious resistance.
The first notable success, after those mentioned above, achieved over
them by the Romans was, remarkably enough, the foundation of Circeii
in 361, which, as long as Antium and Tarracina continued free, can
only have held communication with Latium by sea. Attempts were often
made to occupy Antium, and one was temporarily successful in 287; but
in 295 the town recovered its freedom, and it was not till after the
Gallic conflagration that, in consequence of a violent war of thirteen
years (365-377), the Romans gained a decided superiority in the
Antiate and Pomptine territory. Satricum, not far from Antium, was
occupied with a Latin colony in 369, and not long afterwards probably
Antium itself as well as Tarracina.(13) The Pomptine territory was
secured by the founding of the fortress Setia (372, strengthened in
375), and was distributed into farm-allotments and burgess-districts
in the year 371 and following years. After this date the Volscians
still perhaps rose in revolt, but they waged no further wars
against Rome.
Crises within the Romano-Latin League
But the more decided the successes that the league of Romans, Latins,
and Hernici achieved against the Etruscans, Aequi, Volsci, and Rutuli,
the more that league became liable to disunion. The reason lay
partly in the increase of the hegemonic power of Rome, of which
we have already spoken as necessarily springing out of the existing
circumstances, but which nevertheless was felt as a heavy burden in
Latium; partly in particular acts of odious injustice perpetrated by
the leading community. Of this nature was especially the infamous
sentence of arbitration between the Aricini and the Rutuli in Ardea
in 308, in which the Romans, called in to be arbiters regarding a
border territory in dispute between the two communities, took it to
themselves; and when this decision occasioned in Ardea internal
dissensions in which the people wished to join the Volsci, while
the nobility adhered to Rome, these dissensions were still more
disgracefully employed as a pretext for the--already mentioned
--sending of Roman colonists into the wealthy city, amongst whom the
lands of the adherents of the party opposed to Rome were distributed
(312). The main cause however of the internal breaking up of the
league was the very subjugation of the common foe; forbearance ceased
on one side, devotedness ceased on the other, from the time when they
thought that they had no longer need of each other. The open breach
between the Latins and Hernici on the one hand and the Romans on the
other was more immediately occasioned partly by the capture of Rome
by the Celts and the momentary weakness which it produced, partly by
the definitive occupation and distribution of the Pomptine territory.
The former allies soon stood opposed in the field. Already Latin
volunteers in great numbers had taken part in the last despairing
struggle of the Antiates: now the most famous of the Latin cities,
Lanuvium (371), Praeneste (372-374, 400), Tusculum (373), Tibur (394,
400), and even several of the fortresses established in the Volscian
land by the Romano-Latin league, such as Velitrae and Circeii, had to
be subdued by force of arms, and the Tiburtines were not afraid even
to make common cause against Rome with the once more advancing hordes
of the Gauls. No concerted revolt however took place, and Rome
mastered the individual towns without much trouble.
Tusculum was even compelled (in 373) to give up its political
independence, and to enter into the burgess-union of Rome as a
subject community (-civitas sine suffragio-) so that the town
retained its walls and an--although limited--self-administration,
including magistrates and a burgess-assembly of its own, whereas
its burgesses as Romans lacked the right of electing or being elected
--the first instance of a whole burgess-body being incorporated as
a dependent community with the Roman commonwealth.
Renewal of the Treaties of Alliance
The struggle with the Hernici was more severe (392-396); the first
consular commander-in-chief belonging to the plebs, Lucius Genucius,
fell in it; but here too the Romans were victorious. The crisis
terminated with the renewal of the treaties between Rome and the Latin
and Hernican confederacies in 396. The precise contents of these
treaties are not known, but it is evident that both confederacies
submitted once more, and probably on harder terms, to the Roman
hegemony. The institution which took place in the same year of two
new tribes in the Pomptine territory shows clearly the mighty
advances made by the Roman power.
Closing of the Latin Confederation
In manifest connection with this crisis in the relations between Rome
and Latium stands the closing of the Latin confederation,(14) which
took place about the year 370, although we cannot precisely determine
whether it was the effect or, as is more probable, the cause of the
revolt of Latium against Rome which we have just described. As the
law had hitherto stood, every sovereign city founded by Rome and
Latium took its place among the communes entitled to participate
in the federal festival and federal diet, whereas every community
incorporated with another city and thereby politically annihilated
was erased from the ranks of the members of the league. At the same
time, however, according to Latin use and wont the number once fixed
of thirty confederate communities was so adhered to, that of the
participating cities never more and never less than thirty were
entitled to vote, and a number of the communities that were of later
admission, or were disqualified for their slight importance or for the
crimes they had committed, were without the right of voting. In this
way the confederacy was constituted about 370 as follows. Of old
Latin townships there were--besides some which have now fallen into
oblivion, or whose sites are unknown--still autonomous and entitled to
vote, Nomentum, between the Tiber and the Anio; Tibur, Gabii, Scaptia,
Labici,(15) Pedum, and Praeneste, between the Anio and the Alban
range; Corbio, Tusculum, Bovillae, Aricia, Corioli, and Lanuvium on
the Alban range; Cora in the Volscian mountains, and lastly, Laurentum
in the plain along the coast. To these fell to be added the colonies
instituted by Rome and the Latin league; Ardea in the former territory
of the Rutuli, and Satricum, Velitrae, Norba, Signia, Setia and
Circeii in that of the Volsci. Besides, seventeen other townships,
whose names are not known with certainty, had the privilege of
participating in the Latin festival without the right of voting.
On this footing--of forty-seven townships entitled to participate and
thirty entitled to vote--the Latin confederacy continued henceforward
unalterably fixed. The Latin communities founded subsequently, such
as Sutrium, Nepete,(16) Antium, Tarracina,(17) and Gales, were not
admitted into the confederacy, nor were the Latin communities
subsequently divested of their autonomy, such as Tusculum and
Lanuvium, erased from the list.
Fixing of the Limits of Latium
With this closing of the confederacy was connected the geographical
settlement of the limits of Latium. So long as the Latin confederacy
continued open, the bounds of Latium had advanced with the
establishment of new federal cities: but as the later Latin
colonies had no share in the Alban festival, they were not regarded
geographically as part of Latium. For this reason doubtless Ardea
and Circeii were reckoned as belonging to Latium, but not Sutrium
or Tarracina.
Isolation of the Later Latin Cities as Respected Private Rights
But not only were the places on which Latin privileges were bestowed
after 370 kept aloof from the federal association; they were isolated
also from one another as respected private rights. While each of
them was allowed to have reciprocity of commercial dealings and
probably also of marriage (-commercium et conubium-) with Rome,
no such reciprocity was permitted with the other Latin communities.
The burgess of Satrium, for example, might possess in full property
a piece of ground in Rome, but not in Praeneste; and might have
legitimate children with a Roman, but not with a Tiburtine, wife.(18)
Prevention of Special Leagues
If hitherto considerable freedom of movement had been allowed within
the confederacy, and for example the six old Latin communities,
Aricia, Tusculum, Tibur, Lanuvium, Cora, and Laurentum, and the two
new Latin, Ardea and Suessa Pometia, had been permitted to found in
common a shrine for the Aricine Diana; it is doubtless not the mere
result of accident that we find no further instance in later times
of similar separate confederations fraught with danger to the hegemony
of Rome.
Revision of the Municipal Constitutions. Police Judges
We may likewise assign to this epoch the further remodelling which
the Latin municipal constitutions underwent, and their complete
assimilation to the constitution of Rome. If in after times two
aediles, intrusted with the police-supervision of markets and highways
and the administration of justice in connection therewith, make their
appearance side by side with the two praetors as necessary elements
of the Latin magistracy, the institution of these urban police
functionaries, which evidently took place at the same time and at
the instigation of the leading power in all the federal communities,
certainly cannot have preceded the establishment of the curule
aedileship in Rome, which occurred in 387; probably it took place
about that very time. Beyond doubt this arrangement was only one
of a series of measures curtailing the liberties and modifying
the organization of the federal communities in the interest of
aristocratic policy.
Domination of the Romans; Exasperation of the Latins--
Collision between the Romans and the Samnites
After the fall of Veii and the conquest of the Pomptine territory,
Rome evidently felt herself powerful enough to tighten the reins of
her hegemony and to reduce the whole of the Latin cities to a position
so dependent that they became in fact completely subject. At this
period (406) the Carthaginians, in a commercial treaty concluded with
Rome, bound themselves to inflict no injury on the Latins who were
subject to Rome, viz. the maritime towns of Ardea, Antium, Circeii,
and Tarracina; if, however, any one of the Latin towns should fall
away from the Roman alliance, the Phoenicians were to be allowed to
attack it, but in the event of conquering it they were bound not to
raze it, but to hand it over to the Romans. This plainly shows by
what chains the Roman community bound to itself the towns protected
by it and how much a town, which dared to withdraw from the native
protectorate, sacrificed or risked by such a course.
It is true that even now the Latin confederacy at least--if not also
the Hernican--retained its formal title to a third of the gains of
war, and doubtless some other remnants of the former equality of
rights; but what was palpably lost was important enough to explain the
exasperation which at this period prevailed among the Latins against
Rome. Not only did numerous Latin volunteers fight under foreign
standards against the community at their head, wherever they found
armies in the field against Rome; but in 405 even the Latin federal
assembly resolved to refuse to the Romans its contingent. To all
appearance a renewed rising of the whole Latin confederacy might be
anticipated at no distant date; and at that very moment a collision
was imminent with another Italian nation, which was able to encounter
on equal terms the united strength of the Latin stock. After the
overthrow of the northern Volscians no considerable people in
the first instance opposed the Romans in the south; their legions
unchecked approached the Liris. As early as 397 they had contended;
successfully with the Privernates; and in 409 occupied Sora on the
upper Liris. Thus the Roman armies had reached the Samnite frontier;
and the friendly alliance, which the two bravest and most powerful
of the Italian nations concluded with each other in 400, was the
sure token of an approaching struggle for the supremacy of Italy--a
struggle which threatened to become interwoven with the crisis within
the Latin nation.
Conquests of the Samnites in the South of Italy
The Samnite nation, which, at the time of the expulsion of the
Tarquins from Rome, had doubtless already been for a considerable
period in possession of the hill-country which rises between the
Apulian and Campanian plains and commands them both, had hitherto
found its further advance impeded on the one side by the Daunians
--the power and prosperity of Arpi fall within this period--on the
other by the Greeks and Etruscans. But the fall of the Etruscan power
towards the end of the third, and the decline of the Greek colonies in
the course of the fourth century, made room for them towards the west
and south; and now one Samnite host after another marched down to,
and even moved across, the south Italian seas. They first made their
appearance in the plain adjoining the bay, with which the name of
the Campanians has been associated from the beginning of the fourth
century; the Etruscans there were suppressed, and the Greeks were
confined within narrower bounds; Capua was wrested from the former
(330), Cumae from the latter (334). About the same time, perhaps even
earlier, the Lucanians appeared in Magna Graecia: at the beginning
of the fourth century they were involved in conflict with the people
of Terina and Thurii; and a considerable time before 364 they had
established themselves in the Greek Laus. About this period their
levy amounted to 30,000 infantry and 4000 cavalry. Towards the end of
the fourth century mention first occurs of the separate confederacy of
the Bruttii,(19) who had detached themselves from the Lucanians--not,
like the other Sabellian stocks, as a colony, but through a quarrel
--and had become mixed up with many foreign elements. The Greeks of
Lower Italy tried to resist the pressure of the barbarians; the league
of the Achaean cities was reconstructed in 361; and it was determined
that, if any of the allied towns should be assailed by the Lucanians,
all should furnish contingents, and that the leaders of contingents
which failed to appear should suffer the punishment of death. But
even the union of Magna Graecia no longer availed; for the ruler of
Syracuse, Dionysius the Elder, made common cause with the Italians
against his countrymen. While Dionysius wrested from the fleets of
Magna Graecia the mastery of the Italian seas, one Greek city after
another was occupied or annihilated by the Italians. In an incredibly
short time the circle of flourishing cities was destroyed or laid
desolate. Only a few Greek settlements, such as Neapolis, succeeded
with difficulty, and more by means of treaties than by force of
arms, in preserving at least their existence and their nationality.
Tarentum alone remained thoroughly independent and powerful,
maintaining its ground in consequence of its more remote position
and its preparation for war--the result of its constant conflicts
with the Messapians. Even that city, however, had constantly to
fight for its existence with the Lucanians, and was compelled to
seek for alliances and mercenaries in the mother-country of Greece.
About the period when Veii and the Pomptine plain came into the hands
of Rome, the Samnite hordes were already in possession of all Lower
Italy, with the exception of a few unconnected Greek colonies, and
of the Apulo-Messapian coast. The Greek Periplus, composed about 418,
sets down the Samnites proper with their "five tongues" as reaching
from the one sea to the other; and specifies the Campanians as
adjoining them on the Tyrrhene sea to the north, and the Lucanians
to the south, amongst whom in this instance, as often, the Bruttii
are included, and who already had the whole coast apportioned among
them from Paestum on the Tyrrhene, to Thurii on the Ionic sea. In
fact to one who compares the achievements of the two great nations
of Italy, the Latins and the Samnites, before they came into contact,
the career of conquest on the part of the latter appears far wider
and more splendid than that of the former. But the character of their
conquests was essentially different. From the fixed urban centre
which Latium possessed in Rome the dominion of the Latin stock spread
slowly on all sides, and lay within limits comparatively narrow; but
it planted its foot firmly at every step, partly by founding fortified
towns of the Roman type with the rights of dependent allies, partly
by Romanizing the territory which it conquered. It was otherwise
with Samnium. There was in its case no single leading community and
therefore no policy of conquest. While the conquest of the Veientine
and Pomptine territories was for Rome a real enlargement of power,
Samnium was weakened rather than strengthened by the rise of the
Campanian cities and of the Lucanian and Bruttian confederacies; for
every swarm, which had sought and found new settlements, thenceforward
pursued a path of its own.
Relations between the Samnites and the Greeks
The Samnite tribes filled a disproportionately large space, while
yet they showed no disposition to make it thoroughly their own.
The larger Greek cities, Tarentum, Thurii, Croton, Metapontum,
Heraclea, Rhegium, and Neapolis, although weakened and often
dependent, continued to exist; and the Hellenes were tolerated
even in the open country and in the smaller towns, so that Cumae
for instance, Posidonia, Laus, and Hipponium, still remained--as
the Periplus already mentioned and coins show--Greek cities even
under Samnite rule. Mixed populations thus arose; the bi-lingual
Bruttii, in particular, included Hellenic as well as Samnite elements
and even perhaps remains of the ancient autochthones; in Lucania
and Campania also similar mixtures must to a lesser extent have
taken place.
Campanian Hellenism
The Samnite nation, moreover, could not resist the dangerous charm
of Hellenic culture; least of all in Campania, where Neapolis early
entered into friendly intercourse with the immigrants, and where
the sky itself humanized the barbarians. Nola, Nuceria, and Teanum,
although having a purely Samnite population, adopted Greek manners
and a Greek civic constitution; in fact the indigenous cantonal form
of constitution could not possibly subsist under these altered
circumstances. The Samnite cities of Campania began to coin money,
in part with Greek inscriptions; Capua became by its commerce and
agriculture the second city in Italy in point of size--the first in
point of wealth and luxury. The deep demoralization, in which,
according to the accounts of the ancients, that city surpassed all
others in Italy, is especially reflected in the mercenary recruiting
and in the gladiatorial sports, both of which pre-eminently flourished
in Capua. Nowhere did recruiting officers find so numerous a
concourse as in this metropolis of demoralized civilization; while
Capua knew not how to save itself from the attacks of the aggressive
Samnites, the warlike Campanian youth flocked forth in crowds under
self-elected -condottteri-, especially to Sicily. How deeply these
soldiers of fortune influenced by their enterprises the destinies of
Italy, we shall have afterwards to show; they form as characteristic
a feature of Campanian life as the gladiatorial sports which likewise,
if they did not originate, were at any rate carried to perfection in
Capua. There sets of gladiators made their appearance even during
banquets; and their number was proportioned to the rank of the guests
invited. This degeneracy of the most important Samnite city--a
degeneracy which beyond doubt was closely connected with the Etruscan
habits that lingered there--must have been fatal for the nation at
large; although the Campanian nobility knew how to combine chivalrous
valour and high mental culture with the deepest moral corruption, it
could never become to its nation what the Roman nobility was to the
Latin. Hellenic influence had a similar, though less powerful, effect
on the Lucanians and Bruttians as on the Campanians. The objects
discovered in the tombs throughout all these regions show how Greek
art was cherished there in barbaric luxuriance; the rich ornaments
of gold and amber and the magnificent painted pottery, which are now
disinterred from the abodes of the dead, enable us to conjecture how
extensive had been their departure from the ancient manners of their
fathers. Other indications are preserved in their writing. The old
national writing which they had brought with them from the north was
abandoned by the Lucanians and Bruttians, and exchanged for Greek;
while in Campania the national alphabet, and perhaps also the
language, developed itself under the influence of the Greek model
into greater clearness and delicacy. We meet even with isolated
traces of the influence of Greek philosophy.
The Samnite Confederacy
The Samnite land, properly so called, alone remained unaffected by
these innovations, which, beautiful and natural as they may to some
extent have been, powerfully contributed to relax still more the bond
of national unity which even from the first was loose. Through the
influence of Hellenic habits a deep schism took place in the Samnite
stock. The civilized "Philhellenes" of Campania were accustomed to
tremble like the Hellenes themselves before the ruder tribes of
the mountains, who were continually penetrating into Campania and
disturbing the degenerate earlier settlers. Rome was a compact state,
having the strength of all Latium at its disposal; its subjects might
murmur, but they obeyed. The Samnite stock was dispersed and divided;
and, while the confederacy in Samnium proper had preserved unimpaired
the manners and valour of their ancestors, they were on that very
account completely at variance with the other Samnite tribes
and towns.
Submission of Capua to Rome--
Rome and Samnium Come to Terms--
Revolt of the Latins and Campanians against Rome--
Victory of the Romans--
Dissolution of the Latin League--
Colonization of the Land of the Volsci
In fact, it was this variance between the Samnites of the plain and
the Samnites of the mountains that led the Romans over the Liris.
The Sidicini in Teanum, and the Campanians in Capua, sought aid
from the Romans (411) against their own countrymen, who in swarms ever
renewed ravaged their territory and threatened to establish themselves
there. When the desired alliance was refused, the Campanian envoys
made offer of the submission of their country to the supremacy of
Rome: and the Romans were unable to resist the bait. Roman envoys
were sent to the Samnites to inform them of the new acquisition,
and to summon them to respect the territory of the friendly power.
The further course of events can no longer be ascertained in
detail;(20) we discover only that--whether after a campaign,
or without the intervention of a war--Rome and Samnium came to
an agreement, by which Capua was left at the disposal of the Romans,
Teanum in the hands of the Samnites, and the upper Liris in those
of the Volscians.
The consent of the Samnites to treat is explained by the energetic
exertions made about this very period by the Tarentines to get quit
of their Sabellian neighbours. But the Romans also had good reason
for coming to terms as quickly as possible with the Samnites; for the
impending transition of the region bordering on the south of Latium
into the possession of the Romans converted the ferment that had long
existed among the Latins into open insurrection. All the original
Latin towns, even the Tusculans who had been received into the
burgess-union of Rome, took up arms against Rome, with the single
exception of the Laurentes, whereas of the colonies founded beyond
the bounds of Latium only the old Volscian towns Velitrae, Antium,
and Tarracina adhered to the revolt. We can readily understand how
the Capuans, notwithstanding their very recent and voluntarily offered
submission to the Romans, should readily embrace the first opportunity
of again ridding themselves of the Roman rule and, in spite of the
opposition of the optimate party that adhered to the treaty with Rome,
should make common cause with the Latin confederacy, whereas the still
independent Volscian towns, such as Fundi and Formiae, and the Hernici
abstained like the Campanian aristocracy from taking part in this
revolt. The position of the Romans was critical; the legions which
had crossed the Liris and occupied Campania were cut off by the revolt
of the Latins and Volsci from their home, and a victory alone could
save them. The decisive battle was fought near Trifanum (between
Minturnae, Suessa, and Sinuessa) in 414; the consul Titus Manlius
Imperiosus Torquatus achieved a complete victory over the united
Latins and Campanians. In the two following years the individual
towns, so far as they still offered resistance, were reduced by
capitulation or assault, and the whole country was brought into
subjection. The effect of the victory was the dissolution of the
Latin league. It was transformed from an independent political
federation into a mere association for the purpose of a religious
festival; the ancient stipulated rights of the confederacy as to
a maximum for the levy of troops and a share of the gains of war
perished as such along with it, and assumed, where they were
recognized in future, the character of acts of grace. Instead of
the one treaty between Rome on the one hand and the Latin confederacy
on the other, there came at best perpetual alliances between Rome and
the several confederate towns. To this footing of treaty there were
admitted of the old-Latin places, besides Laurentum, also Tibur and
Praeneste, which however were compelled to cede portions of their
territory to Rome. Like terms were obtained by the communities of
Latin rights founded outside of Latium, so far as they had not taken
part in the war. The principle of isolating the communities from each
other, which had already been established in regard to the places
founded after 370,(21) was thus extended to the whole Latin nation.
In other respects the several places retained their former privileges
and their autonomy. The other old-Latin communities as well as the
colonies that had revolted lost--all of them--independence and
entered in one form or another into the Roman burgess-union. The two
important coast towns Antium (416) and Tarracina (425) were, after
the model of Ostia, occupied with Roman full-burgesses and restricted
to a communal independence confined within narrow limits, while the
previous burgesses were deprived in great part of their landed
property in favour of the Roman colonists and, so far as they retained
it, likewise adopted into the full burgess-union. Lanuvium, Aricia,
Momentum, Pedum became Roman burgess-communities after the model of
Tusculum.(22) The walls of Velitrae were demolished, its senate was
ejected -en masse- and deported to the interior of Roman Etruria,
and the town was probably constituted a dependent community with
Caerite rights.(23) Of the land acquired a portion--the estates,
for instance, of the senators of Velitrae--was distributed to Roman
burgesses: with these special assignations was connected the erection
of two new tribes in 422. The deep sense which prevailed in Rome
of the enormous importance of the result achieved is attested by
the honorary column, which was erected in the Roman Forum to the
victorious dictator of 416, Gaius Maenius, and by the decoration
of the orators' platform in the same place with the beaks taken
from the galleys of Antium that were found unserviceable.
Complete Submission of the Volscian and Campanian Provinces
In like manner the dominion of Rome was established and confirmed in
the south Volscian and Campanian territories. Fundi, Formiae,
Capua, Cumae, and a number of smaller towns became dependent Roman
communities with self-administration. To secure the pre-eminently
important city of Capua, the breach between the nobility and commons
was artfully widened, the communal constitution was revised in the
Roman interest, and the administration of the town was controlled by
Roman officials annually sent to Campania. The same treatment was
measured out some years after to the Volscian Privernum, whose
citizens, supported by Vitruvius Vaccus a bold partisan belonging to
Fundi, had the honour of fighting the last battle for the freedom of
this region; the struggle ended with the storming of the town (425)
and the execution of Vaccus in a Roman prison. In order to rear a
population devoted to Rome in these regions, they distributed, out
of the lands won in war particularly in the Privernate and Falernian
territories, so numerous allotments to Roman burgesses, that a few
years later (436) they were able to institute there also two new
tribes. The establishment of two fortresses as colonies with Latin
rights finally secured the newly won land. These were Cales (420)
in the middle of the Campanian plain, whence the movements of Teanum
and Capua could be observed, and Fregellae (426), which commanded
the passage of the Liris. Both colonies were unusually strong, and
rapidly became flourishing, notwithstanding the obstacles which the
Sidicines interposed to the founding of Cales and the Samnites to that
of Fregellae. A Roman garrison was also despatched to Sora, a step
of which the Samnites, to whom this district had been left by the
treaty, complained with reason, but in vain. Rome pursued her purpose
with undeviating steadfastness, and displayed her energetic and
far-reaching policy--more even than on the battlefield--in the securing
of the territory which she gained by enveloping it, politically and
militarily, in a net whose meshes could not be broken.
Inaction of the Samnites
As a matter of course, the Samnites could not behold the threatening
progress of the Romans with satisfaction, and they probably put
obstacles in its way; nevertheless they neglected to intercept the new
career of conquest, while there was still perhaps time to do so, with
that energy which the circumstances required. They appear indeed in
accordance with their treaty with Rome to have occupied and strongly
garrisoned Teanum; for while in earlier times that city sought help
against Samnium from Capua and Rome, in the later struggles it appears
as the bulwark of the Samnite power on the west. They spread,
conquering and destroying, on the upper Liris, but they neglected
to establish themselves permanently in that quarter. They destroyed
the Volscian town Fregellae--by which they simply facilitated the
institution of the Roman colony there which we have just mentioned
--and they so terrified two other Volscian towns, Fabrateria (Ceccano)
and Luca (site unknown), that these, following the example of Capua,
surrendered themselves to the Romans (424). The Samnite confederacy
allowed the Roman conquest of Campania to be completed before they in
earnest opposed it; and the reason for their doing so is to be sought
partly in the contemporary hostilities between the Samnite nation and
the Italian Hellenes, but principally in the remiss and distracted
policy which the confederacy pursued.
Notes for Book II Chapter V
1. I. VII. Relation of Rome to Latium
2. The original equality of the two armies is evident from Liv. i. 52;
viii. 8, 14, and Dionys. viii, 15; but most clearly from Polyb. vi. 26.
3. Dionysius (viii. 15) expressly states, that in the later federal
treaties between Rome and Latium the Latin communities were interdicted
from calling out their contingents of their own motion and sending them
into the field alone.
4. These Latin staff-officers were the twelve -praefecti sociorum-,
who subsequently, when the old phalanx had been resolved into the
later legions and -alae-, had the charge of the two -alae- of the
federal contingents, six to each -ala-, just as the twelve war-tribunes
of the Roman army had charge of the two legions, six to each legion.
Polybius (vi. 26, 5) states that the consul nominated the former,
as he originally nominated the latter. Now, as according to the
ancient maxim of law, that every person under obligation of service
might become an officer (p. 106), it was legally allowable for the
general to appoint a Latin as leader of a Roman, as well as conversely
a Roman as leader of a Latin, legion, this led to the practical result
that the -tribuni militum- were wholly, and the -praefecti sociorum-
at least ordinarily, Romans.
5. These were the -decuriones turmarum- and -praefecti cohortium-
(Polyb. vi. 21, 5; Liv. xxv. 14; Sallust. Jug. 69, et al.) Of
course, as the Roman consuls were in law and ordinarily also in fact
commanders-in-chief, the presidents of the community in the dependent
towns also were perhaps throughout, or at least very frequently,
placed at the head of the community-contingents (Liv. xxiii. 19;
Orelli, Inscr. 7022). Indeed, the usual name given to the Latin
magistrates (-praetores-) indicates that they were officers.
6. Such a --metoikos-- was not like an actual burgess assigned to a
specific voting district once for all, but before each particular vote
the district in which the --metoeci-- were upon that occasion to vote
was fixed by lot. In reality this probably amounted to the concession
to the Latins of one vote in the Roman -comitia tributa-. As a place
in some tribe was a preliminary condition of the ordinary centuriate
suffrage, if the --metoeci-- shared in the voting in the assembly of
the centuries-which we do not know-a similar allotment must have been
fixed for the latter. In the curies they must have taken part like
the plebeians.
7. II. I. Abolition of the Life-Presidency of the Community
8. Ordinarily, as is well known, the Latin communities were
presided over by two praetors. Besides these there occur in several
communities single magistrates, who in that case bear the title of
dictator; as in Alba (Orelli-Henzen, Inscr. 2293), Tusculum (p. 445,
note 2), Lanuvium (Cicero, pro Mil. 10, 27; 17, 45; Asconius, in Mil.
p. 32, Orell.; Orelli, n. 2786, 5157, 6086); Compitum (Orelli, 3324);
Nomentum (Orelli, 208, 6138, 7032; comp. Henzen, Bullett. 1858, p.
169); and Aricia (Orelli, n. 1455). To these falls to be added the
similar dictator in the -civitas sine suffragio- of Caere (Orelli, n.
3787, 5772; also Garrucci Diss. arch., i. p. 31, although erroneously
placed after Sutrium); and further the officials of the like name at
Fidenae (Orelli, 112). All these magistracies or priesthoods that
originated in magistracies (the dictator of Caere is to be explained
in accordance with Liv. ix. 43: -Anagninis--magistratibus praeter quam
sacrorum curatione interdictum-), were annual (Orelli, 208).
The statement of Macer likewise and of the annalists who borrowed
from him, that Alba was at the time of its fall no longer under kings,
but under annual directors (Dionys. v. 74; Plutarch, Romul. 27; Liv.
i. 23), is presumably a mere inference from the institution, with
which he was acquainted, of the sacerdotal Alban dictatorship which
was beyond doubt annual like that of Nomentum; a view in which,
moreover, the democratic partisanship of its author may have come
into play. It may be a question whether the inference is valid, and
whether, even if Alba at the time of its dissolution was under rulers
holding office for life, the abolition of monarchy in Rome might not
subsequently lead to the conversion of the Alban dictatorship into
an annual office.
All these Latin magistracies substantially coincide in reality, as
well as specially in name, with the arrangement established in Rome
by the revolution in a way which is not adequately explained by the
mere similarity of the political circumstances underlying them.
9. II. IV. Etruscans Driven Back from Latium
10. The country of the Aequi embraces not merely the valley of
the Anio above Tibur and the territory of the later Latin colonies
Carsioli (on the upper part of the Turano) and Alba (on the Fucine
lake), but also the district of the later municipium of the Aequiculi,
who are nothing but that remnant of the Aequi to which, after the
subjugation by the Romans, and after the assignation of the largest
portion of the territory to Roman or Latin colonists, municipal
independence was left.
11. To all appearance Velitrae, although situated in the plain, was
originally Volscian, and so a Latin colony; Cora, on the other hand,
on the Volscian mountains, was originally Latin.
12. Not long afterwards must have taken place the founding of the
-Nemus Dianae- in the forest of Aricia, which, according to Cato's
account (p. 12, Jordan), a Tusculan dictator accomplished for
the urban communities of old Latium, Tusculum, Aricia, Lanuvium,
Laurentum, Cora, and Tibur, and of the two Latin colonies (which
therefore stand last) Suessa Pometia and Ardea (-populus Ardeatis
Rutulus-). The absence of Praeneste and of the smaller communities
of the old Latium shows, as was implied in the nature of the case,
that not all the communities of the Latin league at that time took
part in the consecration. That it falls before 372 is proved by the
emergence of Pometia (II. V. Closing Of The Latin Confederation), and
the list quite accords with what can otherwise be ascertained as to
the state of the league shortly after the accession of Ardea.
More credit may be given to the traditional statements regarding the
years of the foundations than to most of the oldest traditions, seeing
that the numbering of the year -ab urbe condita-, common to the
Italian cities, has to all appearance preserved, by direct tradition,
the year in which the colonies were founded.
13. The two do not appear as Latin colonies in the so-called Cassian
list about 372, but they so appear in the Carthaginian treaty of 406;
the towns had thus become Latin colonies in the interval.
14. In the list given by Dionysius (v. 61) of the thirty Latin
federal cities--the only list which we possess--there are named the
Ardeates, Aricini, Bovillani, Bubentani (site unknown), Corni (rather
Corani), Carventani (site unknown), Circeienses, Coriolani, Corbintes,
Cabani (perhaps the Cabenses on the Alban Mount, Bull, dell' Inst.
1861, p. 205), Fortinei (unknown), Gabini, Laurentes, Lanuvini,
Lavinates, Labicani, Nomentani, Norbani, Praenestini, Pedani,
Querquetulani (site unknown), Satricani, Scaptini, Setini, Tiburtini,
Tusculani, Tellenii (site unknown), Tolerini (site unknown), and
Veliterni. The occasional notices of communities entitled to
participate, such as of Ardea (Liv. xxxii. x), Laurentum (Liv. xxxvii.
3), Lanuvium (Liv. xli. 16), Bovillae, Gabii, Labici (Cicero, pro
Plane. 9, 23) agree with this list. Dionysius gives it on occasion
of the declaration of war by Latium against Rome in 256, and it was
natural therefore to regard--as Niebuhr did--this list as derived
from the well-known renewal of the league in 261, But, as in this list
drawn up according to the Latin alphabet the letter -g appears in a
position which it certainly had not at the time of the Twelve Tables
and scarcely came to occupy before the fifth century (see my
Unteritalische Dial. p. 33), it must be taken from a much more recent
source; and it is by far the simplest hypothesis to recognize it as
a list of those places which were afterwards regarded as the ordinary
members of the Latin confederacy, and which Dionysius in accordance
with his systematizing custom specifies as its original component
elements. As was to be expected, the list presents not a single
non-Latin community; it simply enumerates places originally Latin
or occupied by Latin colonies--no one will lay stress on Corbio and
Corioli as exceptions. Now if we compare with this list that of the
Latin colonies, there had been founded down to 372 Suessa Pometia,
Velitrae, Norba, Signia, Ardea, Circeii (361), Satricum (369), Sutrium
(371), Nepete (371), Setia (372). Of the last three founded at nearly
the same time the two Etruscan ones may very well date somewhat later
than Setia, since in fact the foundation of every town claimed
a certain amount of time, and our list cannot be free from minor
inaccuracies. If we assume this, then the list contains all the
colonies sent out up to the year 372, including the two soon
afterwards deleted from the list, Satricum destroyed in 377 and
Velitrae divested of Latin rights in 416; there are wanting only
Suessa Pometia, beyond doubt as having been destroyed before 372, and
Signia, probably because in the text of Dionysius, who mentions only
twenty-nine names, --SIGNINON-- has dropped out after --SEITINON--.
In entire harmony with this view there are absent from this list all
the Latin colonies founded after 372 as well as all places, which like
Ostia, Antemnae, Alba, were incorporated with the Roman community
before the year 370, whereas those incorporated subsequently, such
as Tusculum, Lanuvium, Velitrae, are retained in it.
As regards the list given by Pliny of thirty-two townships extinct in
his time which had formerly participated in the Alban festival, after
deduction of seven that also occur in Dionysius (for the Cusuetani
of Pliny appear to be the Carventani of Dionysius), there remain
twenty-five townships, most of them quite unknown, doubtless made up
partly of those seventeen non-voting communities--most of which perhaps
were just the oldest subsequently disqualified members of the Alban
festal league--partly of a number of other decayed or ejected members
of the league, to which latter class above all the ancient presiding
township of Alba, also named by Pliny, belonged.
15. Livy certainly states (iv. 47) that Labici became a colony in
336. But--apart from the fact that Diodorus (xiii. 6) says nothing
of it--Labici cannot have been a burgess-colony, for the town did
not lie on the coast and besides it appears subsequently as still in
possession of autonomy; nor can it have been a Latin one, for there is
not, nor can there be from the nature of these foundations, a single
other example of a Latin colony established in the original Latium.
Here as elsewhere it is most probable--especially as two -jugera- are
named as the portion of land allotted--that a public assignation to
the burgesses has been confounded with a colonial assignation ( I.
XIII. System of Joint Cultivation ).
16. II. IV. South Etruria Roman
17. II. V. League with the Hernici
18. This restriction of the ancient full reciprocity of Latin rights
first occurs in the renewal of the treaty in 416 (Liv. viii. 14); but
as the system of isolation, of which it was an essential part, first
began in reference to the Latin colonies settled after 370, and was
only generalized in 416, it is proper to mention this alteration here.
19. The name itself is very ancient; in fact it is the most
ancient indigenous name for the inhabitants of the present Calabria
(Antiochus, Fr. 5. Mull.). The well-known derivation is doubtless
an invention.
20. Perhaps no section of the Roman annals has been more disfigured
than the narrative of the first Samnite-Latin war, as it stands or
stood in Livy, Dionysius, and Appian. It runs somewhat to the
following effect. After both consuls had marched into Campania in
411, first the consul Marcus Valerius Corvus gained a severe and
bloody victory over the Samnites at Mount Gaurus; then his colleague
Aulus Cornelius Cossus gained another, after he had been rescued from
annihilation in a narrow pass by the self-devotion of a division led
by the military tribune Publius Decius. The third and decisive battle
was fought by both consuls at the entrance of the Caudine Pass near
Suessula; the Samnites were completely vanquished--forty thousand of
their shields were picked up on the field of battle--and they were
compelled to make a peace, in which the Romans retained Capua, which
had given itself over to their possession, while they left Teanum to
the Samnites (413). Congratulations came from all sides, even from
Carthage. The Latins, who had refused their contingent and seemed to
be arming against Rome, turned their arms not against Rome but against
the Paeligni, while the Romans were occupied first with a military
conspiracy of the garrison left behind in Campania (412), then with
the capture of Privernum (413) and the war against the Antiates. But
now a sudden and singular change occurred in the position of parties.
The Latins, who had demanded in vain Roman citizenship and a share in
the consulate, rose against Rome in conjunction with the Sidicines,
who had vainly offered to submit to the Romans and knew not how to
save themselves from the Samnites, and with the Campanians, who were
already tired of the Roman rule. Only the Laurentes in Latium and the
-equites- of Campania adhered to the Romans, who on their part found
support among the Paeligni and Samnites. The Latin army fell upon
Samnium; the Romano-Samnite army, after it had marched to the Fucine
lake and from thence, avoiding Latium, into Campania, fought the
decisive battle against the combined Latins and Campanians at
Vesuvius; the consul Titus Manlius Imperiosus, after he had himself
restored the wavering discipline of the army by the execution of his
own son who had slain a foe in opposition to orders from headquarters,
and after his colleague Publius Decius Mus had appeased the gods by
sacrificing his life, at length gained the victory by calling up the
last reserves. But the war was only terminated by a second battle,
in which the consul Manlius engaged the Latins and Campanians near
Trifanum; Latium and Capua submitted, and were mulcted in a portion
of their territory.
The judicious and candid reader will not fail to observe that this
report swarms with all sorts of impossibilities. Such are the
statement of the Antiates waging war after the surrender of 377 (Liv.
vi. 33); the independent campaign of the Latins against the Paeligni,
in distinct contradiction to the stipulations of the treaties between
Rome and Latium; the unprecedented march of the Roman army through the
Marsian and Samnite territory to Capua, while all Latium was in arms
against Rome; to say nothing of the equally confused and sentimental
account of the military insurrection of 412, and the story of
its forced leader, the lame Titus Quinctius, the Roman Gotz von
Berlichingen. Still more suspicious perhaps, are the repetitions.
Such is the story of the military tribune Publius Decius modelled on
the courageous deed of Marcus Calpurnius Flamma, or whatever he was
called, in the first Punic war; such is the recurrence of the conquest
of Privernum by Gaius Plautius in the year 425, which second conquest
alone is registered in the triumphal Fasti; such is the self-immolation
of Publius Decius, repeated, as is well known, in the case of his son
in 459. Throughout this section the whole representation betrays
a different period and a different hand from the other more credible
accounts of the annals. The narrative is full of detailed pictures
of battles; of inwoven anecdotes, such as that of the praetor
of Setia, who breaks his neck on the steps of the senate-house because
he had been audacious enough to solicit the consulship, and the
various anecdotes concocted out of the surname of Titus Manlius; and
of prolix and in part suspicious archaeological digressions. In this
class we include the history of the legion--of which the notice, most
probably apocryphal, in Liv. i. 52, regarding the maniples of Romans
and Latins intermingled formed by the second Tarquin, is evidently a
second fragment, the erroneous view given of the treaty between Capua
and Rome (see my Rom. Munzwesen, p. 334, n. 122); the formularies of
self-devotion, the Campanian -denarius-, the Laurentine alliance,
and the -bina jugera- in the assignation (p. 450, note). Under such
circumstances it appears a fact of great weight that Diodorus, who
follows other and often older accounts, knows absolutely nothing of
any of these events except the last battle at Trifanum; a battle
in fact that ill accords with the rest of the narrative, which, in
accordance with the rules of poetical justice, ought to have concluded
with the death of Decius.
21. II. V. Isolation of the Later Latin Cities as Respected Private
Rights
22. II. V. Crises within the Romano-Latin League
23. II. IV. South Etruria Roman
CHAPTER VI
Struggle of the Italians against Rome
Wars between the Sabellians and Tarentines--
Archidamus--
Alexander the Molossian--
While the Romans were fighting on the Liris and Volturnus, other
conflicts agitated the south-east of the peninsula. The wealthy
merchant-republic of Tarentum, daily exposed to more serious peril
from the Lucanian and Messapian bands and justly distrusting its own
sword, gained by good words and better coin the help of -condottieri-
from the mother-country. The Spartan king, Archidamus, who with
a strong band had come to the assistance of his fellow-Dorians,
succumbed to the Lucanians on the same day on which Philip conquered
at Chaeronea (416); a retribution, in the belief of the pious Greeks,
for the share which nineteen years previously he and his people had
taken in pillaging the sanctuary of Delphi. His place was taken by
an abler commander, Alexander the Molossian, brother of Olympias the
mother of Alexander the Great. In addition to the troops which he had
brought along with him he united under his banner the contingents of
the Greek cities, especially those of the Tarentines and Metapontines;
the Poediculi (around Rubi, now Ruvo), who like the Greeks found
themselves in danger from the Sabellian nation; and lastly, even the
Lucanian exiles themselves, whose considerable numbers point to the
existence of violent internal troubles in that confederacy. Thus he
soon found himself superior to the enemy. Consentia (Cosenza), which
seems to have been the federal headquarters of the Sabellians settled
in Magna Graecia, fell into his hands. In vain the Samnites came to
the help of the Lucanians; Alexander defeated their combined forces
near Paestum. He subdued the Daunians around Sipontum, and the
Messapians in the south-eastern peninsula; he already commanded from
sea to sea, and was on the point of arranging with the Romans a joint
attack on the Samnites in their native abodes. But successes so
unexpected went beyond the desires of the Tarentine merchants, and
filled them with alarm. War broke out between them and their captain,
who had come amongst them a hired mercenary and now appeared desirous
to found a Hellenic empire in the west like his nephew in the east.
Alexander had at first the advantage; he wrested Heraclea from the
Tarentines, restored Thurii, and seems to have called upon the other
Italian Greeks to unite under his protection against the Tarentines,
while he at the same time tried to bring about a peace between them
and the Sabellian tribes. But his grand projects found only feeble
support among the degenerate and desponding Greeks, and the forced
change of sides alienated from him his former Lucanian adherents: he
fell at Pandosia by the hand of a Lucanian emigrant (422).(1) On his
death matters substantially reverted to their old position. The Greek
cities found themselves once more isolated and once more left to
protect themselves as best they might by treaty or payment of tribute,
or even by extraneous aid; Croton for instance repulsed the Bruttii
about 430 with the help of the Syracusans. The Samnite tribes acquire
renewed ascendency, and were able, without troubling themselves
about the Greeks, once more to direct their eyes towards Campania
and Latium.
But there during the brief interval a prodigious change had occurred.
The Latin confederacy was broken and scattered, the last resistance
of the Volsci was overcome, the province of Campania, the richest
and finest in the peninsula, was in the undisputed and well-secured
possession of the Romans, and the second city of Italy was a
dependency of Rome. While the Greeks and Samnites were contending
with each other, Rome had almost without a contest raised herself to
a position of power which no single people in the peninsula possessed
the means of shaking, and which threatened to render all of them
subject to her yoke. A joint exertion on the part of the peoples who
were not severally a match for Rome might perhaps still burst the
chains, ere they became fastened completely. But the clearness of
perception, the courage, the self-sacrifice required for such a
coalition of numerous peoples and cities that had hitherto been for
the most part foes or at any rate strangers to each other, were not
to be found at all, or were found only when it was already too late.
Coalition of the Italians against Rome
After the fall of the Etruscan power and the weakening of the Greek
republics, the Samnite confederacy was beyond doubt, next to Rome, the
most considerable power in Italy, and at the same time that which was
most closely and immediately endangered by Roman encroachments. To
its lot therefore fell the foremost place and the heaviest burden in
the struggle for freedom and nationality which the Italians had to
wage against Rome. It might reckon upon the assistance of the small
Sabellian tribes, the Vestini, Frentani, Marrucini, and other smaller
cantons, who dwelt in rustic seclusion amidst their mountains, but
were not deaf to the appeal of a kindred stock calling them to take
up arms in defence of their common possessions. The assistance
of the Campanian Greeks and those of Magna Graecia (especially the
Tarentines), and of the powerful Lucanians and Bruttians would have
been of greater importance; but the negligence and supineness of the
demagogues ruling in Tarentum and the entanglement of that city in
the affairs of Sicily, the internal distractions of the Lucanian
confederacy, and above all the deep hostility that had subsisted
for centuries between the Greeks of Lower Italy and their Lucanian
oppressors, scarcely permitted the hope that Tarentum and Lucania
would make common cause with the Samnites. From the Sabines and the
Marsi, who were the nearest neighbours of the Romans and had long
lived in peaceful relations with Rome, little more could be expected
than lukewarm sympathy or neutrality. The Apulians, the ancient and
bitter antagonists of the Sabellians, were the natural allies of the
Romans. On the other hand it might be expected that the more remote
Etruscans would join the league if a first success were gained; and
even a revolt in Latium and the land of the Volsci and Hernici was
not impossible. But the Samnites--the Aetolians of Italy, in whom
national vigour still lived unimpaired--had mainly to rely on their
own energies for such perseverance in the unequal struggle as would
give the other peoples time for a generous sense of shame, for calm
deliberation, and for the mustering of their forces; a single success
might then kindle the flames of war and insurrection all around Rome.
History cannot but do the noble people the justice of acknowledging
that they understood and performed their duty.
Outbreak of War between Samnium and Rome--
Pacification of Campania
Differences had already for several years existed between Rome and
Samnium in consequence of the continual aggressions in which the
Romans indulged on the Liris, and of which the founding of Fregellae
in 426 was the latest and most important. But it was the Greeks of
Campania that gave occasion to the outbreak of the contest. After
Cumae and Capua had become Roman, nothing so naturally suggested
itself to the Romans as the subjugation of the Greek city Neapolis,
which ruled also over the Greek islands in the bay--the only town
not yet reduced to subjection within the field of the Roman power.
The Tarentines and Samnites, informed of the scheme of the Romans to
obtain possession of the town, resolved to anticipate them; and while
the Tarentines were too remiss perhaps rather than too distant for the
execution of this plan, the Samnites actually threw into it a strong
garrison. The Romans immediately declared war nominally against the
Neapolitans, really against the Samnites (427), and began the siege
of Neapolis. After it had lasted a while, the Campanian Greeks
became weary of the disturbance of their commerce and of the foreign
garrison; and the Romans, whose whole efforts were directed to keep
states of the second and third rank by means of separate treaties
aloof from the coalition which was about to be formed, hastened, as
soon as the Greeks consented to negotiate, to offer them the most
favourable terms--full equality of rights and exemption from land
service, equal alliance and perpetual peace. Upon these conditions,
after the Neapolitans had rid themselves of the garrison by stratagem,
a treaty was concluded (428).
The Sabellian towns to the south of the Volturnus, Nola, Nuceria,
Herculaneum, and Pompeii, took part with Samnium in the beginning of
the war; but their greatly exposed situation and the machinations of
the Romans--who endeavoured to bring over to their side the optimate
party in these towns by all the levers of artifice and self-interest,
and found a powerful support to their endeavours in the precedent of
Capua--induced these towns to declare themselves either in favour of
Rome or neutral not long after the fall of Neapolis.
Alliance between the Romans and Lucanians
A still more important success befell the Romans in Lucania. There
also the people with true instinct was in favour of joining the
Samnites; but, as an alliance with the Samnites involved peace with
Tarentum and a large portion of the governing lords of Lucania were
not disposed to suspend their profitable pillaging expeditions, the
Romans succeeded in concluding an alliance with Lucania--an alliance
which was invaluable, because it provided employment for the
Tarentines and thus left the whole power of Rome available
against Samnium.
War in Samnium--
The Caudine Pass and the Caudine Peace
Thus Samnium stood on all sides unsupported; excepting that some of
the eastern mountain districts sent their contingents. In the year
428 the war began within the Samnite land itself: some towns on the
Campanian frontier, Rufrae (between Venafrum and Teanum) and Allifae,
were occupied by the Romans. In the following years the Roman armies
penetrated Samnium, fighting and pillaging, as far as the territory of
the Vestini, and even as far as Apulia, where they were received with
open arms; everywhere they had very decidedly the advantage.
The courage of the Samnites was broken; they sent back the Roman
prisoners, and along with them the dead body of the leader of the war
party, Brutulus Papius, who had anticipated the Roman executioners,
when the Samnite national assembly determined to ask the enemy for
peace and to procure for themselves more tolerable terms by the
surrender of their bravest general. But when the humble, almost
suppliant, request was not listened to by the Roman people (432),
the Samnites, under their new general Gavius Pontius, prepared for the
utmost and most desperate resistance. The Roman army, which under the
two consuls of the following year (433) Spurius Postumius and Titus
Veturius was encamped near Calatia (between Caserta and Maddaloni),
received accounts, confirmed by the affirmation of numerous captives,
that the Samnites had closely invested Luceria, and that that
important town, on which depended the possession of Apulia, was
in great danger. They broke up in haste. If they wished to arrive in
good time, no other route could be taken than through the midst of the
enemy's territory--where afterwards, in continuation of the Appian
Way, the Roman road was constructed from Capua by way of Beneventum
to Apulia. This route led, between the present villages of Arpaja
and Montesarchio (Caudium), through a watery meadow, which was wholly
enclosed by high and steep wooded hills and was only accessible
through deep defiles at the entrance and outlet. Here the Samnites
had posted themselves in ambush. The Romans, who had entered the
valley unopposed, found its outlet obstructed by abattis and strongly
occupied; on marching back they saw that the entrance was similarly
closed, while at the same time the crests of the surrounding mountains
were crowned by Samnite cohorts. They perceived, when it was too
late, that they had suffered themselves to be misled by a stratagem,
and that the Samnites awaited them, not at Luceria, but in the fatal
pass of Caudium. They fought, but without hope of success and without
earnest aim; the Roman army was totally unable to manoeuvre and was
completely vanquished without a struggle. The Roman generals offered
to capitulate. It is only a foolish rhetoric that represents the
Samnite general as shut up to the simple alternatives of disbanding or
of slaughtering the Roman army; he could not have done better than
accept the offered capitulation and make prisoners of the hostile
army--the whole force which for the moment the Roman community could
bring into action--with both its commanders-in-chief. In that case
the way to Campania and Latium would have stood open; and in the then
existing state of feeling, when the Volsci and Hernici and the larger
portion of the Latins would have received him with open arms, the
political existence of Rome would have been in serious danger. But
instead of taking this course and concluding a military convention,
Gavius Pontius thought that he could at once terminate the whole
quarrel by an equitable peace; whether it was that he shared that
foolish longing of the confederates for peace, to which Brutulus
Papius had fallen a victim in the previous year, or whether it was
that he was unable to prevent the party which was tired of the war
from spoiling his unexampled victory. The terms laid down were
moderate enough; Rome was to raze the fortresses which she had
constructed in defiance of the treaty--Cales and Fregellae--and to
renew her equal alliance with Samnium. After the Roman generals had
agreed to these terms and had given six hundred hostages chosen from
the cavalry for their faithful execution--besides pledging their own
word and that of all their staff-officers on oath to the same effect
--the Roman army was dismissed uninjured, but disgraced; for the
Samnite army, drunk with victory, could not resist the desire to
subject their hated enemies to the disgraceful formality of laying
down their arms and passing under the yoke.
But the Roman senate, regardless of the oath of their officers and
of the fate of the hostages, cancelled the agreement, and contented
themselves with surrendering to the enemy those who had concluded it
as personally responsible for its fulfilment. Impartial history can
attach little importance to the question whether in so doing the
casuistry of Roman advocates and priests kept the letter of the law,
or whether the decree of the Roman senate violated it; under a human
and political point of view no blame in this matter rests upon the
Romans. It was a question of comparative indifference whether,
according to the formal state law of the Romans, the general in
command was or was not entitled to conclude peace without reserving
its ratification by the burgesses. According to the spirit and
practice of the constitution it was quite an established principle
that in Rome every state-agreement, not purely military, pertained
to the province of the civil authorities, and a general who concluded
peace without the instructions of the senate and the burgesses
exceeded his powers. It was a greater error on the part of the
Samnite general to give the Roman generals the choice between saving
their army and exceeding their powers, than it was on the part of
the latter that they had not the magnanimity absolutely to repel such
a suggestion; and it was right and necessary that the Roman senate
should reject such an agreement. A great nation does not surrender
what it possesses except under the pressure of extreme necessity: all
treaties making concessions are acknowledgments of such a necessity,
not moral obligations. If every people justly reckons it a point
of honour to tear to pieces by force of arms treaties that are
disgraceful, how could honour enjoin a patient adherence to a
convention like the Caudine to which an unfortunate general was
morally compelled, while the sting of the recent disgrace was
keenly felt and the vigour of the nation subsisted unimpaired?
Victory of the Romans
Thus the convention of Caudium did not produce the rest which the
enthusiasts for peace in Samnium had foolishly expected from it, but
only led to war after war with exasperation aggravated on either side
by the opportunity forfeited, by the breach of a solemn engagement,
by military honour disgraced, and by comrades that had been abandoned.
The Roman officers given up were not received by the Samnites, partly
because they were too magnanimous to wreak their vengeance on those
unfortunates, partly because they would thereby have admitted the
Roman plea that the agreement bound only those who swore to it, not
the Roman state. Magnanimously they spared even the hostages whose
lives had been forfeited by the rules of war, and preferred to resort
at once to arms.
Luceria was occupied by them and Fregellae surprised and taken by
assault (434) before the Romans had reorganized their broken army;
the passing of the Satricans(2) over to the Samnites shows what they
might have accomplished, had they not allowed their advantage to slip
through their hands. But Rome was only momentarily paralyzed, not
weakened; full of shame and indignation the Romans raised all the
men and means they could, and placed the highly experienced Lucius
Papirius Cursor, equally distinguished as a soldier and as a general,
at the head of the newly formed army. The army divided; the one-half
marched by Sabina and the Adriatic coast to appear before Luceria,
the other proceeded to the same destination through Samnium itself,
successfully engaging and driving before it the Samnite army. They
formed a junction again under the walls of Luceria, the siege of which
was prosecuted with the greater zeal, because the Roman equites lay
in captivity there; the Apulians, particularly the Arpani, lent the
Romans important assistance in the siege, especially by procuring
supplies. After the Samnites had given battle for the relief of
the town and been defeated, Luceria surrendered to the Romans (435).
Papirius enjoyed the double satisfaction of liberating his comrades
who had been given up for lost, and of requiting the yoke of Caudium
on the Samnite garrison of Luceria. In the next years (435-437)
the war was carried on(3) not so much in Samnium itself as in the
adjoining districts. In the first place the Romans chastised the
allies of the Samnites in the Apulian and Frentanian territories,
and concluded new conventions with the Teanenses of Apulia and the
Canusini. At the same time Satricum was again reduced to subjection
and severely punished for its revolt. Then the war turned to
Campania, where the Romans conquered the frontier town towards
Samnium, Saticula (perhaps S. Agata de' Goti) (438). But now
the fortune of war seemed disposed once more to turn against them.
The Samnites gained over the Nucerians (438), and soon afterwards
the Nolans, to their side; on the upper Liris the Sorani of themselves
expelled the Roman garrison (439); the Ausonians were preparing to
rise, and threatened the important Cales; even in Capua the party
opposed to Rome was vigorously stirring. A Samnite army advanced into
Campania and encamped before the city, in the hope that its vicinity
might place the national party in the ascendant (440). But Sora was
immediately attacked by the Romans and recaptured after the defeat
of a Samnite relieving force (440). The movements among the Ausonians
were suppressed with cruel rigour ere the insurrection fairly broke
out, and at the same time a special dictator was nominated to
institute and decide political processes against the leaders of
the Samnite party in Capua, so that the most illustrious of them
died a voluntary death to escape from the Roman executioner (440).
The Samnite army before Capua was defeated and compelled to retreat
from Campania; the Romans, following close at the heels of the enemy,
crossed the Matese and encamped in the winter of 440 before Bovianum,
the: capital of Samnium. Nola was abandoned by its allies; and the
Romans had the sagacity to detach the town for ever from the Samnite
party by a very favourable convention, similar to that concluded with
Neapolis (441). Fregellae, which after the catastrophe of Caudium had
fallen into the hands of the party adverse to Rome and had been their
chief stronghold in the district on the Liris, finally fell in the
eighth year after its occupation by the Samnites (441); two hundred of
the citizens, the chief members of the national party, were conveyed
to Rome, and there openly beheaded in the Forum as an example and a
warning to the patriots who were everywhere bestirring themselves.
New Fortresses in Apulia and Campania
Apulia and Campania were thus in the hands of the Romans. In order
finally to secure and permanently to command the conquered territory,
several new fortresses were founded in it during the years 440-442:
Luceria in Apulia, to which on account of its isolated and exposed
situation half a legion was sent as a permanent garrison; Pontiae (the
Ponza islands) for the securing of the Campanian waters; Saticula on
the Campano-Samnite frontier, as a bulwark against Samnium; and lastly
Interamna (near Monte Cassino) and Suessa Aurunca (Sessa) on the
road from Rome to Capua. Garrisons moreover were sent to Caiatia
(Cajazzo), Sora, and other stations of military importance. The great
military road from Rome to Capua, which with the necessary embankment
for it across the Pomptine marshes the censor Appius Claudius caused
to be constructed in 442, completed the securing of Campania. The
designs of the Romans were more and more fully developed; their object
was the subjugation of Italy, which was enveloped more closely from
year to year in a network of Roman fortresses and roads. The Samnites
were already on both sides surrounded by the Roman meshes; already the
line from Rome to Luceria severed north and south Italy from each
other, as the fortresses of Norba and Signia had formerly severed the
Volsci and Aequi; and Rome now rested on the Arpani, as it formerly
rested on the Hernici. The Italians could not but see that the
freedom of all of them was gone if Samnium succumbed, and that it was
high time at length to hasten with all their might to the help of the
brave mountain people which had now for fifteen years singly sustained
the unequal struggle with the Romans.
Intervention of the Tarentines
The most natural allies of the Samnites would have been the
Tarentines; but it was part of that fatality that hung over Samnium
and over Italy in general, that at this moment so fraught with the
destinies of the future the decision lay in the hands of these
Athenians of Italy. Since the constitution of Tarentum, which was
originally after the old Doric fashion strictly aristocratic, had
become changed to a complete democracy, a life of singular activity
had sprung up in that city, which was inhabited chiefly by mariners,
fishermen, and artisans. The sentiments and conduct of the
population, more wealthy than noble, discarded all earnestness
amidst the giddy bustle and witty brilliance of their daily life, and
oscillated between the grandest boldness of enterprise and elevation
of spirit on the one hand, and a shameful frivolity and childish whim
on the other. It may not be out of place, in connection with a crisis
wherein the existence or destruction of nations of noble gifts and
ancient renown was at stake, to mention that Plato, who came to
Tarentum some sixty years before this time, according to his own
statement saw the whole city drunk at the Dionysia, and that the
burlesque farce, or "merry tragedy" as it was called, was created
in Tarentum about the very time of the great Samnite war. This
licentious life and buffoon poetry of the Tarentine fashionables and
literati had a fitting counterpart in the inconstant, arrogant, and
short-sighted policy of the Tarentine demagogues, who regularly
meddled in matters with which they had nothing to do, and kept aloof
where their immediate interests called for action. After the Caudine
catastrophe, when the Romans and Samnites stood opposed in Apulia,
they had sent envoys thither to enjoin both parties to lay down their
arms (434). This diplomatic intervention in the decisive struggle of
the Italians could not rationally have any other meaning than that of
an announcement that Tarentum had at length resolved to abandon
the neutrality which it had hitherto maintained. It had in fact
sufficient reason to do so. It was no doubt a difficult and dangerous
thing for Tarentum to be entangled in such a war; for the democratic
development of the state had directed its energies entirely to the
fleet, and while that fleet, resting upon the strong commercial
marine of Tarentum, held the first rank among the maritime powers
of Magna Graecia, the land force, on which they were in the present
case dependent, consisted mainly of hired soldiers and was sadly
disorganized. Under these circumstances it was no light undertaking
for the Tarentine republic to take part in the conflict between Rome
and Samnium, even apart from the--at least troublesome--feud in which
Roman policy had contrived to involve them with the Lucanians. But
these obstacles might be surmounted by an energetic will; and both the
contending parties construed the summons of the Tarentine envoys that
they should desist from the strife as meant in earnest. The Samnites,
as the weaker, showed themselves ready to comply with it; the Romans
replied by hoisting the signal for battle. Reason and honour dictated
to the Tarentines the propriety of now following up the haughty
injunction of their envoys by a declaration of war against Rome; but
in Tarentum neither reason nor honour characterized the government,
and they had simply been trifling in a very childish fashion with
very serious matters. No declaration of war against Rome took place;
in its stead they preferred to support the oligarchical party in the
Sicilian towns against Agathocles of Syracuse who had at a former
period been in the Tarentine service and had been dismissed in
disgrace, and following the example of Sparta, they sent a fleet
to the island--a fleet which would have rendered better service
in the Campanian seas (440).
Accession of the Etruscans to the Coalition--
Victory at the Vadimonian Lake
The peoples of northern and central Italy, who seem to have been
roused especially by the establishment of the fortress of Luceria,
acted with more energy. The Etruscans first drew the sword (443), the
armistice of 403 having already expired some years before. The Roman
frontier-fortress of Sutrium had to sustain a two years' siege, and in
the vehement conflicts which took place under its walls the Romans as
a rule were worsted, till the consul of the year 444 Quintus Fabius
Rullianus, a leader who had gained experience in the Samnite wars, not
only restored the ascendency of the Roman arms in Roman Etruria, but
boldly penetrated into the land of the Etruscans proper, which had
hitherto from diversity of language and scanty means of communication
remained almost unknown to the Romans. His march through the Ciminian
Forest which no Roman army had yet traversed, and his pillaging of a
rich region that had long been spared the horrors of war, raised
all Etruria in arms. The Roman government, which had seriously
disapproved the rash expedition and had when too late forbidden the
daring leader from crossing the frontier, collected in the greatest
haste new legions, in order to meet the expected onslaught of the
whole Etruscan power. But a seasonable and decisive victory of
Rullianus, the battle at the Vadimonian lake which long lived in
the memory of the people, converted an imprudent enterprise into a
celebrated feat of heroism and broke the resistance of the Etruscans.
Unlike the Samnites who had now for eighteen years maintained the
unequal struggle, three of the most powerful Etruscan towns--Perusia,
Cortona, and Arretium--consented after the first defeat to a separate
peace for three hundred months (444), and after the Romans had once
more beaten the other Etruscans near Perusia in the following year,
the Tarquinienses also agreed to a peace of four hundred months (446);
whereupon the other cities desisted from the contest, and a temporary
cessation of arms took place throughout Etruria.
Last Campaigns in Samnium
While these events were passing, the war had not been suspended in
Samnium. The campaign of 443 was confined like the preceding to the
besieging and storming of several strongholds of the Samnites; but
in the next year the war took a more vigorous turn. The dangerous
position of Rullianus in Etruria, and the reports which spread as
to the annihilation of the Roman army in the north, encouraged the
Samnites to new exertions; the Roman consul Gaius Marcius Rutilus was
vanquished by them and severely wounded in person. But the sudden
change in the aspect of matters in Etruria destroyed their newly
kindled hopes. Lucius Papirius Cursor again appeared at the head of
the Roman troops sent against the Samnites, and again remained the
victor in a great and decisive battle (445), in which the confederates
had put forth their last energies. The flower of their army--the
wearers of the striped tunics and golden shields, and the wearers of
the white tunics and silver shields--were there extirpated, and their
splendid equipments thenceforth on festal occasions decorated the rows
of shops along the Roman Forum. Their distress was ever increasing;
the struggle was becoming ever more hopeless. In the following year
(446) the Etruscans laid down their arms; and in the same year the
last town of Campania which still adhered to the Samnites, Nuceria,
simultaneously assailed on the part of the Romans by water and by
land, surrendered under favourable conditions. The Samnites found new
allies in the Umbrians of northern, and in the Marsi and Paeligni of
central, Italy, and numerous volunteers even from the Hernici joined
their ranks; but movements which might have decidedly turned the scale
against Rome, had the Etruscans still remained under arms, now simply
augmented the results of the Roman victory without seriously adding to
its difficulties. The Umbrians, who gave signs of marching on Rome,
were intercepted by Rullianus with the army of Samnium on the upper
Tiber--a step which the enfeebled Samnites were unable to prevent;
and this sufficed to disperse the Umbrian levies. The war once more
returned to central Italy. The Paeligni were conquered, as were also
the Marsi; and, though the other Sabellian tribes remained nominally
foes of Rome, in this quarter Samnium gradually came to stand
practically alone. But unexpected assistance came to them from
the district of the Tiber. The confederacy of the Hernici, called
by the Romans to account for their countrymen found among the Samnite
captives, now declared war against Rome (in 448)--more doubtless from
despair than from calculation. Some of the more considerable Hernican
communities from the first kept aloof from hostilities; but Anagnia,
by far the most eminent of the Hernican cities, carried out this
declaration of war. In a military point of view the position of the
Romans was undoubtedly rendered for the moment highly critical by this
unexpected rising in the rear of the army occupied with the siege of
the strongholds of Samnium. Once more the fortune of war favoured the
Samnites; Sora and Caiatia fell into their hands. But the Anagnines
succumbed with unexpected rapidity before troops despatched from Rome,
and these troops also gave seasonable relief to the army stationed
in Samnium: all in fact was lost. The Samnites sued for peace, but
in vain; they could not yet come to terms. The final decision was
reserved for the campaign of 449. Two Roman consular armies
penetrated--the one, under Tiberius Minucius and after his fall under
Marcus Fulvius, from Campania through the mountain passes, the other,
under Lucius Postumius, from the Adriatic upwards by the Biferno--into
Samnium, there to unite in front of Bovianum the capital; a decisive
victory was achieved, the Samnite general Statius Gellius was taken
prisoner, and Bovianum was carried by storm.
Peace with Samnium
The fall of the chief stronghold of the land terminated the twenty-two
years' war. The Samnites withdrew their garrisons from Sora and
Arpinum, and sent envoys to Rome to sue for peace; the Sabellian
tribes, the Marsi, Marrucini, Paeligni, Frentani, Vestini, and
Picentes followed their example. The terms granted by Rome were
tolerable; cessions of territory were required from some of them,
from the Paeligni for instance, but they do not seem to have been of
much importance. The equal alliance was renewed between the Sabellian
tribes and the Romans (450).
And with Tarentum
Presumably about the same time, and in consequence doubtless of the
Samnite peace, peace was also made between Rome and Tarentum. The two
cities had not indeed directly opposed each other in the field. The
Tarentines had been inactive spectators of the long contest between
Rome and Samnium from its beginning to its close, and had only kept up
hostilities in league with the Sallentines against the Lucanians who
were allies of Rome. In the last years of the Samnite war no doubt
they had shown some signs of more energetic action. The position of
embarrassment to which the ceaseless attacks of the Lucanians reduced
them on the one hand, and on the other hand the feeling ever obtruding
itself on them more urgently that the complete subjugation of Samnium
would endanger their own independence, induced them, notwithstanding
their unpleasant experiences with Alexander, once more to entrust
themselves to a -condottiere-. There came at their call the Spartan
prince Cleonymus, accompanied by five thousand mercenaries; with whom
he united a band equally numerous raised in Italy, as well as the
contingents of the Messapians and of the smaller Greek towns, and
above all the Tarentine civic army of twenty-two thousand men. At
the head of this considerable force he compelled the Lucanians to make
peace with Tarentum and to install a government of Samnite tendencies;
in return for which Metapontum was abandoned to them. The Samnites
were still in arms when this occurred; there was nothing to prevent
the Spartan from coming to their aid and casting the weight of his
numerous army and his military skill into the scale in favour of
freedom for the cities and peoples of Italy. But Tarentum did not
act as Rome would in similar circumstances have acted; and prince
Cleonymus himself was far from being an Alexander or a Pyrrhus. He
was in no hurry to undertake a war in which he might expect more blows
than booty, but preferred to make common cause with the Lucanians
against Metapontum, and made himself comfortable in that city, while
he talked of an expedition against Agathocles of Syracuse and of
liberating the Sicilian Greeks. Thereupon the Samnites made peace;
and when after its conclusion Rome began to concern herself more
seriously about the south-east of the peninsula--in token of which
in the year 447 a Roman force levied contributions, or rather
reconnoitred by order of the government, in the territory of the
Sallentines--the Spartan -condottiere- embarked with his mercenaries
and surprised the island of Corcyra, which was admirably situated as
a basis for piratical expeditions against Greece and Italy. Thus
abandoned by their general, and at the same time deprived of their
allies in central Italy, the Tarentines and their Italian allies,
the Lucanians and Sallentines, had now no course left but to solicit
an accommodation with Rome, which appears to have been granted on
tolerable terms. Soon afterwards (451) even an incursion of
Cleonymus, who had landed in the Sallentine territory and laid
siege to Uria, was repulsed by the inhabitants with Roman aid.
Consolidation of the Roman Rule in Central Italy
The victory of Rome was complete; and she turned it to full account.
It was not from magnanimity in the conquerors--for the Romans knew
nothing of the sort--but from shrewd and far-seeing calculation that
terms so moderate were granted to the Samnites, the Tarentines, and
the more distant peoples generally. The first and main object was not
so much to compel southern Italy as quickly as possible to recognize
formally the Roman supremacy, as to supplement and complete the
subjugation of central Italy, for which the way had been prepared by
the military roads and fortresses already established in Campania and
Apulia during the last war, and by that means to separate the northern
and southern Italians into two masses cut off in a military point of
view from direct contact with each other. To this object accordingly
the next undertakings of the Romans were with consistent energy
directed. Above all they used, or made, the opportunity for getting
rid of the confederacies of the Aequi and the Hernici which had once
been rivals of the Roman single power in the region of the Tiber and
were not yet quite set aside. In the same year, in which the peace
with Samnium took place (450), the consul Publius Sempronius Sophus
waged war on the Aequi; forty townships surrendered in fifty days; the
whole territory with the exception of the narrow and rugged mountain
valley, which still in the present day bears the old name of the
people (Cicolano), passed into the possession of the Romans, and here
on the northern border of the Fucine lake was founded the fortress
Alba with a garrison of 6000 men, thenceforth forming a bulwark
against the valiant Marsi and a curb for central Italy; as was also
two years afterwards on the upper Turano, nearer to Rome, Carsioli
--both as allied communities with Latin rights.
The fact that in the case of the Hernici at least Anagnia had taken
part in the last stage of the Samnite war, furnished the desired
reason for dissolving the old relation of alliance. The fate of the
Anagnines was, as might be expected, far harder than that which had
under similar circumstances been meted out to the Latin communities
in the previous generation. They not merely had, like these, to
acquiesce in the Roman citizenship without suffrage, but they also
like the Caerites lost self-administration; out of a portion of their
territory on the upper Trerus (Sacco), moreover, a new tribe was
instituted, and another was formed at the same time on the lower Anio
(455). The only regret was that the three Hernican communities next
in importance to Anagnia, Aletrium, Verulae, and Ferentinum, had not
also revolted; for, as they courteously declined the suggestion that
they should voluntarily enter into the bond of Roman citizenship and
there existed no pretext for compelling them to do so, the Romans were
obliged not only to respect their autonomy, but also to allow to them
even the right of assembly and of intermarriage, and in this way
still to leave a shadow of the old Hernican confederacy. No such
considerations fettered their action in that portion of the Volscian
country which had hitherto been held by the Samnites. There Arpinum
and Frusino became subject, the latter town was deprived of a third
of its domain, and on the upper Liris in addition to Fregellae the
Volscian town of Sora, which had previously been garrisoned, was now
permanently converted into a Roman fortress and occupied by a legion
of 4000 men. In this way the old Volscian territory was completely
subdued, and became rapidly Romanized. The region which separated
Samnium from Etruria was penetrated by two military roads, both of
which were secured by new fortresses. The northern road, which
afterwards became the Flaminian, covered the line of the Tiber; it
led through Ocriculum, which was in alliance with Rome, to Narnia, the
name which the Romans gave to the old Umbrian fortress Nequinum when
they settled a military colony there (455). The southern, afterwards
the Valerian, ran along the Fucine lake by way of the just mentioned
fortresses of Carsioli and Alba. The small tribes within whose bounds
these colonies were instituted, the Umbrians who obstinately defended
Nequinum, the Aequians who once more assailed Alba, and the Marsians
who attacked Carsioli, could not arrest the course of Rome: the two
strong curb-fortresses were inserted almost without hindrance between
Samnium and Etruria. We have already mentioned the great roads and
fortresses instituted for permanently securing Apulia and above all
Campania: by their means Samnium was further surrounded on the east
and west with the net of Roman strongholds. It is a significant
token of the comparative weakness of Etruria that it was not deemed
necessary to secure the passes through the Ciminian Forest in a
similar mode--by a highway and corresponding fortresses. The former
frontier fortress of Sutrium continued to be in this quarter the
terminus of the Roman military line, and the Romans contented
themselves with having the road leading thence to Arretium kept
in a serviceable state for military purposes by the communities
through whose territories it passed.(4)
Renewed Outbreak of the Samnite-Etruscan War--
Junction of the Troops of the Coalition in Etruria
The high-spirited Samnite nation perceived that such a peace was more
ruinous than the most destructive war; and, what was more, it acted
accordingly. The Celts in northern Italy were just beginning to
bestir themselves again after a long suspension of warfare; moreover
several Etruscan communities there were still in arms against the
Romans, and brief armistices alternated in that quarter with vehement
but indecisive conflicts. All central Italy was still in ferment and
partly in open insurrection; the fortresses were still only in course
of construction; the way between Etruria and Samnium was not yet
completely closed. Perhaps it was not yet too late to save freedom;
but, if so, there must be no delay; the difficulty of attack
increased, the power of the assailants diminished with every year
by which the peace was prolonged. Five years had scarce elapsed since
the contest ended, and all the wounds must still have been bleeding
which the twenty-two years' war had inflicted on the peasantry of
Samnium, when in the year 456 the Samnite confederacy renewed the
struggle. The last war had been decided in favour of Rome mainly
through the alliance of Lucania with the Romans and the consequent
standing aloof of Tarentum. The Samnites, profiting by that lesson,
now threw themselves in the first instance with all their might on the
Lucanians, and succeeded in bringing their party in that quarter to
the helm of affairs, and in concluding an alliance between Samnium and
Lucania. Of course the Romans immediately declared war; the Samnites
had expected no other issue. It is a significant indication of the
state of feeling, that the Samnite government informed the Roman
envoys that it was not able to guarantee their inviolability, if
they should set foot on Samnite ground.
The war thus began anew (456), and while a second army was fighting
in Etruria, the main Roman army traversed Samnium and compelled the
Lucanians to make peace and send hostages to Rome. The following
year both consuls were able to proceed to Samnium; Rullianus conquered
at Tifernum, his faithful comrade in arms, Publius Decius Mus, at
Maleventum, and for five months two Roman armies encamped in the land
of the enemy. They were enabled to do so, because the Tuscan states
had on their own behalf entered into negotiations for peace with Rome.
The Samnites, who from the beginning could not but see that their only
chance of victory lay in the combination of all Italy against Rome,
exerted themselves to the utmost to prevent the threatened separate
peace between Etruria and Rome; and when at last their general,
Gellius Egnatius, offered to bring aid to the Etruscans in their own
country, the Etruscan federal council in reality agreed to hold out
and once more to appeal to the decision of arms. Samnium made the
most energetic efforts to place three armies simultaneously in the
field, the first destined for the defence of its own territory, the
second for an invasion of Campania, the third and most numerous
for Etruria; and in the year 458 the last, led by Egnatius himself,
actually reached Etruria in safety through the Marsian and Umbrian
territories, with whose inhabitants there was an understanding.
Meanwhile the Romans were capturing some strong places in Samnium and
breaking the influence of the Samnite party in Lucania; they were not
in a position to prevent the departure of the army led by Egnatius.
When information reached Rome that the Samnites had succeeded in
frustrating all the enormous efforts made to sever the southern
from the northern Italians, that the arrival of the Samnite bands in
Etruria had become the signal for an almost universal rising against
Rome, and that the Etruscan communities were labouring with the utmost
zeal to get their own forces ready for war and to take into their pay
Gallic bands, every nerve was strained also in Rome; the freedmen and
the married were formed into cohorts--it was felt on all hands that
the decisive crisis was near. The year 458 however passed away,
apparently, in armings and marchings. For the following year (459)
the Romans placed their two best generals, Publius Decius Mus and the
aged Quintus Fabius Rullianus, at the head of their army in Etruria,
which was reinforced with all the troops that could be spared from
Campania, and amounted to at least 60,000 men, of whom more than a
third were full burgesses of Rome. Besides this, two reserves were
formed, the first at Falerii, the second under the walls of the
capital. The rendezvous of the Italians was Umbria, towards which the
roads from the Gallic, Etruscan, and Sabellian territories converged;
towards Umbria the consuls also moved off their main force, partly
along the left, partly along the right bank of the Tiber, while at
the same time the first reserve made a movement towards Etruria, in
order if possible to recall the Etruscan troops from the main scene
of action for the defence of their homes. The first engagement did
not prove fortunate for the Romans; their advanced guard was defeated
by the combined Gauls and Samnites in the district of Chiusi. But
that diversion accomplished its object. Less magnanimous than the
Samnites, who had marched through the ruins of their towns that they
might not be absent from the chosen field of battle, a great part of
the Etruscan contingents withdrew from the federal army on the news
of the advance of the Roman reserve into Etruria, and its ranks
were greatly thinned when the decisive battle came to be fought on
the eastern declivity of the Apennines near Sentinum.
Battle of Sentinum--
Peace with Etruria
Nevertheless it was a hotly contested day. On the right wing of
the Romans, where Rullianus with his two legions fought against the
Samnite army, the conflict remained long undecided. On the left,
which Publius Decius commanded, the Roman cavalry was thrown into
confusion by the Gallic war chariots, and the legions also already
began to give way. Then the consul called to him Marcus Livius the
priest, and bade him devote to the infernal gods both the head of
the Roman general and the army of the enemy; and plunging into the
thickest throng of the Gauls he sought death and found it. This
heroic deed of despair on the part of one so eminent as a man and so
beloved as a general was not in vain. The fugitive soldiers rallied;
the bravest threw themselves after their leader into the hostile
ranks, to avenge him or to die with him; and just at the right moment
the consular Lucius Scipio, despatched by Rullianus, appeared with the
Roman reserve on the imperilled left wing. The excellent Campanian
cavalry, which fell on the flank and rear of the Gauls, turned the
scale; the Gauls fled, and at length the Samnites also gave way,
their general Egnatius falling at the gate of the camp. Nine thousand
Romans strewed the field of battle; but dearly as the victory was
purchased, it was worthy of such a sacrifice. The army of the
coalition was dissolved, and with it the coalition itself; Umbria
remained in the power of the Romans, the Gauls dispersed, the remnant
of the Samnites still in compact order retreated homeward through the
Abruzzi. Campania, which the Samnites had overrun during the Etruscan
war, was after its close re-occupied with little difficulty by the
Romans. Etruria sued for peace in the following year (460); Volsinii,
Perusia, Arretium, and in general all the towns that had joined the
league against Rome, promised a cessation of hostilities for four
hundred months.
Last Struggles of Samnium
But the Samnites were of a different mind; they prepared for their
hopeless resistance with the courage of free men, which cannot
compel success but may put it to shame. When the two consular armies
advanced into Samnium, in the year 460, they encountered everywhere
the most desperate resistance; in fact Marcus Atilius was discomfited
near Luceria, and the Samnites were able to penetrate into Campania
and to lay waste the territory of the Roman colony Interamna on the
Liris. In the ensuing year Lucius Papirius Cursor, the son of the
hero of the first Samnite war, and Spurius Carvilius, gave battle on
a great scale near Aquilonia to the Samnite army, the flower of which
--the 16,000 in white tunics--had sworn a sacred oath to prefer death
to flight. Inexorable destiny, however, heeds neither the oaths nor
the supplications of despair; the Roman conquered and stormed the
strongholds where the Samnites had sought refuge for themselves and
their property. Even after this great defeat the confederates still
for years resisted the ever-increasing superiority of the enemy with
unparalleled perseverance in their fastnesses and mountains, and still
achieved various isolated advantages. The experienced arm of the old
Rullianus was once more called into the field against them (462), and
Gavius Pontius, a son perhaps of the victor of Caudium, even gained
for his nation a last victory, which the Romans meanly enough avenged
by causing him when subsequently taken to be executed in prison (463).
But there was no further symptom of movement in Italy; for the war,
which Falerii began in 461, scarcely deserves such a name. The
Samnites doubtless turned with longing eyes towards Tarentum, which
alone was still in a position to grant them aid; but it held aloof.
The same causes as before occasioned its inaction--internal
misgovernment, and the passing over of the Lucanians once more to the
Roman party in the year 456; to which fell to be added a not unfounded
dread of Agathocles of Syracuse, who just at that time had reached the
height of his power and began to turn his views towards Italy.
About 455 the latter established himself in Corcyra whence Cleonymus
had been expelled by Demetrius Poliorcetes, and now threatened the
Tarentines from the Adriatic as well as from the Ionian sea.
The cession of the island to king Pyrrhus of Epirus in 459 certainly
removed to a great extent the apprehensions which they had cherished;
but the affairs of Corcyra continued to occupy the Tarentines--in the
year 464, for instance, they helped to protect Pyrrhus in possession
of the island against Demetrius--and in like manner Agathocles did not
cease to give the Tarentines uneasiness by his Italian policy. When
he died (465) and with him the power of the Syracusans in Italy went
to wreck, it was too late; Samnium, weary of the thirty-seven years'
struggle, had concluded peace in the previous year (464) with the
Roman consul Manius Curius Dentatus, and had in form renewed its
league with Rome. On this occasion, as in the peace of 450, no
disgraceful or destructive conditions were imposed on the brave people
by the Romans; no cessions even of territory seem to have taken place.
The political sagacity of Rome preferred to follow the path which it
had hitherto pursued, and to attach in the first place the Campanian
and Adriatic coast more and more securely to Rome before proceeding to
the direct conquest of the interior. Campania, indeed, had been long
in subjection; but the far-seeing policy of Rome found it needful, in
order to secure the Campanian coast, to establish two coast-fortresses
there, Minturnae and Sinuessa (459), the new burgesses of which were
admitted according to the settled rule in the case of maritime
colonies to the full citizenship of Rome. With still greater energy
the extension of the Roman rule was prosecuted in central Italy. As
the subjugation of the Aequi and Hernici was the immediate sequel of
the first Samnite war, so that of the Sabines followed on the end of
the second. The same general, who ultimately subdued the Samnites,
Manius Curius broke down in the same year (464) the brief and feeble
resistance of the Sabines and forced them to unconditional surrender.
A great portion of the subjugated territory was immediately taken into
possession of the victors and distributed to Roman burgesses, and
Roman subject-rights (-civitas sine suffragio-) were imposed on the
communities that were left--Cures, Reate, Amiternum, Nursia. Allied
towns with equal rights were not established here; on the contrary the
country came under the immediate rule of Rome, which thus extended as
far as the Apennines and the Umbrian mountains. Nor was it even now
restricted to the territory on Rome's side of the mountains; the last
war had shown but too clearly that the Roman rule over central Italy
was only secured, if it reached from sea to sea. The establishment
of the Romans beyond the Apennines begins with the laying out of the
strong fortress of Atria (Atri) in the year 465, on the northern slope
of the Abruzzi towards the Picenian plain, not immediately on the
coast and hence with Latin rights, but still near to the sea, and the
keystone of the mighty wedge separating northern and southern Italy.
Of a similar nature and of still greater importance was the founding
of Venusia (463), whither the unprecedented number of 20,000 colonists
was conducted. That city, founded at the boundary of Samnium, Apulia,
and Lucania, on the great road between Tarentum and Samnium, in an
uncommonly strong position, was destined as a curb to keep in check
the surrounding tribes, and above all to interrupt the communications
between the two most powerful enemies of Rome in southern Italy.
Beyond doubt at the same time the southern highway, which Appius
Claudius had carried as far as Capua, was prolonged thence to Venusia.
Thus, at the close of the Samnite wars, the Roman domain closely
compact--that is, consisting almost exclusively of communities with
Roman or Latin rights--extended on the north to the Ciminian Forest,
on the east to the Abruzzi and to the Adriatic, on the south as far as
Capua, while the two advanced posts, Luceria and Venusia, established
towards the east and south on the lines of communication of their
opponents, isolated them on every side. Rome was no longer merely the
first, but was already the ruling power in the peninsula, when towards
the end of the fifth century of the city those nations, which had been
raised to supremacy in their respective lands by the favour of the
gods and by their own capacity, began to come into contact in council
and on the battle-field; and, as at Olympia the preliminary victors
girt themselves for a second and more serious struggle, so on the
larger arena of the nations, Carthage, Macedonia, and Rome now
prepared for the final and decisive contest.
Notes for Book II Chapter VI
1. It may not be superfluous to mention that our knowledge Archidamus
and Alexander is derived from Greek annals, and that the synchronism
between these and the Roman is in reference to the present epoch only
approximately established. We must beware, therefore, of pursuing too
far into detail the unmistakable general connection between the events
in the west and those in the east of Italy.
2. These were not the inhabitants of Satricum near Antium (II. V.
League with The Hernici), but those of another Volscian town
constituted at that time as a Roman burgess-community without right
of voting, near Arpinum.
3. That a formal armistice for two years subsisted between the Romans
and Samnites in 436-437 is more than improbable.
4. The operations in the campaign of 537, and still more plainly the
formation of the highway from Arretium to Bononia in 567, show that
the road from Rome to Arretium had already been rendered serviceable
before that time. But it cannot at that period have been a Roman
military road, because, judging from its later appellation of the
"Cassian way," it cannot have been constructed as a -via consularis-
earlier than 583; for no Cassian appears in the lists of Roman consuls
and censors between Spurius Cassius, consul in 252, 261, and 268--who
of course is out of the question--and Gaius Cassius Longinus, consul
in 583.
CHAPTER VII
Struggle between Pyrrhus and Rome, and Union of Italy
Relations between the East and West
After Rome had acquired the undisputed mastery of the world, the
Greeks were wont to annoy their Roman masters by the assertion that
Rome was indebted for her greatness to the fever of which Alexander of
Macedonia died at Babylon on the 11th of June, 431. As it was not too
agreeable for them to reflect on the actual past, they were fond of
allowing their thoughts to dwell on what might have happened, had the
great king turned his arms--as was said to have been his intention at
the time of his death--towards the west and contested the Carthaginian
supremacy by sea with his fleet, and the Roman supremacy by land with
his phalanxes. It is not impossible that Alexander may have cherished
such thoughts; nor is it necessary to resort for an explanation of
their origin to the mere difficulty which an autocrat, who is fond
of war and is well provided with soldiers and ships, experiences in
setting limits to his warlike career. It was an enterprise worthy of
a Greek great king to protect the Siceliots against Carthage and the
Tarentines against Rome, and to put an end to piracy on either sea;
and the Italian embassies from the Bruttians, Lucanians, and
Etruscans,(1) that along with numerous others made their appearance at
Babylon, afforded him sufficient opportunities of becoming acquainted
with the circumstances of the peninsula and of entering into relations
with it. Carthage with its many connections in the east could not but
attract the attention of the mighty monarch, and it was probably one
of his designs to convert the nominal sovereignty of the Persian king
over the Tyrian colony into a real one: it was not for nothing that
a Phoenician spy was found in the retinue of Alexander. Whether,
however, these ideas were dreams or actual projects, the king died
without having interfered in the affairs of the west, and his ideas
were buried with him. For but a few brief years a Greek ruler had
held in his hand the whole intellectual vigour of the Hellenic race
combined with the whole material resources of the east. On his death
the work to which his life had been devoted--the establishment of
Hellenism in the east--was by no means undone; but his empire had
barely been united when it was again dismembered, and, amidst the
constant quarrels of the different states that were formed out of
its ruins, the object of world-wide interest which they were destined
to promote--the diffusion of Greek culture in the east--though not
abandoned, was prosecuted on a feeble and stunted scale. Under such
circumstances, neither the Greek nor the Asiatico-Egyptian states
could think of acquiring a footing in the west or of turning their
efforts against the Romans or the Carthaginians. The eastern and
western state-systems subsisted side by side for a time without
crossing, politically, each other's path; and Rome in particular
remained substantially aloof from the complications in the days
of Alexander's successors. The only relations established were of
a mercantile kind; as in the instance of the free state of Rhodes,
the leading representative of the policy of commercial neutrality in
Greece and in consequence the universal medium of intercourse in an
age of perpetual wars, which about 448 concluded a treaty with Rome
--a commercial convention of course, such as was natural between a
mercantile people and the masters of the Caerite and Campanian
coasts. Even in the supply of mercenaries from Hellas, the universal
recruiting field of those times, to Italy, and to Tarentum in
particular, political relations--such as subsisted, for instance,
between Tarentum and Sparta its mother-city--exercised but a very
subordinate influence. In general the raising of mercenaries was
simply a matter of traffic, and Sparta, although it regularly supplied
the Tarentines with captains for their Italian wars, was by that
course as little involved in hostilities with the Italians, as in the
North American war of independence the German states were involved in
hostilities with the Union, to whose opponents they sold the services
of their subjects.
The Historical Position of Pyrrhus
Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, was himself simply a military adventurer.
He was none the less a soldier of fortune that he traced back his
pedigree to Aeacus and Achilles, and that, had he been more peacefully
disposed, he might have lived and died as "king" of a small mountain
tribe under the supremacy of Macedonia or perhaps in isolated
independence. He has been compared to Alexander of Macedonia; and
certainly the idea of founding a Hellenic empire of the west--which
would have had as its core Epirus, Magna Graecia, and Sicily, would
have commanded both the Italian seas, and would have reduced Rome and
Carthage to the rank of barbarian peoples bordering on the Hellenistic
state-system, like the Celts and the Indians--was analogous in
greatness and boldness to the idea which led the Macedonian king over
the Hellespont. But it was not the mere difference of issue that
formed the distinction between the expedition to the east and that
to the west. Alexander with his Macedonian army, in which the
staff especially was excellent, could fully make head against the
great-king; but the king of Epirus, which stood by the side of
Macedonia somewhat as Hesse by the side of Prussia, could only raise
an army worthy of the name by means of mercenaries and of alliances
based on accidental political combinations. Alexander made his
appearance in the Persian empire as a conqueror; Pyrrhus appeared in
Italy as the general of a coalition of secondary states. Alexander
left his hereditary dominions completely secured by the unconditional
subjection of Greece, and by the strong army that remained behind
under Antipater; Pyrrhus had no security for the integrity of his
native dominions but the word of a doubtful neighbour. In the case
of both conquerors, if their plans should be crowned with success,
their native country would necessarily cease to be the centre of
their new empire; but it was far more practicable to transfer the
seat of the Macedonian military monarchy to Babylon than to found a
soldier-dynasty in Tarentum or Syracuse. The democracy of the Greek
republics--perpetual agony though it was--could not be at all coerced
into the stiff forms of a military state; Philip had good reason for
not incorporating the Greek republics with his empire. In the east no
national resistance was to be expected; ruling and subject races had
long lived there side by side, and a change of despot was a matter of
indifference or even of satisfaction to the mass of the population.
In the west the Romans, the Samnites, the Carthaginians, might be
vanquished; but no conqueror could have transformed the Italians
into Egyptian fellahs, or rendered the Roman farmers tributaries of
Hellenic barons. Whatever we take into view--whether their own power,
their allies, or the resources of their antagonists--in all points the
plan of the Macedonian appears as a feasible, that of the Epirot an
impracticable, enterprise; the former as the completion of a great
historical task, the latter as a remarkable blunder; the former as
the foundation of a new system of states and of a new phase of
civilization, the latter as a mere episode in history. The work of
Alexander outlived him, although its creator met an untimely death;
Pyrrhus saw with his own eyes the wreck of all his plans, ere death
called him away. Both were by nature daring and great, but Pyrrhus
was only the foremost general, Alexander was eminently the most gifted
statesman, of his time; and, if it is insight into what is and what is
not possible that distinguishes the hero from the adventurer, Pyrrhus
must be numbered among the latter class, and may as little be placed
on a parallel with his greater kinsman as the Constable of Bourbon may
be put in comparison with Louis the Eleventh.
And yet a wondrous charm attaches to the name of the Epirot--a
peculiar sympathy, evoked certainly in some degree by his chivalrous
and amiable character, but still more by the circumstance that he
was the first Greek that met the Romans in battle. With him began
those direct relations between Rome and Hellas, on which the whole
subsequent development of ancient, and an essential part of modern,
civilization are based. The struggle between phalanxes and cohorts,
between a mercenary army and a militia, between military monarchy and
senatorial government, between individual talent and national vigour
--this struggle between Rome and Hellenism was first fought out in
the battles between Pyrrhus and the Roman generals; and though the
defeated party often afterwards appealed anew to the arbitration of
arms, every succeeding day of battle simply confirmed the decision.
But while the Greeks were beaten in the battlefield as well as in
the senate-hall, their superiority was none the less decided on every
other field of rivalry than that of politics; and these very struggles
already betokened that the victory of Rome over the Hellenes would be
different from her victories over Gauls and Phoenicians, and that the
charm of Aphrodite only begins to work when the lance is broken and
the helmet and shield are laid aside.
Character and Earlier History of Pyrrhus
King Pyrrhus was the son of Aeacides, ruler of the Molossians (about
Janina), who, spared as a kinsman and faithful vassal by Alexander,
had been after his death drawn into the whirlpool of Macedonian
family-politics, and lost in it first his kingdom and then his life
(441). His son, then six years of age, was saved by Glaucias the
ruler of the Illyrian Taulantii, and in the course of the conflicts
for the possession of Macedonia he was, when still a boy, restored by
Demetrius Poliorcetes to his hereditary principality (447)--but only
to lose it again after a few years through the influence of the
opposite party (about 452), and to begin his military career as an
exiled prince in the train of the Macedonian generals. Soon his
personality asserted itself. He shared in the last campaigns of
Antigonus; and the old marshal of Alexander took delight in the born
soldier, who in the judgment of the grey-headed general only wanted
years to be already the first warrior of the age. The unfortunate
battle at Ipsus brought him as a hostage to Alexandria, to the court
of the founder of the Lagid dynasty, where by his daring and downright
character, and his soldierly spirit thoroughly despising everything
that was not military, he attracted the attention of the politic king
Ptolemy no less than he attracted the notice of the royal ladies by
his manly beauty, which was not impaired by his wild look and stately
tread. Just at this time the enterprising Demetrius was once more
establishing himself in a new kingdom, which on this occasion was
Macedonia; of course with the intention of using it as a lever to
revive the monarchy of Alexander. To keep down his ambitious designs,
it was important to give him employment at home; and Ptolemy, who knew
how to make admirable use of such fiery spirits as the Epirot youth in
the prosecution of his subtle policy, not only met the wishes of his
consort queen Berenice, but also promoted his own ends, by giving his
stepdaughter the princess Antigone in marriage to the young prince,
and lending his aid and powerful influence to support the return of
his beloved "son" to his native land (458). Restored to his paternal
kingdom, he soon carried all before him. The brave Epirots, the
Albanians of antiquity, clung with hereditary loyalty and fresh
enthusiasm to the high-spirited youth--the "eagle," as they called
him. In the confusion that arose regarding the succession to the
Macedonian throne after the death of Cassander (457), the Epirot
extended his dominions: step by step he gained the regions on the
Ambracian gulf with the important town of Ambracia, the island of
Corcyra,(2) and even a part of the Macedonian territory, and with
forces far inferior he made head against king Demetrius to the
admiration of the Macedonians themselves. Indeed, when Demetrius was
by his own folly hurled from the Macedonian throne, it was voluntarily
proffered by them to his chivalrous opponent, a kinsman of the
Alexandrid house (467). No one was in reality worthier than Pyrrhus
to wear the royal diadem of Philip and of Alexander. In an age of
deep depravity, in which princely rank and baseness began to be
synonymous, the personally unspotted and morally pure character of
Pyrrhus shone conspicuous. For the free farmers of the hereditary
Macedonian soil, who, although diminished and impoverished, were
far from sharing in that decay of morals and of valour which the
government of the Diadochi produced in Greece and Asia, Pyrrhus
appeared exactly formed to be the fitting king, --Pyrrhus, who,
like Alexander, in his household and in the circle of his friends
preserved a heart open to all human sympathies, and constantly
avoided the bearing of an Oriental sultan which was so odious to the
Macedonians; and who, like Alexander, was acknowledged to be the first
tactician of his time. But the singularly overstrained national
feeling of the Macedonians, which preferred the most paltry Macedonian
sovereign to the ablest foreigner, and the irrational insubordination
of the Macedonian troops towards every non-Macedonian leader, to which
Eumenes the Cardian, the greatest general of the school of Alexander,
had fallen a victim, put a speedy termination to the rule of the
prince of Epirus. Pyrrhus, who could not exercise sovereignty over
Macedonia with the consent of the Macedonians, and who was too
powerless and perhaps too high spirited to force himself on the nation
against its will, after reigning seven months left the country to its
native misgovernment, and went home to his faithful Epirots (467).
But the man who had worn the crown of Alexander, the brother-in-law
of Demetrius, the son-in-law of Ptolemy Lagides and of Agathocles
of Syracuse, the highly-trained tactician who wrote memoirs and
scientific dissertations on the military art, could not possibly end
his days in inspecting at a set time yearly the accounts of the royal
cattle steward, in receiving from his brave Epirots their customary
gifts of oxen and sheep, in thereupon, at the altar of Zeus, procuring
the renewal of their oath of allegiance and repeating his own
engagement to respect the laws, and--for the better confirmation of
the whole--in carousing with them all night long. If there was no
place for him on the throne of Macedonia, there was no abiding in the
land of his nativity at all; he was fitted for the first place, and
he could not be content with the second. His views therefore turned
abroad. The kings, who were quarrelling for the possession of
Macedonia, although agreeing in nothing else, were ready and glad to
concur in aiding the voluntary departure of their dangerous rival; and
that his faithful war-comrades would follow him where-ever he led, he
knew full well. Just at that time the circumstances of Italy were
such, that the project which had been meditated forty years before by
Pyrrhus's kinsman, his father's cousin, Alexander of Epirus, and quite
recently by his father-in-law Agathocles, once more seemed feasible;
and so Pyrrhus resolved to abandon his Macedonian schemes and to found
for himself and for the Hellenic nation a new empire in the west.
Rising of the Italians against Rome--
The Lucanians--
The Etruscans and Celts--
The Samnites--
The Senones Annihilated
The interval of repose, which the peace with Samnium in 464 had
procured for Italy, was of brief duration; the impulse which led to
the formation of a new league against Roman ascendency came on this
occasion from the Lucanians. This people, by taking part with Rome
during the Samnite wars, paralyzed the action of the Tarentines and
essentially contributed to the decisive issue; and in consideration of
their services, the Romans gave up to them the Greek cities in their
territory. Accordingly after the conclusion of peace they had, in
concert with the Bruttians, set themselves to subdue these cities in
succession. The Thurines, repeatedly assailed by Stenius Statilius
the general of the Lucanians and reduced to extremities, applied for
assistance against the Lucanians to the Roman senate--just as formerly
the Campanians had asked the aid of Rome against the Samnites--and
beyond doubt with a like sacrifice of their liberty and independence.
In consequence of the founding of the fortress Venusia, Rome could
dispense with the alliance of the Lucanians; so the Romans granted
the prayer of the Thurines, and enjoined their friends and allies to
desist from their designs on a city which had surrendered itself to
Rome. The Lucanians and Bruttians, thus cheated by their more
powerful allies of their share in the common spoil, entered into
negotiations with the opposition-party among the Samnites and
Tarentines to bring about a new Italian coalition; and when the Romans
sent an embassy to warn them, they detained the envoys in captivity
and began the war against Rome with a new attack on Thurii (about
469), while at the same time they invited not only the Samnites and
Tarentines, but the northern Italians also--the Etruscans, Umbrians,
and Gauls--to join them in the struggle for freedom. The Etruscan
league actually revolted, and hired numerous bands of Gauls; the Roman
army, which the praetor Lucius Caecilius was leading to the help of
the Arretines who had remained faithful, was annihilated under the
walls of Arretium by the Senonian mercenaries of the Etruscans: the
general himself fell with 13,000 of his men (470). The Senones were
reckoned allies of Rome; the Romans accordingly sent envoys to them to
complain of their furnishing warriors to serve against Rome, and to
require the surrender of their captives without ransom. But by the
command of their chieftain Britomaris, who had to take vengeance on
the Romans for the death of his father, the Senones slew the Roman
envoys and openly took the Etruscan side. All the north of Italy,
Etruscans, Umbrians, Gauls, were thus in arms against Rome; great
results might be achieved, if its southern provinces also should
seize the moment and declare, so far as they had not already done so,
against Rome. In fact the Samnites, ever ready to make a stand on
behalf of liberty, appear to have declared war against the Romans; but
weakened and hemmed in on all sides as they were, they could be of
little service to the league; and Tarentum manifested its wonted
delay. While her antagonists were negotiating alliances, settling
treaties as to subsidies, and collecting mercenaries, Rome was acting.
The Senones were first made to feel how dangerous it was to gain a
victory over the Romans. The consul Publius Cornelius Dolabella
advanced with a strong army into their territory; all that were not
put to the sword were driven forth from the land, and this tribe was
erased from the list of the Italian nations (471). In the case of a
people subsisting chiefly on its flocks and herds such an expulsion
en masse was quite practicable; and the Senones thus expelled from
Italy probably helped to make up the Gallic hosts which soon after
inundated the countries of the Danube, Macedonia, Greece, and Asia
Minor.
The Boii
The next neighbours and kinsmen of the Senones, the Boii, terrified
and exasperated by a catastrophe which had been accomplished with so
fearful a rapidity, united instantaneously with the Etruscans, who
still continued the war, and whose Senonian mercenaries now fought
against the Romans no longer as hirelings, but as desperate avengers
of their native land. A powerful Etrusco-Gallic army marched against
Rome to retaliate the annihilation of the Senonian tribe on the
enemy's capital, and to extirpate Rome from the face of the earth more
completely than had been formerly done by the chieftain of these same
Senones. But the combined army was decidedly defeated by the Romans
at its passage of the Tiber in the neighbourhood of the Vadimonian
lake (471). After they had once more in the following year risked a
general engagement near Populonia with no better success, the Boii
deserted their confederates and concluded a peace on their own account
with the Romans (472). Thus the Gauls, the most formidable member of
the league, were conquered in detail before the league was fully
formed, and by that means the hands of Rome were left free to act
against Lower Italy, where during the years 469-471 the contest had
not been carried on with any vigour. Hitherto the weak Roman army had
with difficulty maintained itself in Thurii against the Lucanians and
Bruttians; but now (472) the consul Gaius Fabricius Luscinus appeared
with a strong army in front of the town, relieved it, defeated the
Lucanians in a great engagement, and took their general Statilius
prisoner. The smaller non-Doric Greek towns, recognizing the Romans
as their deliverers, everywhere voluntarily joined them. Roman
garrisons were left behind in the most important places, in Locri,
Croton, Thurii, and especially in Rhegium, on which latter town the
Carthaginians seem also to have had designs. Everywhere Rome had most
decidedly the advantage. The annihilation of the Senones had given to
the Romans a considerable tract of the Adriatic coast. With a view,
doubtless, to the smouldering feud with Tarentum and the already
threatened invasion of the Epirots, they hastened to make themselves
sure of this coast as well as of the Adriatic sea. A burgess colony
was sent out (about 471) to the seaport of Sena (Sinigaglia), the
former capital of the Senonian territory; and at the same time a Roman
fleet sailed from the Tyrrhene sea into the eastern waters, manifestly
for the purpose of being stationed in the Adriatic and of protecting
the Roman possessions there.
Breach between Rome and Tarentum
The Tarentines since the treaty of 450 had lived at peace with Rome.
They had been spectators of the long struggle of the Samnites, and of
the rapid extirpation of the Senones; they had acquiesced without
remonstrance in the establishment of Venusia, Atria, and Sena, and in
the occupation of Thurii and of Rhegium. But when the Roman fleet, on
its voyage from the Tyrrhene to the Adriatic sea, now arrived in the
Tarentine waters and cast anchor in the harbour of the friendly city,
the long, cherished resentment at length overflowed. Old treaties,
which prohibited the war-vessels of Rome from sailing to the east of
the Lacinian promontory, were appealed to by popular orators in the
assembly of the citizens. A furious mob fell upon the Roman ships of
war, which, assailed suddenly in a piratical fashion, succumbed after
a sharp struggle; five ships were taken and their crews executed
or sold into slavery; the Roman admiral himself had fallen in the
engagement. Only the supreme folly and supreme unscrupulousness of
mob-rule can account for those disgraceful proceedings. The treaties
referred to belonged to a period long past and forgotten; it is clear
that they no longer had any meaning, at least subsequently to the
founding of Atria and Sena, and that the Romans entered the bay on
the faith of the existing alliance; indeed, it was very much their
interest--as the further course of things showed--to afford the
Tarentines no sort of pretext for declaring war. In declaring war
against Rome--if such was their wish--the statesmen of Tarentum were
only doing what they should have done long before; and if they
preferred to rest their declaration of war upon the formal pretext
of a breach of treaty rather than upon the real ground, no further
objection could be taken to that course, seeing that diplomacy has
always reckoned it beneath its dignity to speak the plain truth in
plain language. But to make an armed attack upon the fleet without
warning, instead of summoning the admiral to retrace his course, was
a foolish no less than a barbarous act--one of those horrible
barbarities of civilization, when moral principle suddenly forsakes
the helm and the merest coarseness emerges in its room, as if to warn
us against the childish belief that civilization is able to extirpate
brutality from human nature.
And, as if what they had done had not been enough, the Tarentines
after this heroic feat attacked Thurii, the Roman garrison of which
capitulated in consequence of the surprise (in the winter of 472-473);
and inflicted: severe chastisement on the Thurines--the same, whom
Tarentine policy had abandoned to the Lucanians and thereby forcibly
constrained into surrender to Rome--for their desertion from the
Hellenic party to the barbarians.
Attempts at Peace
The barbarians, however, acted with a moderation which, considering
their power and the provocation they had received, excites
astonishment. It was the interest of Rome to maintain as long as
possible the Tarentine neutrality, and the leading men in the senate
accordingly rejected the proposal, which a minority had with natural
resentment submitted, to declare war at once against the Tarentines.
In fact, the continuance of peace on the part of Rome was proffered on
the most moderate terms consistent with her honour--the release of the
captives, the restoration of Thurii, the surrender of the originators
of the attack on the fleet. A Roman embassy proceeded with these
proposals to Tarentum (473), while at the same time, to add weight to
their words, a Roman army under the consul Lucius Aemilius advanced
into Samnium. The Tarentines could, without forfeiting aught of
their independence, accept these terms; and considering the little
inclination for war in so wealthy a commercial city, the Romans had
reason to presume that an accommodation was still possible. But the
attempt to preserve peace failed, whether through the opposition
of those Tarentines who recognized the necessity of meeting the
aggressions of Rome, the sooner the better, by a resort to arms,
or merely through the unruliness of the city rabble, which with
characteristic Greek naughtiness subjected the person of the envoy
to an unworthy insult. The consul now advanced into the Tarentine
territory; but instead of immediately commencing hostilities, he
offered once more the same terms of peace; and, when this proved in
vain, he began to lay waste the fields and country houses, and he
defeated the civic militia. The principal persons captured, however,
were released without ransom; and the hope was not abandoned that the
pressure of war would give to the aristocratic party ascendency in the
city and so bring about peace. The reason of this reserve was, that
the Romans were unwilling to drive the city into the arms of the
Epirot king. His designs on Italy were no longer a secret. A
Tarentine embassy had already gone to Pyrrhus and returned without
having accomplished its object. The king had demanded more than it
had powers to grant. It was necessary that they should come to a
decision. That the civic militia knew only how to run away from the
Romans, had been made sufficiently clear. There remained only the
choice between a peace with Rome, which the Romans still were ready
to agree to on equitable terms, and a treaty with Pyrrhus on any
condition that the king might think proper; or, in other words, the
choice between submission to the supremacy of Rome, and subjection
to the --tyrannis-- of a Greek soldier.
Pyrrhus Summoned to Italy
The parties in the city were almost equally balanced. At length the
ascendency remained with the national party--a result, that was due
partly to the justifiable predilection which led them, if they must
yield to a master at all, to prefer a Greek to a barbarian, but partly
also to the dread of the demagogues that Rome, notwithstanding the
moderation now forced upon it by circumstances, would not neglect on a
fitting opportunity to exact vengeance for the outrages perpetrated
by the Tarentine rabble. The city, accordingly, came to terms with
Pyrrhus. He obtained the supreme command of the troops of the
Tarentines and of the other Italians in arms against Rome, along with
the right of keeping a garrison in Tarentum. The expenses of the war
were, of course, to be borne by the city. Pyrrhus, on the other hand,
promised to remain no longer in Italy than was necessary; probably
with the tacit reservation that his own judgment should fix the time
during which he would be needed there. Nevertheless, the prey had
almost slipped out of his hands. While the Tarentine envoys--the
chiefs, no doubt, of the war party--were absent in Epirus, the state
of feeling in the city, now hard pressed by the Romans, underwent
a change. The chief command was already entrusted to Agis, a man
favourable to Rome, when the return of the envoys with the concluded
treaty, accompanied by Cineas the confidential minister of Pyrrhus,
again brought the war party to the helm.
Landing of Pyrrhus
A firmer hand now grasped the reins, and put an end to the pitiful
vacillation. In the autumn of 473 Milo, the general of Pyrrhus,
landed with 3000 Epirots and occupied the citadel of the town.
He was followed in the beginning of the year 474 by the king himself,
who landed after a stormy passage in which many lives were lost.
He transported to Tarentum a respectable but miscellaneous army,
consisting partly of the household troops, Molossians, Thesprotians,
Chaonians, and Ambraciots; partly of the Macedonian infantry and the
Thessalian cavalry, which Ptolemy king of Macedonia had conformably to
stipulation handed over to him; partly of Aetolian, Acarnanian, and
Athamanian mercenaries. Altogether it numbered 20,000 phalangitae,
2000 archers, 500 slingers, 3000 cavalry, and 20 elephants, and thus
was not much smaller than the army with which fifty years before
Alexander had crossed the Hellespont
Pyrrhus and the Coalition
The affairs of the coalition were in no very favourable state when the
king arrived. The Roman consul indeed, as soon as he saw the soldiers
of Milo taking the field against him instead of the Tarentine militia,
had abandoned the attack on Tarentum and retreated to Apulia; but,
with the exception of the territory of Tarentum, the Romans virtually
ruled all Italy. The coalition had no army in the field anywhere in
Lower Italy; and in Upper Italy the Etruscans, who alone were still
in arms, had in the last campaign (473) met with nothing but defeat.
The allies had, before the king embarked, committed to him the chief
command of all their troops, and declared that they were able to place
in the field an army of 350,000 infantry and 20,000 cavalry. The
reality formed a sad contrast to these great promises. The army,
whose chief command had been committed to Pyrrhus, had still to be
created; and for the time being the main resources available for
forming it were those of Tarentum alone. The king gave orders for
the enlisting of an army of Italian mercenaries with Tarentine money,
and called out the able-bodied citizens to serve in the war. But the
Tarentines had not so understood the agreement. They had thought to
purchase victory, like any other commodity, with money; it was a sort
of breach of contract, that the king should compel them to fight for
it themselves. The more glad the citizens had been at first after
Milo's arrival to be quit of the burdensome service of mounting guard,
the more unwillingly they now rallied to the standards of the king:
it was necessary to threaten the negligent with the penalty of death.
This result now justified the peace party in the eyes of all, and
communications were entered into, or at any rate appeared to have been
entered into, even with Rome. Pyrrhus, prepared for such opposition,
immediately treated Tarentum as a conquered city; soldiers were
quartered in the houses, the assemblies of the people and the numerous
clubs (--sussitia--) were suspended, the theatre was shut, the
promenades were closed, and the gates were occupied with Epirot
guards. A number of the leading men were sent over the sea as
hostages; others escaped the like fate by flight to Rome. These
strict measures were necessary, for it was absolutely impossible in
any sense to rely upon the Tarentines. It was only now that the king,
in possession of that important city as a basis, could begin
operations in the field.
Preparations in Rome--
Commencement of the Conflict in Lower Italy
The Romans too were well aware of the conflict which awaited them. In
order first of all to secure the fidelity of their allies or, in other
words, of their subjects, the towns that could not be depended on were
garrisoned, and the leaders of the party of independence, where it
seemed needful, were arrested or executed: such was the case with a
number of the members of the senate of Praeneste. For the war itself
great exertions were made; a war contribution was levied; the full
contingent was called forth from all their subjects and allies; even
the proletarians who were properly exempt from obligation of service
were called to arms. A Roman army remained as a reserve in the
capital. A second advanced under the consul Tiberius Coruncanius
into Etruria, and dispersed the forces of Volci and Volsinii. The
main force was of course destined for Lower Italy; its departure was
hastened as much as possible, in order to reach Pyrrhus while still
in the territory of Tarentum, and to prevent him and his forces from
forming a junction with the Samnites and other south Italian levies
that were in arms against Rome. The Roman garrisons, that were placed
in the Greek towns of Lower Italy, were intended temporarily to check
the king's progress. But the mutiny of the troops stationed in
Rhegium--one of the legions levied from the Campanian subjects of
Rome under a Campanian captain Decius--deprived the Romans of that
important town. It was not, however, transferred to the hands of
Pyrrhus. While on the one hand the national hatred of the Campanians
against the Romans undoubtedly contributed to produce this military
insurrection, it was impossible on the other hand that Pyrrhus, who
had crossed the sea to shield and protect the Hellenes, could receive
as his allies troops who had put to death their Rhegine hosts in their
own houses. Thus they remained isolated, in close league with their
kinsmen and comrades in crime, the Mamertines, that is, the Campanian
mercenaries of Agathocles, who had by similar means gained possession
of Messana on the opposite side of the straits; and they pillaged and
laid waste for their own behoof the adjacent Greek towns, such as
Croton, where they put to death the Roman garrison, and Caulonia,
which they destroyed. On the other hand the Romans succeeded, by
means of a weak corps which advanced along the Lucanian frontier and
of the garrison of Venusia, in preventing the Lucanians and Samnites
from uniting with Pyrrhus; while the main force--four legions as it
would appear, and so, with a corresponding number of allied troops, at
least 50,000 strong--marched against Pyrrhus, under the consul Publius
Laevinus.
Battle near Heraclea
With a view to cover the Tarentine colony of Heraclea, the king had
taken up a position with his own and the Tarentine troops between that
city and Pandosia (3) (474). The Romans, covered by their cavalry,
forced the passage of the Siris, and opened the battle with a
vehement and successful cavalry charge; the king, who led his
cavalry in person, was thrown from his horse, and the Greek horsemen,
panic-struck by the disappearance of their leader, abandoned the field
to the squadrons of the enemy. Pyrrhus, however, put himself at the
head of his infantry, and began a fresh and more decisive engagement.
Seven times the legions and the phalanx met in shock of battle, and
still the conflict was undecided. Then Megacles, one of the best
officers of the king, fell, and, because on this hotly-contested day
he had worn the king's armour, the army for the second time believed
that the king had fallen; the ranks wavered; Laevinus already felt
sure of the victory and threw the whole of his cavalry on the flank of
the Greeks. But Pyrrhus, marching with uncovered head through the
ranks of the infantry, revived the sinking courage of his troops.
The elephants which had hitherto been kept in reserve were brought up
to meet the cavalry; the horses took fright at them; the soldiers, not
knowing how to encounter the huge beasts, turned and fled; the masses
of disordered horsemen and the pursuing elephants at length broke the
compact ranks of the Roman infantry, and the elephants in concert with
the excellent Thessalian cavalry wrought great slaughter among the
fugitives. Had not a brave Roman soldier, Gaius Minucius, the first
hastate of the fourth legion, wounded one of the elephants and thereby
thrown the pursuing troops into confusion, the Roman army would have
been extirpated; as it was, the remainder of the Roman troops
succeeded in retreating across the Siris. Their loss was great; 7000
Romans were found by the victors dead or wounded on the field of
battle, 2000 were brought in prisoners; the Romans themselves stated
their loss, including probably the wounded carried off the field, at
15,000 men. But Pyrrhus's army had suffered not much less: nearly
4000 of his best soldiers strewed the field of battle, and several of
his ablest captains had fallen. Considering that his loss fell
chiefly on the veteran soldiers who were far more difficult to be
replaced than the Roman militia, and that he owed his victory only to
the surprise produced by the attack of the elephants which could not
be often repeated, the king, skilful judge of tactics as he was, may
well at an after period have described this victory as resembling a
defeat; although he was not so foolish as to communicate that piece of
self-criticism to the public--as the Roman poets afterwards invented
the story--in the inscription of the votive offering presented by him
at Tarentum. Politically it mattered little in the first instance at
what sacrifices the victory was bought; the gain of the first battle
against the Romans was of inestimable value for Pyrrhus. His talents
as a general had been brilliantly displayed on this new field of
battle, and if anything could breathe unity and energy into the
languishing league of the Italians, the victory of Heraclea could not
fail to do so. But even the immediate results of the victory were
considerable and lasting. Lucania was lost to the Romans: Laevinus
collected the troops stationed there and marched to Apulia, The
Bruttians, Lucanians, and Samnites joined Pyrrhus unmolested. With
the exception of Rhegium, which pined under the oppression of the
Campanian mutineers, the whole of the Greek cities joined the king,
and Locri even voluntarily delivered up to him the Roman garrison; in
his case they were persuaded, and with reason, that they would not be
abandoned to the Italians. The Sabellians and Greeks thus passed over
to Pyrrhus; but the victory produced no further effect. The Latins
showed no inclination to get quit of the Roman rule, burdensome as it
might be, by the help of a foreign dynast. Venusia, although now
wholly surrounded by enemies, adhered with unshaken steadfastness to
Rome. Pyrrhus proposed to the prisoners taken on the Siris, whose
brave demeanour the chivalrous king requited by the most honourable
treatment, that they should enter his army in accordance with
the Greek fashion; but he learned that he was fighting not with
mercenaries, but with a nation. Not one, either Roman or Latin,
took service with him.
Attempts at Peace
Pyrrhus offered peace to the Romans. He was too sagacious a soldier
not to recognize the precariousness of his footing, and too skilled a
statesman not to profit opportunely by the moment which placed him in
the most favourable position for the conclusion of peace. He now
hoped that under the first impression made by the great battle on the
Romans he should be able to secure the freedom of the Greek towns in
Italy, and to call into existence between them and Rome a series of
states of the second and third order as dependent allies of the new
Greek power; for such was the tenor of his demands: the release of all
Greek towns--and therefore of the Campanian and Lucanian towns in
particular--from allegiance to Rome, and restitution of the territory
taken from the Samnites, Daunians, Lucanians, and Bruttians, or in
other words especially the surrender of Luceria and Venusia. If a
further struggle with Rome could hardly be avoided, it was not
desirable at any rate to begin it till the western Hellenes should
be united under one ruler, till Sicily should be acquired and perhaps
Africa be conquered.
Provided with such instructions, the Thessalian Cineas, the
confidential minister of Pyrrhus, went to Rome. That dexterous
negotiator, whom his contemporaries compared to Demosthenes so far as
a rhetorician might be compared to a statesman and the minister of a
sovereign to a popular leader, had orders to display by every means
the respect which the victor of Heraclea really felt for his
vanquished opponents, to make known the wish of the king to come to
Rome in person, to influence men's minds in the king's favour by
panegyrics which sound so well in the mouth of an enemy, by earnest
flatteries, and, as opportunity offered, also by well-timed gifts--in
short to try upon the Romans all the arts of cabinet policy, as they
had been tested at the courts of Alexandria and Antioch. The senate
hesitated; to many it seemed a prudent course to draw back a step and
to wait till their dangerous antagonist should have further entangled
himself or should be no more. But the grey-haired and blind consular
Appius Claudius (censor 442, consul 447, 458), who had long withdrawn
from state affairs but had himself conducted at this decisive moment
to the senate, breathed the unbroken energy of his own vehement nature
with words of fire into the souls of the younger generation. They
gave to the message of the king the proud reply, which was first heard
on this occasion and became thenceforth a maxim of the state, that
Rome never negotiated so long as there were foreign troops on Italian
ground; and to make good their words they dismissed the ambassador at
once from the city. The object of the mission had failed, and
the dexterous diplomatist, instead of producing an effect by his
oratorical art, had on the contrary been himself impressed by such
manly earnestness after so severe a defeat--he declared at home that
every burgess in that city had seemed to him a king; in truth, the
courtier had gained a sight of a free people.
Pyrrhus Marches against Rome
Pyrrhus, who during these negotiations had advanced into Campania,
immediately on the news of their being broken off marched against
Rome, to co-operate with the Etruscans, to shake the allies of Rome,
and to threaten the city itself. But the Romans as little allowed
themselves to be terrified as cajoled. At the summons of the herald
"to enrol in the room of the fallen," the young men immediately after
the battle of Heraclea had pressed forward in crowds to enlist; with
the two newly-formed legions and the corps withdrawn from Lucania,
Laevinus, stronger than before, followed the march of the king. He
protected Capua against him, and frustrated his endeavours to enter
into communications with Neapolis. So firm was the attitude of the
Romans that, excepting the Greeks of Lower Italy, no allied state of
any note dared to break off from the Roman alliance. Then Pyrrhus
turned against Rome itself. Through a rich country, whose flourishing
condition he beheld with astonishment, he marched against Fregellae
which he surprised, forced the passage of the Liris, and reached
Anagnia, which is not more than forty miles from Rome. No army
crossed his path; but everywhere the towns of Latium closed their
gates against him, and with measured step Laevinus followed him
from Campania, while the consul Tiberius Coruncanius, who had just
concluded a seasonable peace with the Etruscans, brought up a
second Roman army from the north, and in Rome itself the reserve was
preparing for battle under the dictator Gnaeus Domitius Calvinus.
In these circumstances Pyrrhus could accomplish nothing; no course was
left to him but to retire. For a time he still remained inactive in
Campania in presence of the united armies of the two consuls; but no
opportunity occurred of striking an effective blow. When winter came
on, the king evacuated the enemy's territory, and distributed his
troops among the friendly towns, taking up his own winter quarters in
Tarentum. Thereupon the Romans also desisted from their operations.
The army occupied standing quarters near Firmum in Picenum, where by
command of the senate the legions defeated on the Siris spent the
winter by way of punishment under tents.
Second Year of the War
Thus ended the campaign of 474. The separate peace which at the
decisive moment Etruria had concluded with Rome, and the king's
unexpected retreat which entirely disappointed the high-strung hopes
of the Italian confederates, counterbalanced in great measure the
impression of the victory of Heraclea. The Italians complained of the
burdens of the war, particularly of the bad discipline of the
mercenaries quartered among them, and the king, weary of the petty
quarrelling and of the impolitic as well as unmilitary conduct of his
allies, began to have a presentiment that the problem which had fallen
to him might be, despite all tactical successes, politically
insoluble. The arrival of a Roman embassy of three consulars,
including Gaius Fabricius the conqueror of Thurii, again revived in
him for a moment the hopes of peace; but it soon appeared that they
had only power to treat for the ransom or exchange of prisoners.
Pyrrhus rejected their demand, but at the festival of the Saturnalia
he released all the prisoners on their word of honour. Their keeping
of that word, and the repulse by the Roman ambassador of an attempt at
bribery, were celebrated by posterity in a manner most unbecoming and
betokening rather the dishonourable character of the later, than the
honourable feeling of that earlier, epoch.
Battle of Ausculum
In the spring of 475 Pyrrhus resumed the offensive, and advanced into
Apulia, whither the Roman army marched to meet him. In the hope of
shaking the Roman symmachy in these regions by a decisive victory, the
king offered battle a second time, and the Romans did not refuse it.
The two armies encountered each other near Ausculum (Ascoli di
Puglia). Under the banners of Pyrrhus there fought, besides
his Epirot and Macedonian troops, the Italian mercenaries, the
burgess-force--the white shields as they were called--of Tarentum,
and the allied Lucanians, Bruttians, and Samnites--altogether 70,000
infantry, of whom 16,000 were Greeks and Epirots, more than 8000
cavalry, and nineteen elephants. The Romans were supported on
that day by the Latins, Campanians, Volscians, Sabines, Umbrians,
Marrucinians, Paelignians, Frentanians, and Arpanians. They too
numbered above 70,000 infantry, of whom 20,000 were Roman citizens,
and 8000 cavalry. Both parties had made alterations in their military
system. Pyrrhus, perceiving with the sharp eye of a soldier the
advantages of the Roman manipular organization, had on the wings
substituted for the long front of his phalanxes an arrangement by
companies with intervals between them in imitation of the cohorts,
and-- perhaps for political no less than for military reasons--had
placed the Tarentine and Samnite cohorts between the subdivisions of
his own men. In the centre alone the Epirot phalanx stood in close
order. For the purpose of keeping off the elephants the Romans
produced a species of war-chariot, from which projected iron poles
furnished with chafing-dishes, and on which were fastened moveable
masts adjusted with a view to being lowered, and ending in an iron
spike--in some degree the model of the boarding-bridges which were
to play so great a part in the first Punic war.
According to the Greek account of the battle, which seems less
one-sided than the Roman account also extant, the Greeks had the
disadvantage on the first day, as they did not succeed in deploying
their line along the steep and marshy banks of the river where they
were compelled to accept battle, or in bringing their cavalry and
elephants into action. On the second day, however, Pyrrhus
anticipated the Romans in occupying the intersected ground, and thus
gained without loss the plain where he could without disturbance draw
up his phalanx. Vainly did the Romans with desperate courage fall
sword in hand on the -sarissae-; the phalanx preserved an unshaken
front under every assault, but in its turn was unable to make any
impression on the Roman legions. It was not till the numerous escort
of the elephants had, with arrows and stones hurled from slings,
dislodged the combatants stationed in the Roman war-chariots and had
cut the traces of the horses, and the elephants pressed upon the Roman
line, that it began to waver. The giving way of the guard attached
to the Roman chariots formed the signal for universal flight, which,
however, did not involve the sacrifice of many lives, as the adjoining
camp received the fugitives. The Roman account of the battle alone
mentions the circumstance, that during the principal engagement an
Arpanian corps detached from the Roman main force had attacked and
set on fire the weakly-guarded Epirot camp; but, even if this were
correct, the Romans are not at all justified in their assertion that
the battle remained undecided. Both accounts, on the contrary, agree
in stating that the Roman army retreated across the river, and that
Pyrrhus remained in possession of the field of battle. The number of
the fallen was, according to the Greek account, 6000 on the side of
the Romans, 3505 on that of the Greeks.(4) Amongst the wounded was
the king himself, whose arm had been pierced with a javelin, while he
was fighting, as was his wont, in the thickest of the fray. Pyrrhus
had achieved a victory, but his were unfruitful laurels; the victory
was creditable to the king as a general and as a soldier, but it
did not promote his political designs. What Pyrrhus needed was a
brilliant success which should break up the Roman army and give an
opportunity and impulse to the wavering allies to change sides; but
the Roman army and the Roman confederacy still remained unbroken, and
the Greek army, which was nothing without its leader, was fettered for
a considerable time in consequence of his wound. He was obliged to
renounce the campaign and to go into winter quarters; which the king
took up in Tarentum, the Romans on this occasion in Apulia. It was
becoming daily more evident that in a military point of view the
resources of the king were inferior to those of the Romans, just as,
politically, the loose and refractory coalition could not stand a
comparison with the firmly-established Roman symmachy. The sudden and
vehement style of the Greek warfare and the genius of the general
might perhaps achieve another such victory as those of Heraclea and
Ausculum, but every new victory was wearing out his resources for
further enterprise, and it was clear that the Romans already felt
themselves the stronger, and awaited with a courageous patience final
victory. Such a war as this was not the delicate game of art that
was practised and understood by the Greek princes. All strategical
combinations were shattered against the full and mighty energy of the
national levy. Pyrrhus felt how matters stood: weary of his victories
and despising his allies, he only persevered because military honour
required him not to leave Italy till he should have secured his
clients from barbarian assault. With his impatient temperament it
might be presumed that he would embrace the first pretext to get rid
of the burdensome duty; and an opportunity of withdrawing from Italy
was soon presented to him by the affairs of Sicily.
Relations of Sicily, Syracuse, and Carthage--
Pyrrhus Invited to Syracuse
After the death of Agathocles (465) the Greeks of Sicily were without
any leading power. While in the several Hellenic cities incapable
demagogues and incapable tyrants were replacing each other, the
Carthaginians, the old rulers of the western point, were extending
their dominion unmolested. After Agrigentum had surrendered to them,
they believed that the time had come for taking final steps towards
the end which they had kept in view for centuries, and for reducing
the whole island under their authority; they set themselves to attack
Syracuse. That city, which formerly by its armies and fleets had
disputed the possession of the island with Carthage, had through
internal dissension and the weakness of its government fallen so low
that it was obliged to seek for safety in the protection of its walls
and in foreign aid; and none could afford that aid but king Pyrrhus.
Pyrrhus was the husband of Agathocles's daughter, and his son
Alexander, then sixteen years of age, was Agathocles's grandson.
Both were in every respect natural heirs of the ambitious schemes
of the ruler of Syracuse; and if her freedom was at an end, Syracuse
might find compensation in becoming the capital of a Hellenic empire
of the West. So the Syracusans, like the Tarentines, and under
similar conditions, voluntarily offered their sovereignty to king
Pyrrhus (about 475); and by a singular conjuncture of affairs
everything seemed to concur towards the success of the magnificent
plans of the Epirot king, based as they primarily were on the
possession of Tarentum and Syracuse.
League between Rome and Carthage--
Third Year of the War
The immediate effect, indeed, of this union of the Italian and
Sicilian Greeks under one control was a closer concert also on the
part of their antagonists. Carthage and Rome now converted their old
commercial treaties into an offensive and defensive league against
Pyrrhus (475), the tenor of which was that, if Pyrrhus invaded Roman
or Carthaginian territory, the party which was not attacked should
furnish that which was assailed with a contingent on its own territory
and should itself defray the expense of the auxiliary troops; that in
such an event Carthage should be bound to furnish transports and to
assist the Romans also with a war fleet, but the crews of that fleet
should not be obliged to fight for the Romans by land; that lastly,
both states should pledge themselves not to conclude a separate peace
with Pyrrhus. The object of the Romans in entering into the treaty
was to render possible an attack on Tarentum and to cut off Pyrrhus
from his own country, neither of which ends could be attained without
the co-operation of the Punic fleet; the object of the Carthaginians
was to detain the king in Italy, so that they might be able without
molestation to carry into effect their designs on Syracuse.(5) It was
accordingly the interest of both powers in the first instance to
secure the sea between Italy and Sicily. A powerful Carthaginian
fleet of 120 sail under the admiral Mago proceeded from Ostia, whither
Mago seems to have gone to conclude the treaty, to the Sicilian
straits. The Mamertines, who anticipated righteous punishment for
their outrage upon the Greek population of Messana in the event of
Pyrrhus becoming ruler of Sicily and Italy, attached themselves
closely to the Romans and Carthaginians, and secured for them the
Sicilian side of the straits. The allies would willingly have brought
Rhegium also on the opposite coast under their power; but Rome could
not possibly pardon the Campanian garrison, and an attempt of the
combined Romans and Carthaginians to gain the city by force of arms
miscarried. The Carthaginian fleet sailed thence for Syracuse and
blockaded the city by sea, while at the same time a strong Phoenician
army began the siege by land (476). It was high time that Pyrrhus
should appear at Syracuse: but, in fact, matters in Italy were by no
means in such a condition that he and his troops could be dispensed
with there. The two consuls of 476, Gaius Fabricius Luscinus, and
Quintus Aemilius Papus, both experienced generals, had begun the new
campaign with vigour, and although the Romans had hitherto sustained
nothing but defeat in this war, it was not they but the victors that
were weary of it and longed for peace. Pyrrhus made another attempt
to obtain accommodation on tolerable terms. The consul Fabricius had
handed over to the king a wretch, who had proposed to poison him on
condition of being well paid for it. Not only did the king in token
of gratitude release all his Roman prisoners without ransom, but he
felt himself so moved by the generosity of his brave opponents that
he offered, by way of personal recompense, a singularly fair and
favourable peace. Cineas appears to have gone once more to Rome, and
Carthage seems to have been seriously apprehensive that Rome might
come to terms. But the senate remained firm, and repeated its former
answer. Unless the king was willing to allow Syracuse to fall into
the hands of the Carthaginians and to have his grand scheme thereby
disconcerted, no other course remained than to abandon his Italian
allies and to confine himself for the time being to the occupation of
the most important seaports, particularly Tarentum and Locri. In vain
the Lucanians and Samnites conjured him not to desert them; in vain
the Tarentines summoned him either to comply with his duty as their
general or to give them back their city. The king met their
complaints and reproaches with the consolatory assurance that better
times were coming, or with abrupt dismissal. Milo remained behind in
Tarentum; Alexander, the king's son, in Locri; and Pyrrhus, with his
main force, embarked in the spring of 476 at Tarentum for Syracuse.
Embarkation of Pyrrhus for Sicily--
The War in Italy Flags
By the departure of Pyrrhus the hands of the Romans were set free
in Italy; none ventured to oppose them in the open field, and their
antagonists everywhere confined themselves to their fastnesses or
their forests. The struggle however was not terminated so rapidly as
might have been expected; partly in consequence of its nature as a
warfare of mountain skirmishes and sieges, partly also, doubtless,
from the exhaustion of the Romans, whose fearful losses are indicated
by a decrease of 17,000 in the burgess-roll from 473 to 479. In 476
the consul Gaius Fabricius succeeded in inducing the considerable
Tarentine settlement of Heraclea to enter into a separate peace, which
was granted to it on the most favourable terms. In the campaign of
477 a desultory warfare was carried on in Samnium, where an attack
thoughtlessly made on some entrenched heights cost the Romans many
lives, and thereafter in southern Italy, where the Lucanians and
Bruttians were defeated. On the other hand Milo, issuing from
Tarentum, anticipated the Romans in their attempt to surprise Croton:
whereupon the Epirot garrison made even a successful sortie against
the besieging army. At length, however, the consul succeeded by a
stratagem in inducing it to march forth, and in possessing himself
of the undefended town (477). An incident of more moment was the
slaughter of the Epirot garrison by the Locrians, who had formerly
surrendered the Roman garrison to the king, and now atoned for one act
of treachery by another. By that step the whole south coast came into
the hands of the Romans, with the exception of Rhegium and Tarentum.
These successes, however, advanced the main object but little. Lower
Italy itself had long been defenceless; but Pyrrhus was not subdued so
long as Tarentum remained in his hands and thus rendered it possible
for him to renew the war at his pleasure, and the Romans could not
think of undertaking the siege of that city. Even apart from the fact
that in siege-warfare, which had been revolutionized by Philip of
Macedonia and Demetrius Poliorcetes, the Romans were at a very decided
disadvantage when matched against an experienced and resolute Greek
commandant, a strong fleet was needed for such an enterprise, and,
although the Carthaginian treaty promised to the Romans support by
sea, the affairs of Carthage herself in Sicily were by no means in
such a condition as to enable her to grant that support.
Pyrrhus Master of Sicily
The landing of Pyrrhus on the island, which, in spite of the
Carthaginian fleet, had taken place without interruption, had changed
at once the aspect of matters there. He had immediately relieved
Syracuse, had in a short time united under his sway all the free Greek
cities, and at the head of the Sicilian confederation had wrested
from the Carthaginians nearly their whole possessions. It was with
difficulty that the Carthaginians could, by the help of their fleet
which at that time ruled the Mediterranean without a rival, maintain
themselves in Lilybaeum; it was with difficulty, and amidst constant
assaults, that the Mamertines held their ground in Messana. Under
such circumstances, agreeably to the treaty of 475, it would have been
the duty of Rome to lend her aid to the Carthaginians in Sicily, far
rather than that of Carthage to help the Romans with her fleet to
conquer Tarentum; but on the side of neither ally was there much
inclination to secure or to extend the power of the other. Carthage
had only offered help to the Romans when the real danger was past;
they in their turn had done nothing to prevent the departure of the
king from Italy and the fall of the Carthaginian power in Sicily.
Indeed, in open violation of the treaties Carthage had even proposed
to the king a separate peace, offering, in return for the undisturbed
possession of Lilybaeum, to give up all claim to her other Sicilian
possessions and even to place at the disposal of the king money and
ships of war, of course with a view to his crossing to Italy and
renewing the war against Rome. It was evident, however, that with
the possession of Lilybaeum and the departure of the king the position
of the Carthaginians in the island would be nearly the same as it had
been before the landing of Pyrrhus; the Greek cities if left to
themselves were powerless, and the lost territory would be easily
regained. So Pyrrhus rejected the doubly perfidious proposal, and
proceeded to build for himself a war fleet. Mere ignorance and
shortsightedness in after times censured this step; but it was really
as necessary as it was, with the resources of the island, easy of
accomplishment. Apart from the consideration that the master of
Ambracia, Tarentum, and Syracuse could not dispense with a naval
force, he needed a fleet to conquer Lilybaeum, to protect Tarentum,
and to attack Carthage at home as Agathocles, Regulus, and Scipio
did before or afterwards so successfully. Pyrrhus never was so near
to the attainment of his aim as in the summer of 478, when he saw
Carthage humbled before him, commanded Sicily, and retained a
firm footing in Italy by the possession of Tarentum, and when the
newly-created fleet, which was to connect, to secure, and to augment
these successes, lay ready for sea in the harbour of Syracuse.
The Sicilian Government of Pyrrhus
The real weakness of the position of Pyrrhus lay in his faulty
internal policy. He governed Sicily as he had seen Ptolemy rule in
Egypt: he showed no respect to the local constitutions; he placed
his confidants as magistrates over the cities whenever, and for as
long as, he pleased; he made his courtiers judges instead of the
native jurymen; he pronounced arbitrary sentences of confiscation,
banishment, or death, even against those who had been most active
in promoting his coming thither; he placed garrisons in the towns,
and ruled over Sicily not as the leader of a national league, but
as a king. In so doing he probably reckoned himself according to
oriental-Hellenistic ideas a good and wise ruler, and perhaps he
really was so; but the Greeks bore this transplantation of the system
of the Diadochi to Syracuse with all the impatience of a nation that
in its long struggle for freedom had lost all habits of discipline;
the Carthaginian yoke very soon appeared to the foolish people more
tolerable than their new military government. The most important
cities entered into communications with the Carthaginians, and even
with the Mamertines; a strong Carthaginian army ventured again to
appear on the island; and everywhere supported by the Greeks, it made
rapid progress. In the battle which Pyrrhus fought with it fortune
was, as always, with the "Eagle"; but the circumstances served to show
what the state of feeling was in the island, and what might and must
ensue, if the king should depart.
Departure of Pyrrhus to Italy
To this first and most essential error Pyrrhus added a second; he
proceeded with his fleet, not to Lilybaeum, but to Tarentum. It was
evident, looking to the very ferment in the minds of the Sicilians,
that he ought first of all to have dislodged the Carthaginians wholly
from the island, and thereby to have cut off the discontented from
their last support, before he turned his attention to Italy; in that
quarter there was nothing to be lost, for Tarentum was safe enough for
him, and the other allies were of little moment now that they had been
abandoned. It is conceivable that his soldierly spirit impelled him
to wipe off the stain of his not very honourable departure in the year
476 by a brilliant return, and that his heart bled when he heard the
complaints of the Lucanians and Samnites. But problems, such as
Pyrrhus had proposed to himself, can only be solved by men of iron
nature, who are able to control their feelings of compassion and even
their sense of honour; and Pyrrhus was not one of these.
Fall of the Sicilian Kingdom--
Recommencement of the Italian War
The fatal embarkation took place towards the end of 478. On the
voyage the new Syracusan fleet had to sustain a sharp engagement with
that of Carthage, in which it lost a considerable number of vessels.
The departure of the king and the accounts of this first misfortune
sufficed for the fall of the Sicilian kingdom. On the arrival of the
news all the cities refused to the absent king money and troops; and
the brilliant state collapsed even more rapidly than it had arisen,
partly because the king had himself undermined in the hearts of
his subjects the loyalty and affection on which every commonwealth
depends, partly because the people lacked the devotedness to
renounce freedom for perhaps but a short term in order to save
their nationality. Thus the enterprise of Pyrrhus was wrecked, and
the plan of his life was ruined irretrievably; he was thenceforth an
adventurer, who felt that he had been great and was so no longer, and
who now waged war no longer as a means to an end, but in order to
drown thought amidst the reckless excitement of the game and to find,
if possible, in the tumult of battle a soldier's death. Arrived on
the Italian coast, the king began by an attempt to get possession of
Rhegium; but the Campanians repulsed the attack with the aid of the
Mamertines, and in the heat of the conflict before the town the king
himself was wounded in the act of striking down an officer of the
enemy. On the other hand he surprised Locri, whose inhabitants
suffered severely for their slaughter of the Epirot garrison, and he
plundered the rich treasury of the temple of Persephone there, to
replenish his empty exchequer. Thus he arrived at Tarentum, it is
said with 20,000 infantry and 3000 cavalry. But these were no longer
the experienced veterans of former days, and the Italians no longer
hailed them as deliverers; the confidence and hope with which they
had received the king five years before were gone; the allies were
destitute of money and of men.
Battle near Beneventum--
Pyrrhus Leaves Italy--
Death of Pyrrhus
The king took the field in the spring of 479 with the view of aiding
the hard-pressed Samnites, in whose territory the Romans had passed
the previous winter; and he forced the consul Manius Curius to give
battle near Beneventum on the -campus Arusinus-, before he could
form a junction with his colleague advancing from Lucania. But the
division of the army, which was intended to take the Romans in flank,
lost its way during its night march in the woods, and failed to appear
at the decisive moment; and after a hot conflict the elephants again
decided the battle, but decided it this time in favour of the Romans,
for, thrown into confusion by the archers who were stationed to
protect the camp, they attacked their own people. The victors
occupied the camp; there fell into their hands 1300 prisoners and four
elephants--the first that were seen in Rome--besides an immense spoil,
from the proceeds of which the aqueduct, which conveyed the water of
the Anio from Tibur to Rome, was subsequently built. Without troops
to keep the field and without money, Pyrrhus applied to his allies who
had contributed to his equipment for Italy, the kings of Macedonia
and Asia; but even in his native land he was no longer feared, and
his request was refused. Despairing of success against Rome and
exasperated by these refusals, Pyrrhus left a garrison in Tarentum,
and went home himself in the same year (479) to Greece, where some
prospect of gain might open up to the desperate player sooner than
amidst the steady and measured course of Italian affairs. In fact,
he not only rapidly recovered the portion of his kingdom that had
been taken away, but once more grasped, and not without success, at
the Macedonian throne. But his last plans also were thwarted by the
calm and cautious policy of Antigonus Gonatas, and still more by his
own vehemence and inability to tame his proud spirit; he still gained
battles, but he no longer gained any lasting success, and met his
death in a miserable street combat in Peloponnesian Argos (482).
Last Struggles in Italy--
Capture of Tarentum
In Italy the war came to an end with the battle of Beneventum; the
last convulsive struggles of the national party died slowly away.
So long indeed as the warrior prince, whose mighty arm had ventured
to seize the reins of destiny in Italy, was still among the living,
he held, even when absent, the stronghold of Tarentum against Rome.
Although after the departure of the king the peace party recovered
ascendency in the city, Milo, who commanded there on behalf of
Pyrrhus, rejected their suggestions and allowed the citizens
favourable to Rome, who had erected a separate fort for themselves
in the territory of Tarentum, to conclude peace with Rome as they
pleased, without on that account opening his gates. But when after
the death of Pyrrhus a Carthaginian fleet entered the harbour, and
Milo saw that the citizens were on the point of delivering up the city
to the Carthaginians, he preferred to hand over the citadel to the
Roman consul Lucius Papirius (482), and by that means to secure a free
departure for himself and his troops. For the Romans this was an
immense piece of good fortune. After the experiences of Philip before
Perinthus and Byzantium, of Demetrius before Rhodes, and of Pyrrhus
before Lilybaeum, it may be doubted whether the strategy of that
period was at all able to compel the surrender of a town well
fortified, well defended, and freely accessible by sea; and how
different a turn matters might have taken, had Tarentum become to the
Phoenicians in Italy what Lilybaeum was to them in Sicily! What was
done, however, could not be undone. The Carthaginian admiral, when he
saw the citadel in the hands of the Romans, declared that he had only
appeared before Tarentum conformably to the treaty to lend assistance
to his allies in the siege of the town, and set sail for Africa; and
the Roman embassy, which was sent to Carthage to demand explanations
and make complaints regarding the attempted occupation of Tarentum,
brought back nothing but a solemn confirmation on oath of that
allegation as to its ally's friendly design, with which accordingly
the Romans had for the time to rest content. The Tarentines obtained
from Rome, presumably on the intercession of their emigrants, the
restoration of autonomy; but their arms and ships had to be given up
and their walls had to be pulled down.
Submission of Lower Italy
In the same year, in which Tarentum became Roman, the Samnites,
Lucanians, and Bruttians finally submitted. The latter were obliged
to cede the half of the lucrative, and for ship-building important,
forest of Sila.
At length also the band that for ten years had sheltered themselves in
Rhegium were duly chastised for the breach of their military oath, as
well as for the murder of the citizens of Rhegium and of the garrison
of Croton. In this instance Rome, while vindicating her own rights
vindicated the general cause of the Hellenes against the barbarians.
Hiero, the new ruler of Syracuse, accordingly supported the Romans
before Rhegium by sending supplies and a contingent, and in
combination with the Roman expedition against the garrison of Rhegium
he made an attack upon their fellow-countrymen and fellow-criminals,
the Mamertines of Messana. The siege of the latter town was long
protracted. On the other hand Rhegium, although the mutineers
resisted long and obstinately, was stormed by the Romans in 484; the
survivors of the garrison were scourged and beheaded in the public
market at Rome, while the old inhabitants were recalled and, as far as
possible, reinstated in their possessions. Thus all Italy was, in
484, reduced to subjection. The Samnites alone, the most obstinate
antagonists of Rome, still in spite of the official conclusion of
peace continued the struggle as "robbers," so that in 485 both
consuls had to be once more despatched against them. But even the
most high-spirited national courage--the bravery of despair--comes
to an end; the sword and the gibbet at length carried quiet even
into the mountains of Samnium.
Construction of New Fortresses and Roads
For the securing of these immense acquisitions a new series of
colonies was instituted: Paestum and Cosa in Lucania (481); Beneventum
(486), and Aesernia (about 491) to hold Samnium in check; and, as
outposts against the Gauls, Ariminum (486), Firmum in Picenum (about
490), and the burgess colony of Castrum Novum. Preparations were made
for the continuation of the great southern highway--which acquired in
the fortress of Beneventum a new station intermediate between Capua
and Venusia--as far as the seaports of Tarentum and Brundisium, and
for the colonization of the latter seaport, which Roman policy had
selected as the rival and successor of the Tarentine emporium. The
construction of the new fortresses and roads gave rise to some further
wars with the small tribes, whose territory was thereby curtailed:
with the Picentes (485, 486), a number of whom were transplanted to
the district of Salernum; with the Sallentines about Brundisium (487,
488); and with the Umbrian Sassinates (487, 488), who seem to have
occupied the territory of Ariminum after the expulsion of the Senones.
By these establishments the dominion of Rome was extended over the
interior of Lower Italy, and over the whole Italian east coast from
the Ionian sea to the Celtic frontier.
Maritime Relations
Before we describe the political organization under which the Italy
which was thus united was governed on the part of Rome, it remains
that we should glance at the maritime relations that subsisted in the
fourth and fifth centuries. At this period Syracuse and Carthage were
the main competitors for the dominion of the western waters. On the
whole, notwithstanding the great temporary successes which Dionysius
(348-389), Agathocles (437-465), and Pyrrhus (476-478) obtained at
sea, Carthage had the preponderance and Syracuse sank more and more
into a naval power of the second rank. The maritime importance of
Etruria was wholly gone;(6) the hitherto Etruscan island of Corsica,
if it did not quite pass into the possession, fell under the maritime
supremacy, of the Carthaginians. Tarentum, which for a time had
played a considerable part, had its power broken by the Roman
occupation. The brave Massiliots maintained their ground in their
own waters; but they exercised no material influence over the course
of events in those of Italy. The other maritime cities hardly came
as yet into serious account.
Decline of the Roman Naval Power
Rome itself was not exempt from a similar fate; its own waters were
likewise commanded by foreign fleets. It was indeed from the first
a maritime city, and in the period of its vigour never was so untrue
to its ancient traditions as wholly to neglect its war marine or so
foolish as to desire to be a mere continental power. Latium furnished
the finest timber for ship-building, far surpassing the famed growths
of Lower Italy; and the very docks constantly maintained in Rome are
enough to show that the Romans never abandoned the idea of possessing
a fleet of their own. During the perilous crises, however, which the
expulsion of the kings, the internal disturbances in the Romano-Latin
confederacy, and the unhappy wars with the Etruscans and Celts brought
upon Rome, the Romans could take but little interest in the state of
matters in the Mediterranean; and, in consequence of the policy of
Rome directing itself more and more decidedly to the subjugation of
the Italian continent, the growth of its naval power was arrested.
There is hardly any mention of Latin vessels of war up to the end of
the fourth century, except that the votive offering from the Veientine
spoil was sent to Delphi in a Roman vessel (360). The Antiates indeed
continued to prosecute their commerce with armed vessels and thus,
as occasion offered, to practise the trade of piracy also, and the
"Tyrrhene corsair" Postumius, whom Timoleon captured about 415, may
certainly have been an Antiate; but the Antiates were scarcely to be
reckoned among the naval powers of that period, and, had they been so,
the fact must from the attitude of Antium towards Rome have been
anything but an advantage to the latter. The extent to which the
Roman naval power had declined about the year 400 is shown by the
plundering of the Latin coasts by a Greek, presumably a Sicilian, war
fleet in 405, while at the same time Celtic hordes were traversing and
devastating the Latin land.(7) In the following year (406), and
beyond doubt under the immediate impression produced by these serious
events, the Roman community and the Phoenicians of Carthage, acting
respectively for themselves and for their dependent allies, concluded
a treaty of commerce and navigation-- the oldest Roman document of
which the text has reached us, although only in a Greek
translation.(8) In that treaty the Romans had to come under
obligation not to navigate the Libyan coast to the west of the Fair
Promontory (Cape Bon) excepting in cases of necessity. On the other
hand they obtained the privilege of freely trading, like the natives,
in Sicily, so far as it was Carthaginian; and in Africa and Sardinia
they obtained at least the right to dispose of their merchandise at a
price fixed with the concurrence of the Carthaginian officials and
guaranteed by the Carthaginian community. The privilege of free
trading seems to have been granted to the Carthaginians at least in
Rome, perhaps in all Latium; only they bound themselves neither to do
violence to the subject Latin communities,(9) nor, if they should set
foot as enemies on Latin soil, to take up their quarters for a night
on shore--in other words, not to extend their piratical inroads into
the interior--nor to construct any fortresses in the Latin land.
We may probably assign to the same period the already mentioned(10)
treaty between Rome and Tarentum, respecting the date of which we are
only told that it was concluded a considerable time before 472. By it
the Romans bound themselves--for what concessions on the part of
Tarentum is not stated--not to navigate the waters to the east of
the Lacinian promontory; a stipulation by which they were thus wholly
excluded from the eastern basin of the Mediterranean.
Roman Fortification of the Coast
These were disasters no less than the defeat on the Allia, and the
Roman senate seems to have felt them as such and to have made use of
the favourable turn, which the Italian relations assumed soon after
the conclusion of the humiliating treaties with Carthage and Tarentum,
with all energy to improve its depressed maritime position. The most
important of the coast towns were furnished with Roman colonies: Pyrgi
the seaport of Caere, the colonization of which probably falls within
this period; along the west coast, Antium in 415,(11) Tarracina in
425,(12) the island of Pontia in 441,(13) so that, as Ardea and
Circeii had previously received colonists, all the Latin seaports of
consequence in the territory of the Rutuli and Volsci had now become
Latin or burgess colonies; further, in the territory of the Aurunci,
Minturnae and Sinuessa in 459;(14) in that of the Lucanians, Paestum
and Cosa in 481;(15) and, on the coast of the Adriatic, Sena Gallica
and Castrum Novum about 471,(16) and Ariminum in 486;(17) to which
falls to be added the occupation of Brundisium, which took place
immediately after the close of the Pyrrhic war. In the greater part
of these places--the burgess or maritime colonies(18)--the young men
were exempted from serving in the legions and destined solely for the
watching of the coasts. The well judged preference given at the same
time to the Greeks of Lower Italy over their Sabellian neighbours,
particularly to the considerable communities of Neapolis, Rhegium,
Locri, Thurii, and Heraclea, and their similar exemption under the
like conditions from furnishing contingents to the land army,
completed the network drawn by Rome around the coasts of Italy.
But with a statesmanlike sagacity, from which the succeeding
generations might have drawn a lesson, the leading men of the Roman
commonwealth perceived that all these coast fortifications and coast
garrisons could not but prove inadequate, unless the war marine of
the state were again placed on a footing that should command respect.
Some sort of nucleus for this purpose was already furnished on the
subjugation of Antium (416) by the serviceable war-galleys which were
carried off to the Roman docks; but the enactment at the same time,
that the Antiates should abstain from all maritime traffic,(19) is a
very clear and distinct indication how weak the Romans then felt
themselves at sea, and how completely their maritime policy was still
summed up in the occupation of places on the coast. Thereafter, when
the Greek cities of southern Italy, Neapolis leading the way in 428,
were admitted to the clientship of Rome, the war-vessels, which each
of these cities bound itself to furnish as a war contribution under
the alliance to the Romans, formed at least a renewed nucleus for a
Roman fleet. In 443, moreover, two fleet-masters (-duoviri navales-)
were nominated in consequence of a resolution of the burgesses
specially passed to that effect, and this Roman naval force
co-operated in the Samnite war at the siege of Nuceria.(20) Perhaps
even the remarkable mission of a Roman fleet of twenty-five sail to
found a colony in Corsica, which Theophrastus mentions in his "History
of Plants" written about 446, belongs to this period. But how little
was immediately accomplished with all this preparation, is shown by
the renewed treaty with Carthage in 448. While the stipulations of
the treaty of 406 relating to Italy and Sicily(21) remained unchanged,
the Romans were now prohibited not only from the navigation of the
eastern waters, but also from that of the Atlantic Ocean which was
previously permitted, as well as debarred from holding commercial
intercourse with the subjects of Carthage in Sardinia and Africa, and
also, in all probability, from effecting a settlement in Corsica;(22)
so that only Carthaginian Sicily and Carthage itself remained open
to their traffic. We recognize here the jealousy of the dominant
maritime power, gradually increasing with the extension of the Roman
dominion along the coasts. Carthage compelled the Romans to acquiesce
in her prohibitive system, to submit to be excluded from the seats of
production in the west and east (connected with which exclusion is the
story of a public reward bestowed on the Phoenician mariner who at the
sacrifice of his own ship decoyed a Roman vessel, steering after him
into the Atlantic Ocean, to perish on a sand-bank), and to restrict
their navigation under the treaty to the narrow space of the western
Mediterranean--and all this for the mere purpose of averting pillage
from their coasts and of securing their ancient and important trading
connection with Sicily. The Romans were obliged to yield to these
terms; but they did not desist from their efforts to rescue their
marine from its condition of impotence.
Quaestors of the Fleet--
Variance between Rome and Carthage
A comprehensive measure with that view was the institution of four
quaestors of the fleet (-quaestores classici-) in 487: of whom the
first was stationed at Ostia the port of Rome; the second, stationed
at Cales then the capital of Roman Campania, had to superintend the
ports of Campania and Magna Graecia; the third, stationed at Ariminum,
superintended the ports on the other side of the Apennines; the
district assigned to the fourth is not known. These new standing
officials were intended to exercise not the sole, but a conjoint,
guardianship of the coasts, and to form a war marine for their
protection. The objects of the Roman senate--to recover their
independence by sea, to cut off the maritime communications of
Tarentum, to close the Adriatic against fleets coming from Epirus,
and to emancipate themselves from Carthaginian supremacy--were very
obvious. Their already explained relations with Carthage during the
last Italian war discover traces of such views. King Pyrrhus indeed
compelled the two great cities once more--it was for the last time
--to conclude an offensive alliance; but the lukewarmness and
faithlessness of that alliance, the attempts of the Carthaginians
to establish themselves in Rhegium and Tarentum, and the immediate
occupation of Brundisium by the Romans after the termination of the
war, show clearly how much their respective interests already came
into collision.
Rome and the Greek Naval Powers
Rome very naturally sought to find support against Carthage from the
Hellenic maritime states. Her old and close relations of amity with
Massilia continued uninterrupted. The votive offering sent by Rome
to Delphi, after the conquest of Veii, was preserved there in the
treasury of the Massiliots. After the capture of Rome by the Celts
there was a collection in Massilia for the sufferers by the fire,
in which the city chest took the lead; in return the Roman senate
granted commercial advantages to the Massiliot merchants, and, at the
celebration of the games in the Forum assigned a position of honour
(-Graecostasis-) to the Massiliots by the side of the platform for the
senators. To the same category belong the treaties of commerce and
amity concluded by the Romans about 448 with Rhodes and not long after
with Apollonia, a considerable mercantile town on the Epirot coast,
and especially the closer relation, so fraught with danger for
Carthage, which immediately after the end of the Pyrrhic war
sprang up between Rome and Syracuse.(23)
While the Roman power by sea was thus very far from keeping pace with
the immense development of their power by land, and the war marine
belonging to the Romans in particular was by no means such as from the
geographical and commercial position of the city it ought to have
been, yet it began gradually to emerge out of the complete nullity to
which it had been reduced about the year 400; and, considering the
great resources of Italy, the Phoenicians might well follow its
efforts with anxious eyes.
The crisis in reference to the supremacy of the Italian waters was
approaching; by land the contest was decided. For the first time
Italy was united into one state under the sovereignty of the Roman
community. What political prerogatives the Roman community on this
occasion withdrew from all the other Italian communities and took into
its own sole keeping, or in other words, what conception in state-law
is to be associated with this sovereignty of Rome, we are nowhere
expressly informed, and--a significant circumstance, indicating
prudent calculation--there does not even exist any generally current
expression for that conception.(24) The only privileges that
demonstrably belonged to it were the rights of making war, of
concluding treaties, and of coining money. No Italian community could
declare war against any foreign state, or even negotiate with it, or
coin money for circulation. On the other hand every declaration of
war made by the Roman people and every state-treaty resolved upon by
it were binding in law on all the other Italian communities, and the
silver money of Rome was legally current throughout all Italy. It is
probable that the formulated prerogatives of the leading community
extended no further. But to these there were necessarily attached
rights of sovereignty that practically went far beyond them.
The Full Roman Franchise
The relations, which the Italians sustained to the leading community,
exhibited in detail great inequalities. In this point of view, in
addition to the full burgesses of Rome, there were three different
classes of subjects to be distinguished. The full franchise itself,
in the first place, was extended as far as was possible, without
wholly abandoning the idea of an urban commonwealth as applied to the
Roman commune. The old burgess-domain had hitherto been enlarged
chiefly by individual assignation in such a way that southern Etruria
as far as towards Caere and Falerii,(25) the districts taken from the
Hernici on the Sacco and on the Anio(26) the largest part of the
Sabine country(27) and large tracts of the territory formerly
Volscian, especially the Pomptine plain(28) were converted into land
for Roman farmers, and new burgess-districts were instituted mostly
for their inhabitants. The same course had even already been taken
with the Falernian district on the Volturnus ceded by Capua.(29) All
these burgesses domiciled outside of Rome were without a commonwealth
and an administration of their own; on the assigned territory there
arose at the most market-villages (-fora et conciliabula-). In a
position not greatly different were placed the burgesses sent out
to the so-called maritime colonies mentioned above, who were likewise
left in possession of the full burgess-rights of Rome, and whose
self-administration was of little moment. Towards the close of
this period the Roman community appears to have begun to grant full
burgess-rights to the adjoining communities of passive burgesses who
were of like or closely kindred nationality; this was probably done
first for Tusculum,(30) and so, presumably, also for the other
communities of passive burgesses in Latium proper, then at the end
of this period (486) was extended to the Sabine towns, which doubtless
were even then essentially Latinized and had given sufficient proof
of their fidelity in the last severe war. These towns retained the
restricted self-administration, which under their earlier legal
position belonged to them, even after their admission into the Roman
burgess-union; it was they more than the maritime colonies that
furnished the model for the special commonwealths subsisting within
the body of Roman full burgesses and so, in the course of time, for
the Roman municipal organization. Accordingly the range of the full
Roman burgesses must at the end of this epoch have extended northward
as far as the vicinity of Caere, eastward as far as the Apennines, and
southward as far as Tarracina; although in this case indeed we cannot
speak of boundary in a strict sense, partly because a number of
federal towns with Latin rights, such as Tibur, Praeneste, Signia,
Norba, Circeii, were found within these bounds, partly because beyond
them the inhabitants of Minturnae, Sinuessa, of the Falernian
territory, of the town Sena Gallica and some other townships,
likewise possessed the full franchise, and families of Roman
farmers were presumably to be even now found scattered throughout
Italy, either isolated or united in villages.
Subject Communities
Among the subject communities the passive burgesses (-cives sine
suffragio-) apart from the privilege of electing and being elected,
stood on an equality of rights and duties with the full burgesses.
Their legal position was regulated by the decrees of the Roman comitia
and the rules issued for them by the Roman praetor, which, however,
were doubtless based essentially on the previous arrangements.
Justice was administered for them by the Roman praetor or his deputies
(-praefecti-) annually sent to the individual communities. Those of
them in a better position, such as the city of Capua,(31) retained
self-administration and along with it the continued use of the native
language, and had officials of their own who took charge of the levy
and the census. The communities of inferior rights such as Caere(32)
were deprived even of self-administration, and this was doubtless the
most oppressive among the different forms of subjection. However, as
was above remarked, there is already apparent at the close of this
period an effort to incorporate these communities, at least so far
as they were -de facto- Latinized, among the full burgesses.
Latins
Among the subject communities the most privileged and most important
class was that of the Latin towns, which obtained accessions equally
numerous and important in the autonomous communities founded by Rome
within and even beyond Italy--the Latin colonies, as they were called
--and was always increasing in consequence of new settlements of the
same nature. These new urban communities of Roman origin, but with
Latin rights, became more and more the real buttresses of the Roman
rule over Italy. These Latins, however, were by no means those with
whom the battles of the lake Regillus and Trifanum had been fought.
They were not those old members of the Alban league, who reckoned
themselves originally equal to, if not better than, the community of
Rome, and who felt the dominion of Rome to be an oppressive yoke, as
the fearfully rigorous measures of security taken against Praeneste
at the beginning of the war with Pyrrhus, and the collisions that
evidently long continued to occur with the Praenestines in particular,
show. This old Latium had essentially either perished or become
merged in Rome, and it now numbered but few communities politically
self-subsisting, and these, with the exception of Tibur and Praeneste,
throughout insignificant. The Latium of the later times of
the republic, on the contrary, consisted almost exclusively of
communities, which from the beginning had honoured Rome as their
capital and parent city; which, settled amidst regions of alien
language and of alien habits, were attached to Rome by community of
language, of law, and of manners; which, as the petty tyrants of the
surrounding districts, were obliged doubtless to lean on Rome for
their very existence, like advanced posts leaning upon the main army;
and which, in fine, in consequence of the increasing material
advantages of Roman citizenship, were ever deriving very considerable
benefit from their equality of rights with the Romans, limited though
it was. A portion of the Roman domain, for instance, was usually
assigned to them for their separate use, and participation in the
state leases and contracts was open to them as to the Roman burgess.
Certainly in their case also the consequences of the self-subsistence
granted to them did not wholly fail to appear. Venusian inscriptions
of the time of the Roman republic, and Beneventane inscriptions
recently brought to light,(33) show that Venusia as well as Rome
had its plebs and its tribunes of the people, and that the chief
magistrates of Beneventum bore the title of consul at least about
the time of the Hannibalic war. Both communities are among the most
recent of the Latin colonies with older rights: we perceive what
pretensions were stirring in them about the middle of the fifth
century. These so-called Latins, issuing from the Roman burgess-body
and feeling themselves in every respect on a level with it, already
began to view with displeasure their subordinate federal rights and to
strive after full equalization. Accordingly the senate had exerted
itself to curtail these Latin communities--however important they were
for Rome--as far as possible, in their rights and privileges, and to
convert their position from that of allies to that of subjects, so far
as this could be done without removing the wall of partition between
them and the non-Latin communities of Italy. We have already
described the abolition of the league of the Latin communities
itself as well as of their former complete equality of rights,
and the loss of the most important political privileges belonging to
them. On the complete subjugation of Italy a further step was taken,
and a beginning was made towards the restriction of the personal
rights--that had not hitherto been touched--of the individual Latin,
especially the important right of freedom of settlement. In the case
of Ariminum founded in 486 and of all the autonomous communities
constituted afterwards, the advantage enjoyed by them, as compared
with other subjects, was restricted to their equalization with
burgesses of the Roman community so far as regarded private rights
--those of traffic and barter as well as those of inheritance.(34)
Presumably about the same time the full right of free migration
allowed to the Latin communities hitherto established--the title of
every one of their burgesses to gain by transmigration to Rome full
burgess-rights there--was, for the Latin colonies of later erection,
restricted to those persons who had attained to the highest office of
the community in their native home; these alone were allowed to
exchange their colonial burgess-rights for the Roman. This clearly
shows the complete revolution in the position of Rome. So long as
Rome was still but one among the many urban communities of Italy,
although that one might be the first, admission even to the
unrestricted Roman franchise was universally regarded as a gain for
the admitting community, and the acquisition of that franchise by
non-burgesses was facilitated in every way, and was in fact often
imposed on them as a punishment. But after the Roman community became
sole sovereign and all the others were its servants, the state of
matters changed. The Roman community began jealously to guard its
franchise, and accordingly put an end in the first instance to the old
full liberty of migration; although the statesmen of that period were
wise enough still to keep admission to the Roman franchise legally
open at least to the men of eminence and of capacity in the highest
class of subject communities. The Latins were thus made to feel that
Rome, after having subjugated Italy mainly by their aid, had now no
longer need of them as before.
Non-Latin Allied Communities
Lastly, the relations of the non-Latin allied communities were
subject, as a matter of course, to very various rules, just as each
particular treaty of alliance had defined them. Several of these
perpetual alliances, such as that with the Hernican communities,(35)
passed over to a footing of complete equalization with the Latin.
Others, in which this was not the case, such as those with
Neapolis(36), Nola(37), and Heraclea(38), granted rights
comparatively comprehensive; while others, such as the Tarentine
and Samnite treaties, may have approximated to despotism.
Dissolution of National Leagues--
Furnishing of Contingents
As a general rule, it may be taken for granted that not only the
Latin and Hernican national confederations--as to which the fact is
expressly stated--but all such confederations subsisting in Italy, and
the Samnite and Lucanian leagues in particular, were legally dissolved
or at any rate reduced to insignificance, and that in general no
Italian community was allowed the right of acquiring property or of
intermarriage, or even the right of joint consultation and resolution,
with any other. Further, provision must have been made, under
different forms, for placing the military and financial resources of
all the Italian communities at the disposal of the leading community.
Although the burgess militia on the one hand, and the contingents of
the "Latin name" on the other, were still regarded as the main and
integral constituents of the Roman army, and in that way its national
character was on the whole preserved, the Roman -cives sine suffragio-
were called forth to join its ranks, and not only so, but beyond doubt
the non-Latin federate communities also were either bound to furnish
ships of war, as was the case with the Greek cities, or were placed on
the roll of contingent-furnishing Italians (-formula togatorum-),
as must have been ordained at once or gradually in the case of the
Apulians, Sabellians, and Etruscans. In general this contingent,
like that of the Latin communities, appears to have had its numbers
definitely fixed, although, in case of necessity, the leading
community was not precluded from making a larger requisition.
This at the same time involved an indirect taxation, as every
community was bound itself to equip and to pay its own contingent.
Accordingly it was not without design that the supply of the most
costly requisites for war devolved chiefly on the Latin, or non-Latin
federate communities; that the war marine was for the most part kept
up by the Greek cities; and that in the cavalry service the allies,
at least subsequently, were called upon to furnish a proportion thrice
as numerous as the Roman burgesses, while in the infantry the old
principle, that the contingent of the allies should not be more
numerous than the burgess army, still remained in force for a long
time at least as the rule.
System of Government--
Division and Classification of the Subjects
The system, on which this fabric was constructed and kept together,
can no longer be ascertained in detail from the few notices that have
reached us. Even the numerical proportions of the three classes of
subjects relatively to each other and to the full burgesses, can no
longer be determined even approximately;(39) and in like manner the
geographical distribution of the several categories over Italy is but
imperfectly known. The leading ideas on which the structure was
based, on the other hand, are so obvious that it is scarcely necessary
specially to set them forth. First of all, as we have already said,
the immediate circle of the ruling community was extended--partly
by the settlement of full burgesses, partly by the conferring of
passive burgess-rights--as far as was possible without completely
decentralizing the Roman community, which was an urban one and was
intended to remain so. When the system of incorporation was extended
up to and perhaps even beyond its natural limits, the communities that
were subsequently added had to submit to a position of subjection; for
a pure hegemony as a permanent relation was intrinsically impossible.
Thus not through any arbitrary monopolizing of sovereignty, but
through the inevitable force of circumstances, by the side of the
class of ruling burgesses a second class of subjects took its place.
It was one of the primary expedients of Roman rule to subdivide the
governed by breaking up the Italian confederacies and instituting as
large a number as possible of comparatively small communities, and
to graduate the pressure of that rule according to the different
categories of subjects. As Cato in the government of his household
took care that the slaves should not be on too good terms with one
another, and designedly fomented variances and factions among them,
so the Roman community acted on a great scale. The expedient was not
generous, but it was effectual.
Aristocratic Remodelling of the Constitutions of the Italian
Communities
It was but a wider application of the same expedient, when in each
dependent community the constitution was remodelled after the Roman
pattern and a government of the wealthy and respectable families was
installed, which was naturally more or less keenly opposed to the
multitude and was induced by its material interests and by its wish
for local power to lean on Roman support. The most remarkable
instance of this sort is furnished by the treatment of Capua, which
appears to have been from the first treated with suspicious precaution
as the only Italian city that could come into possible rivalry with
Rome. The Campanian nobility received a privileged jurisdiction,
separate places of assembly, and in every respect a distinctive
position; indeed they even obtained not inconsiderable pensions
--sixteen hundred of them at 450 -stateres- (about 30 pounds)
annually--charged on the Campanian exchequer. It was these Campanian
equites, whose refusal to take part in the great Latino-Campanian
insurrection of 414 mainly contributed to its failure, and whose brave
swords decided the day in favour of the Romans at Sentinum in 459;(40)
whereas the Campanian infantry at Rhegium was the first body of
troops that in the war with Pyrrhus revolted from Rome.(41) Another
remarkable instance of the Roman practice of turning to account for
their own interest the variances between the orders in the dependent
communities by favouring the aristocracy, is furnished by the
treatment which Volsinii met with in 489. There, just as in Rome,
the old and new burgesses must have stood opposed to one another,
and the latter must have attained by legal means equality of political
rights. In consequence of this the old burgesses of Volsinii resorted
to the Roman senate with a request for the restoration of their old
constitution--a step which the ruling party in the city naturally
viewed as high treason, and inflicted legal punishment accordingly on
the petitioners. The Roman senate, however, took part with the old
burgesses, and, when the city showed no disposition to submit, not
only destroyed by military violence the communal constitution of
Volsinii which was In recognized operation, but also, by razing the
old capital of Etruria, exhibited to the Italians a fearfully palpable
proof of the mastery of Rome.
Moderation of the Government
But the Roman senate had the wisdom not to overlook the fact, that the
only means of giving permanence to despotism is moderation on the part
of the despots. On that account there was left with, or conferred on,
the dependent communities an autonomy, which included a shadow of
independence, a special share in the military and political successes
of Rome, and above all a free communal constitution--so far as
the Italian confederacy extended, there existed no community of
Helots. On that account also Rome from the very first, with a
clear-sightedness and magnanimity perhaps unparalleled in history,
waived the most dangerous of all the rights of government, the right
of taxing her subjects. At the most tribute was perhaps imposed
on the dependent Celtic cantons: so far as the Italian confederacy
extended, there was no tributary community. On that account, lastly,
while the duty of bearing arms was partially devolved on the subjects,
the ruling burgesses were by no means exempt from it; it is probable
that the latter were proportionally far more numerous than the body
of the allies; and in that body, again, probably the Latins as a whole
were liable to far greater demands upon them than the non-Latin
allied communities. There was thus a certain reasonableness in the
appropriation by which Rome ranked first, and the Latins next to her,
in the distribution of the spoil acquired in war.
Intermediate Functionaries--
Valuation of the Empire
The central administration at Rome solved the difficult problem of
preserving its supervision and control over the mass of the Italian
communities liable to furnish contingents, partly by means of the four
Italian quaestorships, partly by the extension of the Roman censorship
over the whole of the dependent communities. The quaestors of the
fleet,(42) along with their more immediate duty, had to raise
the revenues from the newly acquired domains and to control the
contingents of the new allies; they were the first Roman functionaries
to whom a residence and district out of Rome were assigned by law, and
they formed the necessary intermediate authority between the Roman
senate and the Italian communities. Moreover, as is shown by the
later municipal constitution, the chief functionaries in every Italian
community,(43) whatever might be their title, had to undertake a
valuation every fourth or fifth year--an institution, the suggestion
of which must necessarily have emanated from Rome, and which can
only have been intended to furnish the senate with a view of the
resources in men and money of the whole of Italy, corresponding
to the census in Rome.
Italy and the Italians
Lastly, with this military administrative union of the whole peoples
dwelling to the south of the Apennines, as far as the Iapygian
promontory and the straits of Rhegium, was connected the rise of a
new name common to them all--that of "the men of the toga" (-togati-),
which was their oldest designation in Roman state law, or that of the
"Italians," which was the appellation originally in use among the
Greeks and thence became universally current. The various nations
inhabiting those lands were probably first led to feel and own their
unity, partly through their common contrast to the Greeks, partly and
mainly through their common resistance to the Celts; for, although
an Italian community may now and then have made common cause with
the Celts against Rome and employed the opportunity to recover
independence, yet in the long run sound national feeling necessarily
prevailed. As the "Gallic field" down to a late period stood
contrasted in law with the Italian, so the "men of the toga" were thus
named in contrast to the Celtic "men of the hose" (-braccati-); and it
is probable that the repelling of the Celtic invasions played an
important diplomatic part as a reason or pretext for centralizing
the military resources of Italy in the hands of the Romans. Inasmuch
as the Romans on the one hand took the lead in the great national
struggle and on the other hand compelled the Etruscans, Latins,
Sabellians, Apulians, and Hellenes (within the bounds to be
immediately described) alike to fight under their standards, that
unity, which hitherto had been undefined and latent rather than
expressed, obtained firm consolidation and recognition in state law;
and the name -Italia-, which originally and even in the Greek authors
of the fifth century--in Aristotle for instance--pertained only to the
modern Calabria, was transferred to the whole land of these wearers of
the toga.
Earliest Boundaries of the Italian Confederacy
The earliest boundaries of this great armed confederacy led by Rome,
or of the new Italy, reached on the western coast as far as the
district of Leghorn south of the Arnus,(44) on the east as far as
the Aesis north of Ancona. The townships colonized by Italians,
lying beyond these limits, such as Sena Gallica and Ariminum beyond
the Apennines, and Messana in Sicily, were reckoned geographically as
situated out of Italy--even when, like Ariminum, they were members of
the confederacy or even, like Sena, were Roman burgess communities.
Still less could the Celtic cantons beyond the Apennines be reckoned
among the -togati-, although perhaps some of them were already among
the clients of Rome.
First Steps towards the Latininzing of Italy--
New Position of Rome as a Great Power
The new Italy had thus become a political unity; it was also in
the course of becoming a national unity. Already the ruling Latin
nationality had assimilated to itself the Sabines and Volscians and
had scattered isolated Latin communities over all Italy; these germs
were merely developed, when subsequently the Latin language became
the mother-tongue of every one entitled to wear the Latin toga.
That the Romans already clearly recognized this as their aim,
is shown by the familiar extension of the Latin name to the whole body
of contingent-furnishing Italian allies.(45) Whatever can still be
recognized of this grand political structure testifies to the great
political sagacity of its nameless architects; and the singular
cohesion, which that confederation composed of so many and so
diversified ingredients subsequently exhibited under the severest
shocks, stamped their great work with the seal of success. From the
time when the threads of this net drawn as skilfully as firmly around
Italy were concentrated in the hands of the Roman community, it was a
great power, and took its place in the system of the Mediterranean
states in the room of Tarentum, Lucania, and other intermediate
and minor states erased by the last wars from the list of political
powers. Rome received, as it were, an official recognition of its new
position by means of the two solemn embassies, which in 481 were sent
from Alexandria to Rome and from Rome to Alexandria, and which, though
primarily they regulated only commercial relations, beyond doubt
prepared the way for a political alliance. As Carthage was contending
with the Egyptian government regarding Cyrene and was soon to contend
with that of Rome regarding Sicily, so Macedonia was contending with
the former for the predominant influence in Greece, with the latter
proximately for the dominion of the Adriatic coasts. The new
struggles, which were preparing on all sides, could not but influence
each other, and Rome, as mistress of Italy, could not fail to be drawn
into the wide arena which the victories and projects of Alexander the
Great had marked out as the field of conflict for his successors.
Notes for Book II Chapter VII
1. The story that the Romans also sent envoys to Alexander at Babylon
on the testimony of Clitarchus (Plin. Hist. Nat. iii. 5, 57), from
whom the other authorities who mention this fact (Aristus and
Asclepiades, ap. Arrian, vii. 15, 5; Memnon, c. 25) doubtless derived
it. Clitarchus certainly was contemporary with these events;
nevertheless, his Life of Alexander was decidedly a historical romance
rather than a history; and, looking to the silence of the trustworthy
biographers (Arrian, l. c.; Liv. ix. 18) and the utterly romantic
details of the account--which represents the Romans, for instance,
as delivering to Alexander a chaplet of gold, and the latter as
prophesying the future greatness of Rome--we cannot but set down this
story as one of the many embellishments which Clitarchus introduced
into the history.
2. II. VI. Last Struggles of Samnium
3. Near the modern Anglona; not to be confounded with the better
known town of the same name in the district of Cosenza.
4. These numbers appear credible. The Roman account assigns,
probably in dead and wounded, 15,000 to each side; a later one even
specifies 5000 as dead on the Roman, and 20,000 on the Greek side.
These accounts may be mentioned here for the purpose of exhibiting,
in one of the few instances where it is possible to check the
statement, the untrustworthiness--almost without exception--of the
reports of numbers, which are swelled by the unscrupulous invention
of the annalists with avalanche-like rapidity.
5. The later Romans, and the moderns following them, give a version
of the league, as if the Romans had designedly avoided accepting the
Carthaginian help in Italy. This would have been irrational, and the
facts pronounce against it. The circumstance that Mago did not land
at Ostia is to be explained not by any such foresight, but simply by
the fact that Latium was not at all threatened by Pyrrhus and so did
not need Carthaginian aid; and the Carthaginians certainly fought for
Rome in front of Rhegium.
6. II. IV. Victories of Salamis and Himera, and Their Effects
7. II. IV. Fruitlessness of the Celtic Victory
8. The grounds for assigning the document given in Polybius (iii. 22)
not to 245, but to 406, are set forth in my Rom. Chronologie, p. 320
f. [translated in the Appendix to this volume].
9. II. V. Domination of the Romans; Exasperation of the Latins
10. II. VII. Breach between Rome and Tarentum
11. II. V. Colonization of the Volsci
12. II. V. Colonization of the Volsci
13. II. VI. New Fortresses in Apulia and Campania
14. II. VI. Last Struggles of Samnium
15. II. VII. Construction of New Fortresses and Roads
16. II. VII. The Boii
17. II. VII. Construction of New Fortresses and Roads
18. These were Pyrgi, Ostia, Antium, Tarracina, Minturnae, Sinuessa
Sena Gallica, and Castrum Novum.
19. This statement is quite as distinct (Liv. viii. 14; -interdictum
mari Antiati populo est-) as it is intrinsically credible; for Antium
was inhabited not merely by colonists, but also by its former citizens
who had been nursed in enmity to Rome (II. V. Colonizations in The
Land Of The Volsci). This view is, no doubt, inconsistent with the
Greek accounts, which assert that Alexander the Great (431) and
Demetrius Poliorcetes (471) lodged complaints at Rome regarding
Antiate pirates. The former statement is of the same stamp, and
perhaps from the same source, with that regarding the Roman embassy to
Babylon (II. VII. Relations Between The East and West). It seems more
likely that Demetrius Poliorcetes may have tried by edict to put down
piracy in the Tyrrhene sea which he had never set eyes upon, and it is
not at all inconceivable that the Antiates may have even as Roman
citizens, in defiance of the prohibition, continued for a time their
old trade in an underhand fashion: much dependence must not however,
be placed even on the second story.
20. II. VI. Last Campaigns in Samnium
21. II. VII. Decline of the Roman Naval Power
22. According to Servius (in Aen. iv. 628) it was stipulated in the
Romano-Carthaginian treaties, that no Roman should set foot on (or
rather occupy) Carthaginian, and no Carthaginian on Roman, soil, but
Corsica was to remain in a neutral position between them (-ut neque
Romani ad litora Carthaginiensium accederent neque Carthaginienses
ad litora Romanorum.....Corsica esset media inter Romanos et
Carthaginienses-). This appears to refer to our present period,
and the colonization of Corsica seems to have been prevented by
this very treaty.
23. II. VII. Submission of Lower Italy
24. The clause, by which a dependent people binds itself "to uphold
in a friendly manner the sovereignty of that of Rome" (-maiestatem
populi Romani comiter conservare-), is certainly the technical
appellation of that mildest form of subjection, but it probably did
not come into use till a considerably later period (Cic. pro Balbo,
16, 35). The appellation of clientship derived from private law,
aptly as in its very indefiniteness it denotes the relation (Dig.
xlix. 15, 7, i), was scarcely applied to it officially in earlier
times.
25. II. IV. South Etruria Roman
26. II. VI. Consolidation of the Roman Rule in Central Italy
27. II. VI. Last Struggles of Samnium
28. II. V. Complete Submission of the Volscian and Campanian
Provinces
29. II. V. Complete Submission of the Volscian and Campanian
Provinces
30. That Tusculum as it was the first to obtain passive
burgess-rights (II. V. Crises within the Romano-Latin League)
was also the first to exchange these for the rights of full burgesses,
is probable in itself and presumably it is in the latter and not in
the former respect that the town is named by Cicero (pro Mur. 8, 19)
-municipium antiquissimum-.
31. II. V. Complete Submission of the Volscian and Campanian
Provinces
32. II. IV. South Etruria Roman
33. -V. Cervio A. f. cosol dedicavit- and -lunonei Quiritri sacra. C.
Falcilius L. f. consol dedicavit-.
34. According to the testimony of Cicero (pro Caec. 35) Sulla gave to
the Volaterrans the former -ius- of Ariminum, that is--adds the
orator--the -ius- of the "twelve colonies" which had not the Roman
-civitas- but had full -commercium- with the Romans. Few things have
been so much discussed as the question to what places this -ius- of
the twelve towns refers; and yet the answer is not far to seek. There
were in Italy and Cisalpine Gaul--laying aside some places that soon
disappeared again--thirty-four Latin colonies established in all.
The twelve most recent of these--Ariminum, Beneventum, Firmum,
Aesernia, Brundisium, Spoletium, Cremona, Placentia, Copia, Valentia,
Bononia, and Aquileia--are those here referred to; and because
Ariminum was the oldest of these and the town for which this new
organization was primarily established, partly perhaps also because it
was the first Roman colony founded beyond Italy, the -ius- of these
colonies rightly took its name from Ariminum. This at the same time
demonstrates the truth of the view--which already had on other grounds
very high probability--that all the colonies established in Italy (in
the wider sense of the term) after the founding of Aquileia belonged
to the class of burgess-colonies.
We cannot fully determine the extent to which the curtailment of the
rights of the more recent Latin towns was carried, as compared with
the earlier. If intermarriage, as is not improbable but is in fact
anything but definitely established (i. 132; Diodor. p. 590, 62, fr.
Vat. p. 130, Dind.), formed a constituent element of the original
federal equality of rights, it was, at any rate, no longer conceded
to the Latin colonies of more recent origin.
35. II. V. League with the Hernici
36. II. VI. Pacification of Campania
37. II. VI. Victory of the Romans
38. II. VII. The War in Italy Flags
39. It is to be regretted that we are unable to give satisfactory
information as to the proportional numbers. We may estimate the
number of Roman burgesses capable of bearing arms in the later regal
period as about 20,000. (I. VI. Time And Occasion of the Reform) Now
from the fall of Alba to the conquest of Veii the immediate territory
of Rome received no material extension; in perfect accordance with
which we find that from the first institution of the twenty-one tribes
about 259, (II. II. Coriolanus) which involved no, or at any rate no
considerable, extension of the Roman bounds, no new tribes were
instituted till 367. However abundant allowance we make for increase
by the excess of births over deaths, by immigration, and by
manumissions, it is absolutely impossible to reconcile with the narrow
limits of a territory of hardly 650 square miles the traditional
numbers of the census, according to which the number of Roman
burgesses capable of bearing arms in the second half of the third
century varied between 104,000 and 150,000, and in 362, regarding
which a special statement is extant, amounted to 152,573. These
numbers must rather stand on a parallel with the 84,700 burgesses of
the Servian census; and in general the whole earlier census-lists,
carried back to the four lustres of Servius Tullius and furnished with
copious numbers, must belong to the class of those apparently
documentary traditions which delight in, and betray themselves
by the very fact of, such numerical details.
It was only with the second half of the fourth century that the large
extensions of territory, which must have suddenly and considerably
augmented the burgess roll, began. It is reported on trustworthy
authority and is intrinsically credible, that about 416 the Roman
burgesses numbered 165,000; which very well agrees with the statement
that ten years previously, when the whole militia was called out
against Latium and the Gauls, the first levy amounted to ten legions,
that is, to 50,000 men. Subsequently to the great extensions of
territory in Etruria, Latium, and Campania, in the fifth century the
effective burgesses numbered, on an average, 250,000; immediately
before the first Punic war, 280,000 to 290,000. These numbers are
certain enough, but they are not quite available historically for
another reason, namely, that in them probably the Roman full burgesses
and the "burgesses without vote" not serving, like the Campanians, in
legions of their own, --such, e. g., as the Caerites, --are included
together in the reckoning, while the latter must at any rate -de
facto- be counted among the subjects (Rom. Forsch. ii. 396).
40. II. VI. Battle of Sentinum
41. II. VII. Commencement of the Conflict in Lower Italy
42. II. VII. Quaestors of the Fleet
43. Not merely in every Latin one; for the censorship or so-called
-quinquennalitas- occurs, as is well known, also among communities
whose constitution was not formed according to the Latin scheme.
44. This earliest boundary is probably indicated by the two small
townships -Ad fines-, of which one lay north of Arezzo on the road
to Florence, the second on the coast not far from Leghorn. Somewhat
further to the south of the latter, the brook and valley of Vada are
still called -Fiume della fine-, -Valle della fine- (Targioni
Tozzetti, Viaggj, iv. 430).
45. In strict official language, indeed, this was not the case.
The fullest designation of the Italians occurs in the agrarian law of
643, line 21; -[ceivis] Romanus sociumve nominisve Latini, quibus ex
formula togatorum [milites in terra Italia imperare solent]-; in like
manner at the 29th line of the same -peregrinus- is distinguished from
the -Latinus-, and in the decree of the senate as to the Bacchanalia
in 568 the expression is used: -ne quis ceivis Romanus neve nominis
Latini neve socium quisquam-. But in common use very frequently the
second or third of these three subdivisions is omitted, and along
with the Romans sometimes only those Latini nominis are mentioned,
sometimes only the -socii- (Weissenborn on Liv. xxii. 50, 6), while
there is no difference in the meaning. The designation -homines
nominis Latini ac socii Italici- (Sallust. Jug. 40), correct as it is
in itself, is foreign to the official -usus loquendi, which knows
-Italia-, but not -Italici-.
CHAPTER VIII
Law, Religion, Military System, Economic Condition, Nationality
Development of Law
In the development which law underwent during this period within the
Roman community, probably the most important material innovation was
that peculiar control which the community itself, and in a subordinate
degree its office-bearers, began to exercise over the manners and
habits of the individual burgesses. The germ of it is to be sought in
the right of the magistrate to inflict property-fines (-multae-) for
offences against order.(1) In the case of all fines of more than two
sheep and thirty oxen or, after the cattle-fines had been by the
decree of the people in 324 commuted into money, of more than 3020
libral -asses- (30 pounds), the decision soon after the expulsion of
the kings passed by way of appeal into the hands of the community;(2)
and thus procedure by fine acquired an importance which it was far
from originally possessing. Under the vague category of offences
against order men might include any accusations they pleased, and by
the higher grades in the scale of fines they might accomplish whatever
they desired. The dangerous character of such arbitrary procedure was
brought to light rather than obviated by the mitigating proviso, that
these property-fines, where they were not fixed by law at a definite
sum, should not amount to half the estate belonging to the person
fined. To this class belonged the police-laws, which from the earliest
times were especially abundant in the Roman community. Such were those
enactments of the Twelve Tables, which prohibited the anointing of a
dead body by persons hired for the purpose, the dressing it out with
more than one cushion or more than three purple-edged coverings, the
decorating it with gold or gaudy chaplets, the use of dressed wood for
the funeral pile, and the perfuming or sprinkling of the pyre with
frankincense or myrrh-wine; which limited the number of flute-players
in the funeral procession to ten at most; and which forbade wailing
women and funeral banquets--in a certain measure the earliest Roman
legislation against luxury. Such also were the laws--originating
in the conflicts of the orders--directed against usury as well as
against an undue use of the common pasture and a disproportionate
appropriation of the occupiable domain-land. But far more fraught
with danger than these and similar fining-laws, which at any rate
formulated once for all the trespass and often also the measure of
punishment, was the general prerogative of every magistrate who
exercised jurisdiction to inflict a fine for an offence against order,
and, if the fine reached the amount necessary to found an appeal and
the person fined did not submit to the penalty, to bring the case
before the community. Already in the course of the fifth century
quasi-criminal proceedings had been in this way instituted against
immorality of life both in men and women, against the forestalling of
grain, witchcraft, and similar matters. Closely akin to this was the
quasi-jurisdiction of the censors, which likewise sprang up at this
period. They were invested with authority to adjust the Roman budget
and the burgess-roll, and they availed themselves of it, partly to
impose of their own accord taxes on luxury which differed only in form
from penalties on it, partly to abridge or withdraw the political
privileges of the burgess who was reported to have been guilty of any
infamous action.(3) The extent to which this surveillance was already
carried is shown by the fact that penalties of this nature were
inflicted for the negligent cultivation of a man's own land, and that
such a man as Publius Cornelius Rufinus (consul in 464, 477) was
struck off the list of senators by the censors of 479, because he
possessed silver plate to the value of 3360 sesterces (34 pounds).
No doubt, according to the rule generally applicable to the edicts of
magistrates,(4) the sentences of the censors had legal force only
during their censorship, that is on an average for the next five
years, and might be renewed or not by the next censors at pleasure.
Nevertheless this censorial prerogative was of so immense importance,
that in virtue of it the censorship, originally a subordinate
magistracy, became in rank and consideration the first of all.(5)
The government of the senate rested essentially on this twofold
police control supreme and subordinate, vested in the community and
its officials, and furnished with powers as extensive as they were
arbitrary. Like every such arbitrary government, it was productive
of much good and much evil, and we do not mean to combat the view of
those who hold that the evil preponderated. But we must not forget
that--amidst the morality external certainly but stern and energetic,
and the powerful enkindling of public spirit, that were the genuine
characteristics of this period--these institutions remained exempt
as yet from any really base misuse; and if they were the chief
instruments in repressing individual freedom, they were also the means
by which the public spirit and the good old manners and order of the
Roman community were with might and main upheld.
Modifications in the Laws
Along with these changes a humanizing and modernizing tendency showed
itself slowly, but yet clearly enough, in the development of Roman
law. Most of the enactmerits of the Twelve Tables, which coincide with
the laws of Solon and therefore may with reason be considered as in
substance innovations, bear this character; such as the securing the
right of free association and the autonomy of the societies that
originated under it; the enactment that forbade the ploughing up of
boundary-balks; and the mitigation of the punishment of theft, so that
a thief not caught in the act might henceforth release himself from
the plaintiff's suit by payment of double compensation. The law of
debt was modified in a similar sense, but not till upwards of a
century afterwards, by the Poetelian law.(6) The right freely to
dispose of property, which according to the earliest Roman law was
accorded to the owner in his lifetime but in the case of death had
hitherto been conditional on the consent of the community, was
liberated from this restriction, inasmuch as the law of the Twelve
Tables or its interpretation assigned to the private testament the
same force as pertained to that confirmed in the curies. This was
an important step towards the breaking up of the clanships, and
towards the full carrying out of individual liberty in the disposal
of property. The fearfully absolute paternal power was restricted by
the enactment, that a son thrice sold by his father should not relapse
into his power, but should thenceforth be free; to which--by a legal
inference that, strictly viewed, was no doubt absurd--was soon
attached the possibility that a father might voluntarily divest
himself of dominion over his son by emancipation. In the law of
marriage civil marriage was permitted;(7) and although the full
marital power was associated as necessarily with a true civil as with
a true religious marriage, yet the permission of a connection instead
of marriage,(8) formed without that power, constituted a first step
towards relaxation of the full power of the husband. The first step
towards a legal enforcement of married life was the tax on old
bachelors (-aes uxorium-) with the introduction of which Camillus
began his public career as censor in 351.
Administration of Justice--
Code of Common Law--
New Judicial Functionaries
Changes more comprehensive than those effected in the law itself were
introduced into--what was more important in a political point of view,
and more easily admitted of alteration--the system of judicial
administration. First of all came the important limitation of the
supreme judicial power by the embodiment of the common law in a
written code, and the obligation of the magistrate thenceforth to
decide no longer according to varying usage, but according to the
written letter, in civil as well as in criminal procedure (303, 304).
The appointment of a supreme magistrate in Rome exclusively for the
administration of justice in 387,(9) and the establishment of
separate police functionaries which took place contemporaneously
in Rome, and was imitated under Roman influence in all the Latin
communities,(10) secured greater speed and precision of justice.
These police-magistrates or aediles had, of course, a certain
jurisdiction at the same time assigned to them. On the one hand,
they were the ordinary civil judges for sales concluded in open
market, for the cattle and slave markets in particular; and on
the other hand, they ordinarily acted in processes of fines and
amercements as judges of first instance or--which was in Roman
law the same thing--as public prosecutors. In consequence of this the
administration of the laws imposing fines, and the equally indefinite
and politically important right of fining in general, were vested
mainly in them. Similar but subordinate functions, having especial
reference to the poorer classes, pertained to the three night--or
blood-masters (-tres viri nocturni- or -capitales-), first nominated
in 465; they were entrusted with the duties of nocturnal police as
regards fire and the public safety and with the superintendence of
executions, with which a certain summary jurisdiction was very soon,
perhaps even from the outset, associated.(11) Lastly from the
increasing extent of the Roman community it became necessary, out of
regard to the convenience of litigants, to station in the more remote
townships special judges competent to deal at least with minor civil
causes. This arrangement was the rule for the communities of burgesses
-sine suffragio-,(12) and was perhaps even extended to the more
remote communities of full burgesses,(13)--the first germs of a
Romano-municipal jurisdiction developing itself by the side of that
which was strictly Roman.
Changes in Procedure
In civil procedure (which, however, according to the ideas of that
period included most of the crimes committed against fellow-citizens)
the division of a process into the settlement of the question of law
before the magistrate (-ius-), and the decision of the question of
fact by a private person nominated by the magistrate (-iudicium-)
--a division doubtless customary even in earlier times--was on
the abolition of the monarchy prescribed by law;(14) and to that
separation the private law of Rome was mainly indebted for its logical
clearness and practical precision.(15) In actions regarding property,
the decision as to what constituted possession, which hitherto had
been left to the arbitrary caprice of the magistrate, was subjected
gradually to legal rules; and, alongside of the law of property, a law
of possession was developed--another step, by which the magisterial
authority lost an important part of its powers. In criminal processes,
the tribunal of the people, which hitherto had exercised the
prerogative of mercy, became a court of legally secured appeal. If the
accused after hearing (-quaestio-) was condemned by the magistrate and
appealed to the burgesses, the magistrate proceeded in presence of
these to the further hearing (-anquisitio-) and, when he after three
times discussing the matter before the community had repeated his
decision, in the fourth diet the sentence was confirmed or rejected
by the burgesses. Modification was not allowed. A similar republican
spirit breathed in the principles, that the house protected the
burgess, and that an arrest could only take place out of doors; that
imprisonment during investigation was to be avoided; and that it
was allowable for every accused and not yet condemned burgess by
renouncing his citizenship to withdraw from the consequences of
condemnation, so far as they affected not his property but his
person-principles, which certainly were not embodied in formal laws
and accordingly did not legally bind the prosecuting magistrate, but
yet were by their moral weight of the greatest influence, particularly
in limiting capital punishment. But, if the Roman criminal law
furnishes a remarkable testimony to the strong public spirit and to
the increasing humanity of this epoch, it on the other hand suffered
in its practical working from the struggles between the orders, which
in this respect were specially baneful. The co-ordinate primary
jurisdiction of all the public magistrates in criminal cases, that
arose out of these conflicts,(16) led to the result, that there was
no longer any fixed authority for giving instructions, or any serious
preliminary investigation, in Roman criminal procedure. And, as the
ultimate criminal jurisdiction was exercised in the forms and by
the organs of legislation, and never disowned its origin from the
prerogative of mercy; as, moreover, the treatment of police fines had
an injurious reaction on the criminal procedure which was externally
very similar; the decision in criminal causes was pronounced--and that
not so much by way of abuse, as in some degree by virtue of the
constitution--not according to fixed law, but according to the
arbitrary pleasure of the judges. In this way the Roman criminal
procedure was completely void of principle, and was degraded into
the sport and instrument of political parties; which can the less be
excused, seeing that this procedure, while especially applied to
political crimes proper, was applicable also to others, such as murder
and arson. The evil was aggravated by the clumsiness of that
procedure, which, in concert with the haughty republican contempt for
non-burgesses, gave rise to a growing custom of tolerating, side by
side with the more formal process, a summary criminal, or rather
police, procedure against slaves and common people. Here too the
passionate strife regarding political processes overstepped natural
limits, and introduced institutions which materially contributed to
estrange the Romans step by step from the idea of a fixed moral order
in the administration of justice.
Religion--
New Gods
We are less able to trace the progress of the religious conceptions of
the Romans during this epoch. In general they adhered with simplicity
to the simple piety of their ancestors, and kept equally aloof from
superstition and from unbelief. How vividly the idea of spiritualizing
all earthly objects, on which the Roman religion was based, still
prevailed at the close of this epoch, is shown by the new "God of
silver" (-Argentinus-), who presumably came into existence only in
consequence of the introduction of the silver currency in 485, and who
naturally was the son of the older "God of copper" (-Aesculanus-).
The relations to foreign lands were the same as heretofore; but here,
and here especially, Hellenic influences were on the increase. It was
only now that temples began to rise in Rome itself in honour of the
Hellenic gods. The oldest was the temple of Castor and Pollux, which
had been vowed in the battle at lake Regillus(17) and was consecrated
on 15th July 269. The legend associated with it, that two youths of
superhuman size and beauty had been seen fighting on the battle-field
in the ranks of the Romans and immediately after the battle watering
their foaming steeds in the Roman Forum at the fountain of luturna,
and announcing the great victory, bears a stamp thoroughly un-Roman,
and was beyond doubt at a very early period modelled on the appearance
of the Dioscuri--similar down to its very details--in the famous
battle fought about a century before between the Crotoniates and
Locrians at the river Sagras. The Delphic Apollo too was not only
consulted--as was usual with all peoples that felt the influence of
Grecian culture--and presented moreover after special successes, such
as the capture of Veii, with a tenth of the spoil (360), but also had
a temple built for him in the city (323, renewed 401). The same honour
was towards the close of this period accorded to Aphrodite (459), who
was in some enigmatical way identified with the old Roman garden
goddess, Venus;(18) and to Asklapios or Aesculapius, who was obtained
by special request from Epidaurus in the Peloponnesus and solemnly
conducted to Rome (463). Isolated complaints were heard in serious
emergencies as to the intrusion of foreign superstition, presumably
the art of the Etruscan -haruspices- (as in 326); but in such cases
the police did not fail to take proper cognisance of the matter.
In Etruria on the other hand, while the nation stagnated and decayed
in political nullity and indolent opulence, the theological monopoly
of the nobility, stupid fatalism, wild and meaningless mysticism, the
system of soothsaying and of mendicant prophecy gradually developed
themselves, till they reached the height at which we afterwards find
them.
Sacerdotal System
In the sacerdotal system no comprehensive changes, so far as we know,
took place. The more stringent enactments, that were made about 465
regarding the collection of the process-fines destined to defray the
cost of public worship, point to an increase in the ritual budget of
the state--a necessary result of the increase in the number of its
gods and its temples. It has already been mentioned as one of the evil
effects of the dissensions between the orders that an illegitimate
influence began to be conceded to the colleges of men of lore, and
that they were employed for the annulling of political acts(19)--a
course by which on the one hand the faith of the people was shaken,
and on the other hand the priests were permitted to exercise a very
injurious influence on public affairs.
Military System--
Manipular Legion--
Entrenchment of Camp--
Cavalry--
Officers--
Military Discipline--
Training and Classes of Soldiers--
Military Value of the Manipular Legion
A complete revolution occurred during this epoch in the military
system. The primitive Graeco-Italian military organization, which was
probably based, like the Homeric, on the selection of the most
distinguished and effective warriors--who ordinarily fought on
horseback--to form a special vanguard, had in the later regal period
been superseded by the -legio--the old Dorian phalanx of hoplites,
probably eight file deep.(20) This phalanx thenceforth undertook the
chief burden of the battle, while the cavalry were stationed on the
flanks, and, mounted or dismounted according to circumstances, were
chiefly employed as a reserve. From this arrangement there were
developed nearly at the same time the phalanx of -sarrissae-in
Macedonia and the manipular arrangement in Italy, the former formed by
closing and deepening, the latter by breaking up and multiplying, the
ranks, in the first instance by the division of the old -legio- of
8400 into two -legiones- of 4200 men each. The old Doric phalanx had
been wholly adapted to close combat with the sword and especially with
the spear, and only an accessory and subordinate position in the order
of battle was assigned to missile weapons. In the manipular legion the
thrusting-lance was confined to the third division, and instead of it
the first two were furnished with a new and peculiar Italian missile
weapon, the -pilum- a square or round piece of wood, four and a half
feet long, with a triangular or quadrangular iron point--which had
been originally perhaps invented for the defence of the ramparts of
the camp, but was soon transferred from the rear to the front ranks,
and was hurled by the advancing line into the ranks of the enemy at a
distance of from ten to twenty paces. At the same time the sword
acquired far greater importance than the short knife of the phalangite
could ever have had; for the volley of javelins was intended in the
first instance merely to prepare the way for an attack sword in hand.
While, moreover, the phalanx had, as if it were a single mighty lance,
to be hurled at once upon the enemy, in the new Italian legion the
smaller units, which existed also in the phalanx system but were in
the order of battle firmly and indissolubly united, were tactically
separated from each other. Not merely was the close square divided, as
we have said, into two equally strong halves, but each of these was
separated in the direction of its depth into the three divisions of
the -hastati-, - principes-, and -triarii-, each of a moderate depth
probably amounting in ordinary cases to only four files; and was
broken up along the front into ten bands (-manipuli-), in such a way
that between every two divisions and every two maniples there was left
a perceptible interval. It was a mere continuation of the same process
of individualizing, by which the collective mode of fighting was
discouraged even in the diminished tactical unit and the single combat
became prominent, as is evident from the (already mentioned) decisive
part played by hand-to-hand encounters and combats with the sword. The
system of entrenching the camp underwent also a peculiar development.
The place where the army encamped, even were it only for a single
night, was invariably provided with a regular circumvallation and as
it were converted into a fortress. Little change took place on the
other hand in the cavalry, which in the manipular legion retained the
secondary part which it had occupied by the side of the phalanx. The
system of officering the army also continued in the main unchanged;
only now over each of the two legions of the regular army there were
set just as many war-tribunes as had hitherto commanded the whole
army, and the number of staff-officers was thus doubled. It was at
this period probably that the clear line of demarcation became
established between the subaltern officers, who as common soldiers had
to gain their place at the head of the maniples by the sword and
passed by regular promotion from the lower to the higher maniples, and
the military tribunes placed at the head of whole legions--six to
each--in whose case there was no regular promotion, and for whom men
of the better class were usually taken. In this respect it must have
become a matter of importance that, while previously the subaltern
as well as the staff-officers had been uniformly nominated by the
general, after 392 some of the latter posts were filled up through
election by the burgesses.(21) Lastly, the old, fearfully strict,
military discipline remained unaltered. Still, as formerly, the
general was at liberty to behead any man serving in his camp, and to
scourge with rods the staff-officer as well as the common soldier;
nor were such punishments inflicted merely on account of common
crimes, but also when an officer had allowed himself to deviate from
the orders which he had received, or when a division had allowed
itself to be surprised or had fled from the field of battle. On the
other hand, the new military organization necessitated a far more
serious and prolonged military training than the previous phalanx
system, in which the solidity of the mass kept even the inexperienced
in their ranks. If nevertheless no special soldier-class sprang up,
but on the contrary the army still remained, as before, a burgess
army, this object was chiefly attained by abandoning the former mode
of ranking the soldiers according to property(22) and arranging them
according to length of service. The Roman recruit now entered among
the light-armed "skirmishers" (-rorarii-), who fought outside of the
line and especially with stone slings, and he advanced from this step
by step to the first and then to the second division, till at length
the soldiers of long service and experience were associated together
in the corps of the -triarii-, which was numerically the weakest but
imparted its tone and spirit to the whole army.
The excellence of this military organization, which became the primary
cause of the superior political position of the Roman community,
chiefly depended on the three great military principles of maintaining
a reserve, of combining the close and distant modes of fighting, and
of combining the offensive and the defensive. The system of a reserve
was already foreshadowed in the earlier employment of the cavalry,
but it was now completely developed by the partition of the army into
three divisions and the reservation of the flower of the veterans for
the last and decisive shock. While the Hellenic phalanx had developed
the close, and the Oriental squadrons of horse armed with bows and
light missile spears the distant, modes of fighting respectively, the
Roman combination of the heavy javelin with the sword produced results
similar, as has justly been remarked, to those attained in modern
warfare by the introduction of bayonet-muskets; the volley of javelins
prepared the way for the sword encounter, exactly in the same way as a
volley of musketry now precedes a charge with the bayonet. Lastly,
the elaborate system of encampment allowed the Romans to combine the
advantages of defensive and offensive war and to decline or give
battle according to circumstances, and in the latter case to fight
under the ramparts of their camp just as under the walls of a
fortress--the Roman, says a Roman proverb, conquers by sitting still.
Origin of the Manipular Legion
That this new military organization was in the main a Roman, or at any
rate Italian, remodelling and improvement of the old Hellenic tactics
of the phalanx, is plain. If some germs of the system of reserve and
of the individualizing of the smaller subdivisions of the army are
found to occur among the later Greek strategists, especially Xenophon,
this only shows that they felt the defectiveness of the old system,
but were not well able to obviate it. The manipular legion appears
fully developed in the war with Pyrrhus; when and under what
circumstances it arose, whether at once or gradually, can no
longer be ascertained. The first tactical system which the Romans
encountered, fundamentally different from the earlier Italo-Hellenic
system, was the Celtic sword-phalanx. It is not impossible that the
subdivision of the army and the intervals between the maniples in
front were arranged with a view to resist, as they did resist, its
first and only dangerous charge; and it accords with this hypothesis
that Marcus Furius Camillus, the most celebrated Roman general of the
Gallic epoch, is presented in various detached notices as the reformer
of the Roman military system. The further traditions associated with
the Samnite and Pyrrhic wars are neither sufficiently accredited, nor
can they with certainty be duly arranged;(23) although it is in itself
probable that the prolonged Samnite mountain warfare exercised a
lasting influence on the individual development of the Roman soldier,
and that the struggle with one of the first masters of the art of war,
belonging to the school of the great Alexander, effected an
improvement in the technical features of the Roman military system.
National Economy--
The Farmers--
Farming of Estates
In the national economy agriculture was, and continued to be, the
social and political basis both of the Roman community and of the new
Italian state. The common assembly and the army consisted of Roman
farmers; what as soldiers they had acquired by the sword, they secured
as colonists by the plough. The insolvency of the middle class of
landholders gave rise to the formidable internal crises of the third
and fourth centuries, amidst which it seemed as if the young republic
could not but be destroyed. The revival of the Latin farmer-class,
which was produced during the fifth century partly by the large
assignations of land and incorporations, partly by the fall in the
rate of interest and the increase of the Roman population, was at once
the effect and the cause of the mighty development of Roman power.
The acute soldier's eye of Pyrrhus justly discerned the cause of the
political and military ascendency of the Romans in the flourishing
condition of the Roman farms. But the rise also of husbandry on a
large scale among the Romans appears to fall within this period.
In earlier times indeed there existed landed estates of--at least
comparatively--large size; but their management was not farming on a
large scale, it was simply a husbandry of numerous small parcels.(24)
On the other hand the enactment in the law of 387, not incompatible
indeed with the earlier mode of management but yet far more
appropriate to the later, viz. that the landholder should be bound
to employ along with his slaves a proportional number of free
persons,(25) may well be regarded as the oldest trace of the later
centralized farming of estates;(26) and it deserves notice that even
here at its first emergence it essentially rests on slave-holding. How
it arose, must remain an undecided point; possibly the Carthaginian
plantations in Sicily served as models to the oldest Roman
landholders, and perhaps even the appearance of wheat in husbandry
by the side of spelt,(27) which Varro places about the period of the
decemvirs, was connected with that altered style of management. Still
less can we ascertain how far this method of husbandry had already
during this period spread; but the history of the wars with Hannibal
leaves no doubt that it cannot yet have become the rule, nor can it
have yet absorbed the Italian farmer class. Where it did come into
vogue, however, it annihilated the older clientship based on the
-precarium-; just as the modern system of large farms has been formed
in great part by the suppression of petty holdings and the conversion
of hides into farm-fields. It admits of no doubt that the restriction
of this agricultural clientship very materially contributed towards
the distress of the class of small cultivators.
Inland Intercourse in Italy
Respecting the internal intercourse of the Italians with each other
our written authorities are silent; coins alone furnish some
information. We have already mentioned(28) that in Italy, with the
exception of the Greek cities and of the Etruscan Populonia, there was
no coinage during the first three centuries of Rome, and that cattle
in the first instance, and subsequently copper by weight, served as
the medium of exchange. Within the present epoch occurred the
transition on the part of the Italians from the system of barter to
that of money; and in their money they were naturally led at first to
Greek models. The circumstances of central Italy led however to the
adoption of copper instead of silver as the metal for their coinage,
and the unit of coinage was primarily based on the previous unit of
value, the copper pound; hence they cast their coins instead of
stamping them, for no die would have sufficed for pieces so large and
heavy. Yet there seems from the first to have been a fixed ratio for
the relative value of copper and silver (250:1), and with reference to
that ratio the copper coinage seems to have been issued; so that, for
example, in Rome the large copper piece, the -as-, was equal in value
to a scruple (1/288 of a pound) of silver. It is a circumstance
historically more remarkable, that coining in Italy most probably
originated in Rome, and in fact with the decemvirs, who found in the
Solonian legislation a pattern for the regulation of their coinage;
and that from Rome it spread over a number of Latin, Etruscan,
Umbrian, and east-Italian communities, --a clear proof of the superior
position which Rome from the beginning of the fourth century held in
Italy. As all these communities subsisted side by side in formal
independence, legally the monetary standard was entirely local, and
the territory of every city had its own monetary system. Nevertheless
the standards of copper coinage in central and northern Italy may be
comprehended in three groups, within which the coins in common
intercourse seem to have been treated as homogeneous. These groups
are, first, the coins of the cities of Etruria lying north of the
Ciminian Forest and those of Umbria; secondly, the coins of Rome and
Latium; and lastly, those of the eastern seaboard. We have already
observed that the Roman coins held a certain ratio to silver by
weight; on the other hand we find those of the east coast of Italy
placed in a definite proportional relation to the silver coins which
were current from an early period in southern Italy, and the standard
of which was adopted by the Italian immigrants, such as the Bruttians,
Lucanians, and Nolans, by the Latin colonies in that quarter, such as
Cales and Suessa, and even by the Romans themselves for their
possessions in Lower Italy. Accordingly the inland traffic of Italy
must have been divided into corresponding provinces, which dealt with
one another like foreign nations.
In transmarine commerce the relations we have previously described(29)
between Sicily and Latium, Etruria and Attica, the Adriatic and
Tarentum, continued to subsist during the epoch before us or rather,
strictly speaking, belonged to it; for although facts of this class,
which as a rule are mentioned without a date, have been placed
together for the purpose of presenting a general view under the first
period, the statements made apply equally to the present. The clearest
evidence in this respect is, of course, that of the coins. As the
striking of Etruscan silver money after an Attic standard(30) and the
penetrating of Italian and especially of Latin copper into Sicily(31)
testify to the two former routes of traffic, so the equivalence, which
we have just mentioned, between the silver money of Magna Graecia and
the copper coinage of Picenum and Apulia, forms, with numerous other
indications, an evidence of the active traffic which the Greeks of
Lower Italy, the Tarentines in particular, held with the east Italian
seaboard. The commerce again, which was at an earlier period perhaps
still more active, between the Latins and the Campanian Greeks seems
to have been disturbed by the Sabellian immigration, and to have been
of no great moment during the first hundred and fifty years of the
republic. The refusal of the Samnites in Capua and Cumae to supply
the Romans with grain in the famine of 343 may be regarded as an
indication of the altered relations which subsisted between Latium and
Campania, till at the commencement of the fifth century the Roman arms
restored and gave increased impetus to the old intercourse.
Touching on details, we may be allowed to mention, as one of the few
dated facts in the history of Roman commerce, the notice drawn from
the annals of Ardea, that in 454 the first barber came from Sicily to
Ardea; and to dwell for a moment on the painted pottery which was sent
chiefly from Attica, but also from Corcyra and Sicily, to Lucania,
Campania, and Etruria, to serve there for the decoration of tombs--a
traffic, as to the circumstances of which we are accidentally better
informed than as to any other article of transmarine commerce. The
commencement of this import trade probably falls about the period of
the expulsion of the Tarquins; for the vases of the oldest style,
which are of very rare occurrence in Italy, were probably painted in
the second half of the third century of the city, while those of the
chaste style, occurring in greater numbers, belong to the first half,
those of the most finished beauty to the second half, of the fourth
century; and the immense quantities of the other vases, often marked
by showiness and size but seldom by excellence in workmanship, must be
assigned as a whole to the following century. It was from the Hellenes
undoubtedly that the Italians derived this custom of embellishing
tombs; but while the moderate means and fine discernment of the Greeks
confined the practice in their case within narrow limits, it was
stretched in Italy by barbaric opulence and barbaric extravagance
far beyond its original and proper bounds. It is a significant
circumstance, however, that in Italy this extravagance meets us only
in the lands that had a Hellenic semi-culture. Any one who can read
such records will perceive in the cemeteries of Etruria and Campania
--the mines whence our museums have been replenished--a significant
commentary on the accounts of the ancients as to the Etruscan and
Campanian semi-culture choked amidst wealth and arrogance.(32)
The homely Samnite character on the other hand remained at all times
a stranger to this foolish luxury; the absence of Greek pottery from
the tombs exhibits, quite as palpably as the absence of a Samnite
coinage, the slight development of commercial intercourse and of urban
life in this region. It is still more worthy of remark that Latium
also, although not less near to the Greeks than Etruria and Campania,
and in closest intercourse with them, almost wholly refrained from
such sepulchral decorations. It is more than probable--especially on
account of the altogether different character of the tombs in the
unique Praeneste--that in this result we have to recognize the
influence of the stern Roman morality or--if the expression be
preferred--of the rigid Roman police. Closely connected with this
subject are the already-mentioned interdicts, which the law of the
Twelve Tables fulminated against purple bier-cloths and gold ornaments
placed beside the dead; and the banishment of all silver plate,
excepting the salt-cellar and sacrificial ladle, from the Roman
household, so far at least as sumptuary laws and the terror of
censorial censure could banish it: even in architecture we shall again
encounter the same spirit of hostility to luxury whether noble or
ignoble. Although, however, in consequence of these influences Rome
probably preserved a certain outward simplicity longer than Capua and
Volsinii, her commerce and trade--on which, in fact, along with
agriculture her prosperity from the beginning rested--must not be
regarded as having been inconsiderable, or as having less sensibly
experienced the influence of her new commanding position.
Capital in Rome
No urban middle class in the proper sense of that term, no body of
independent tradesmen and merchants, was ever developed in Rome. The
cause of this was--in addition to the disproportionate centralization
of capital which occurred at an early period--mainly the employment of
slave labour. It was usual in antiquity, and was in fact a necessary
consequence of slavery, that the minor trades in towns were very
frequently carried on by slaves, whom their master established as
artisans or merchants; or by freedmen, in whose case the master not
only frequently furnished the capital, but also regularly stipulated
for a share, often the half, of the profits. Retail trading and
dealing in Rome were undoubtedly constantly on the increase; and
there are proofs that the trades which minister to the luxury of
great cities began to be concentrated in Rome--the Ficoroni casket
for instance was designed in the fifth century of the city by a
Praenestine artist and was sold to Praeneste, but was nevertheless
manufactured in Rome.(33) But as the net proceeds even of retail
business flowed for the most part into the coffers of the great
houses, no industrial and commercial middle-class arose to an extent
corresponding to that increase. As little were the great merchants and
great manufacturers marked off as a distinct class from the great
landlords. On the one hand, the latter were from ancient times(34)
simultaneously traders and capitalists, and combined in their hands
lending on security, trafficking on a great scale, the undertaking
of contracts, and the executing of works for the state. On the other
hand, from the emphatic moral importance which in the Roman
commonwealth attached to the possession of land, and from its
constituting the sole basis of political privileges--a basis which was
infringed for the first time only towards the close of this epoch
(35)--it was undoubtedly at this period already usual for the
fortunate speculator to invest part of his capital in land. It is
clear enough also from the political privileges given to freedmen
possessing freeholds,(36) that the Roman statesmen sought in this way
to diminish the dangerous class of the rich who had no land.
Development of Rome as A Great City
But while neither an opulent urban middle class nor a strictly close
body of capitalists grew up in Rome, it was constantly acquiring more
and more the character of a great city. This is plainly indicated by
the increasing number of slaves crowded together in the capital (as
attested by the very serious slave conspiracy of 335), and still more
by the increasing multitude of freedmen, which was gradually becoming
inconvenient and dangerous, as we may safely infer from the
considerable tax imposed on manumissions in 397(37) and from the
limitation of the political rights of freedmen in 450.(38) For not
only was it implied in the circumstances that the great majority of
the persons manumitted had to devote themselves to trade or commerce,
but manumission itself among the Romans was, as we have already said,
less an act of liberality than an industrial speculation, the master
often finding it more for his interest to share the profits of the
trade or commerce of the freedman than to assert his title to
the whole proceeds of the labour of his slave. The increase of
manumissions must therefore have necessarily kept pace with the
increase of the commercial and industrial activity of the Romans.
Urban Police
A similar indication of the rising importance of urban life in Rome is
presented by the great development of the urban police. To this period
probably belong in great measure the enactments under which the
four aediles divided the city into four police districts, and made
provision for the discharge of their equally important and difficult
functions--for the efficient repair of the network of drains small and
large by which Rome was pervaded, as well as of the public buildings
and places; for the proper cleansing and paving of the streets; for
obviating the nuisances of ruinous buildings, dangerous animals, or
foul smells; for the removing of waggons from the highway except
during the hours of evening and night, and generally for the keeping
open of the communication; for the uninterrupted supply of the market
of the capital with good and cheap grain; for the destruction of
unwholesome articles, and the suppression of false weights and
measures; and for the special oversight of baths, taverns, and
houses of bad fame.
Building--
Impulse Given to It
In respect to buildings the regal period, particularly the epoch of
the great conquests, probably accomplished more than the first two
centuries of the republic. Structures like the temples on the Capitol
and on the Aventine and the great Circus were probably as obnoxious to
the frugal fathers of the city as to the burgesses who gave their
task-work; and it is remarkable that perhaps the most considerable
building of the republican period before the Samnite wars, the temple
of Ceres in the Circus, was a work of Spurius Cassius (261) who in
more than one respect, sought to lead the commonwealth back to the
traditions of the kings. The governing aristocracy moreover repressed
private luxury with a rigour such as the rule of the kings, if
prolonged, would certainly not have displayed. But at length even
the senate was no longer able to resist the superior force of
circumstances. It was Appius Claudius who in his epoch-making
censorship (442) threw aside the antiquated rustic system of
parsimonious hoarding, and taught his fellow-citizens to make a worthy
use of the public resources. He began that noble system of public
works of general utility, which justifies, if anything can justify,
the military successes of Rome even from the point of view of the
welfare of the nations, and which even now in its ruins furnishes some
idea of the greatness of Rome to thousands on thousands who have never
read a page of her history. To him the Roman state was indebted for
its great military road, and the city of Rome for its first aqueduct.
Following in the steps of Claudius, the Roman senate wove around Italy
that network of roads and fortresses, the formation of which has
already been described,(39) and without which, as the history of all
military states from the Achaemenidae down to the creator of the road
over the Simplon shows, no military hegemony can subsist. Following in
the steps of Claudius, Manius Curius built from the proceeds of the
Pyrrhic spoil a second aqueduct for the capital (482); and some years
previously (464) with the gains of the Sabine war he opened up for the
Velino, at the point above Terni where it falls into the Nera, that
broader channel in which the stream still flows, with a view to drain
the beautiful valley of Rieti and thereby to gain space for a large
burgess settlement along with a modest farm for himself. Such works,
in the eyes of persons of intelligence, threw into the shade the
aimless magnificence of the Hellenic temples.
Embellishment of the City
The style of living also among the citizens now was altered. About
the time of Pyrrhus silver plate began to make its appearance on Roman
tables, and the chroniclers date the disappearance of shingle roofs in
Rome from 470.(40) The new capital of Italy gradually laid aside its
village-like aspect, and now began to embellish itself. It was not yet
indeed customary to strip the temples in conquered towns of their
ornaments for the decoration of Rome; but the beaks of the galleys of
Antium were displayed at the orator's platform in the Forum(41) and
on public festival days the gold-mounted shields brought home from
the battle-fields of Samnium were exhibited along the stalls of the
market.(42) The proceeds of fines were specially applied to the paving
of the highways in and near the city, or to the erection and
embellishment of public buildings. The wooden booths of the butchers,
which stretched along the Forum on both sides, gave way, first on the
Palatine side, then on that also which faced the Carinae, to the stone
stalls of the money-changers; so that this place became the Exchange
of Rome. Statues of the famous men of the past, of the kings, priests,
and heroes of the legendary period, and of the Grecian -hospes- who
was said to have interpreted to the decemvirs the laws of Solon;
honorary columns and monuments dedicated to the great burgomasters who
had conquered the Veientes, the Latins, the Samnites, to state envoys
who had perished while executing their instructions, to rich women
who had bequeathed their property to public objects, nay even to
celebrated Greek philosophers and heroes such as Pythagoras and
Alcibiades, were erected on the Capitol or in the Forum. Thus, now
that the Roman community had become a great power, Rome itself
became a great city.
Silver Standard of Value
Lastly Rome, as head of the Romano-Italian confederacy, not only
entered into the Hellenistic state-system, but also conformed to the
Hellenic system of moneys and coins. Up to this time the different
communities of northern and central Italy, with few exceptions, had
struck only a copper currency; the south Italian towns again
universally had a currency of silver; and there were as many legal
standards and systems of coinage as there were sovereign communities
in Italy. In 485 all these local mints were restricted to the issuing
of small coin; a general standard of currency applicable to all Italy
was introduced, and the coining of the currency was centralized in
Rome; Capua alone continued to retain its own silver coinage struck in
the name of Rome, but after a different standard. The new monetary
system was based on the legal ratio subsisting between the two metals,
as it had long been fixed.(43) The common monetary unit was the piece
of ten -asses- (which were no longer of a pound, but reduced to the
third of a pound), the -denarius-, which weighed in copper 3 1/3 and
in silver 1/72, of a Roman pound, a trifle more than the Attic
--drachma--. At first copper money still predominated in the coinage;
and it is probable that the earliest silver -denarius- was coined
chiefly for Lower Italy and for intercourse with other lands. As the
victory of the Romans over Pyrrhus and Tarentum and the Roman embassy
to Alexandria could not but engage the thoughts of the contemporary
Greek statesman, so the sagacious Greek merchant might well ponder as
he looked on these new Roman drachmae. Their flat, unartistic, and
monotonous stamping appeared poor and insignificant by the side of
the marvellously beautiful contemporary coins of Pyrrhus and the
Siceliots; nevertheless they were by no means, like the barbarian
coins of antiquity, slavishly imitated and unequal in weight and
alloy, but, on the contrary, worthy from the first by their
independent and conscientious execution to be placed on a level
with any Greek coin.
Extension of the Latin Nationality
Thus, when the eye turns from the development of constitutions and
from the national struggles for dominion and for freedom which
agitated Italy, and Rome in particular, from the banishment of the
Tarquinian house to the subjugation of the Samnites and the Italian
Greeks, and rests on those calmer spheres of human existence which
history nevertheless rules and pervades, it everywhere encounters the
reflex influence of the great events, by which the Roman burgesses
burst the bonds of patrician sway, and the rich variety of the
national cultures of Italy gradually perished to enrich a single
people. While the historian may not attempt to follow out the great
course of events into the infinite multiplicity of individual detail,
he does not overstep his province when, laying hold of detached
fragments of scattered tradition, he indicates the most important
changes which during this epoch took place in the national life of
Italy. That in such an inquiry the life of Rome becomes still more
prominent than in the earlier epoch, is not merely the result of the
accidental blanks of our tradition; it was an essential consequence
of the change in the political position of Rome, that the Latin
nationality should more and more cast the other nationalities of Italy
into the shade. We have already pointed to the fact, that at this
epoch the neighbouring lands--southern Etruria, Sabina, the land of
the Volscians, --began to become Romanized, as is attested by the
almost total absence of monuments of the old native dialects, and by
the occurrence of very ancient Roman inscriptions in those regions;
the admission of the Sabines to full burgess-rights at the end of this
period(44) betokens that the Latinizing of Central Italy was already
at that time the conscious aim of Roman policy. The numerous
individual assignations and colonial establishments scattered
throughout Italy were, not only in a military but also in a linguistic
and national point of view, the advanced posts of the Latin stock. The
Latinizing of the Italians was scarcely at this time generally aimed
at; on the contrary, the Roman senate seems to have intentionally
upheld the distinction between the Latin and the other nationalities,
and they did not yet, for example, allow the introduction of Latin
into official use among the half-burgess communities of Campania. The
force of circumstances, however, is stronger than even the strongest
government: the language and customs of the Latin people immediately
shared its predominance in Italy, and already began to undermine
the other Italian nationalities.
Progress of Hellenism in Italy--
Adoption of Greek Habits at the Table
These nationalities were at the same time assailed from another
quarter and by an ascendency resting on another basis--by Hellenism.
This was the period when Hellenism began to become conscious of its
intellectual superiority to the other nations, and to diffuse itself
on every side. Italy did not remain unaffected by it. The most
remarkable phenomenon of this sort is presented by Apulia, which after
the fifth century of Rome gradually laid aside its barbarian dialect
and silently became Hellenized. This change was brought about, as in
Macedonia and Epirus, not by colonization, but by civilization, which
seems to have gone hand in hand with the land commerce of Tarentum; at
least that hypothesis is favoured by the facts, that the districts
of the Poediculi and Daunii who were on friendly terms with the
Tarentines carried out their Hellenization more completely than the
Sallentines who lived nearer to Tarentum but were constantly at feud
with it, and that the towns that were soonest Graecized, such as Arpi,
were not situated on the coast. The stronger influence exerted by
Hellenism over Apulia than over any other Italian region is explained
partly by its position, partly by the slight development of any
national culture of its own, and partly also perhaps by its
nationality presenting a character less alien to the Greek stock than
that of the rest of Italy.(45) We have already called attention(46) to
the fact that the southern Sabellian stocks, although at the outset in
concert with the tyrants of Syracuse they crushed and destroyed the
Hellenism of Magna Graecia, were at the same time affected by contact
and mingling with the Greeks, so that some of them, such as the
Bruttians and Nolans, adopted the Greek language by the side of their
native tongue, and others, such as the Lucanians and a part of the
Campanians, adopted at least Greek writing and Greek manners. Etruria
likewise showed tendencies towards a kindred development in the
remarkable vases which have been discovered(47) belonging to this
period, rivalling those of Campania and Lucania; and though Latium and
Samnium remained more strangers to Hellenism, there were not wanting
there also traces of an incipient and ever-growing influence of Greek
culture. In all branches of the development of Rome during this epoch,
in legislation and coinage, in religion, in the formation of national
legend, we encounter traces of the Greeks; and from the commencement
of the fifth century in particular, in other words, after the conquest
of Campania, the Greek influence on Roman life appears rapidly and
constantly on the increase. In the fourth century occurred the
erection of the "-Graecostasis-"--remarkable in the very form of the
word--a platform in the Roman Forum for eminent Greek strangers and
primarily for the Massiliots.(48) In the following century the annals
began to exhibit Romans of quality with Greek surnames, such as
Philipus or in Roman form Pilipus, Philo, Sophus, Hypsaeus. Greek
customs gained ground: such as the non-Italian practice of placing
inscriptions in honour of the dead on the tomb--of which the epitaph
of Lucius Scipio (consul in 456) is the oldest example known to us;
the fashion, also foreign to the Italians, of erecting without any
decree of the state honorary monuments to ancestors in public places
--a system begun by the great innovator Appius Claudius, when he
caused bronze shields with images and eulogies of his ancestors to be
suspended in the new temple of Bellona (442); the distribution of
branches of palms to the competitors, introduced at the Roman national
festival in 461; above all, the Greek manners and habits at table.
The custom not of sitting as formerly on benches, but of reclining
on sofas, at table; the postponement of the chief meal from noon to
between two and three o'clock in the afternoon according to our mode
of reckoning; the institution of masters of the revels at banquets,
who were appointed from among the guests present, generally by
throwing the dice, and who then prescribed to the company what, how,
and when they should drink; the table-chants sung in succession by the
guests, which, however, in Rome were not -scolia-, but lays in praise
of ancestors--all these were not primitive customs in Rome, but were
borrowed from the Greeks at a very early period, for in Cato's time
these usages were already common and had in fact partly fallen into
disuse again. We must therefore place their introduction in this
period at the latest. A characteristic feature also was the erection
of statues to "the wisest and the bravest Greek" in the Roman Forum,
which took place by command of the Pythian Apollo during the Samnite
wars. The selection fell--evidently under Sicilian or Campanian
influence--on Pythagoras and Alcibiades, the saviour and the Hannibal
of the western Hellenes. The extent to which an acquaintance with
Greek was already diffused in the fifth century among Romans of
quality is shown by the embassies of the Romans to Tarentum--when
their mouthpiece spoke, if not in the purest Greek, at any rate
without an interpreter--and of Cineas to Rome. It scarcely admits
of a doubt that from the fifth century the young Romans who devoted
themselves to state affairs universally acquired a knowledge of what
was then the general language of the world and of diplomacy.
Thus in the intellectual sphere Hellenism made advances quite as
incessant as the efforts of the Romans to subject the earth to their
sway; and the secondary nationalities, such as the Samnite, Celt, and
Etruscan, hard pressed on both sides, were ever losing their inward
vigour as well as narrowing their outward bounds.
Rome and the Romans of This Epoch
When the two great nations, both arrived at the height of their
development, began to mingle in hostile or in friendly contact, their
antagonism of character was at the same time prominently and fully
brought out--the total want of individuality in the Italian and
especially in the Roman character, as contrasted with the boundless
variety, lineal, local, and personal, of Hellenism. There was no epoch
of mightier vigour in the history of Rome than the epoch from the
institution of the republic to the subjugation of Italy. That epoch
laid the foundations of the commonwealth both within and without; it
created a united Italy; it gave birth to the traditional groundwork of
the national law and of the national history; it originated the
-pilum- and the maniple, the construction of roads and of aqueducts,
the farming of estates and the monetary system; it moulded the
she-wolf of the Capitol and designed the Ficoroni casket. But the
individuals, who contributed the several stones to this gigantic
structure and cemented them together, have disappeared without leaving
a trace, and the nations of Italy did not merge into that of Rome more
completely than the single Roman burgess merged in the Roman
community. As the grave closes alike over all whether important or
insignificant, so in the roll of the Roman burgomasters the empty
scion of nobility stands undistinguishable by the side of the great
statesman. Of the few records that have reached us from this period
none is more venerable, and none at the same time more characteristic,
than the epitaph of Lucius Cornelius Scipio, who was consul in 456,
and three years afterwards took part in the decisive battle of
Sentinum.(49) On the beautiful sarcophagus, in noble Doric style,
which eighty years ago still enclosed the dust of the conqueror of the
Samnites, the following sentence is inscribed:--
-Cornelius Lucius--Scipio Barbatus,
Gnaivod patre prognatus, --fortis vir sapiensque,
Quoius forma virtu--tei parisuma fuit,
Consol censor aidilis--quei fuit apud vos,
Taurasia Cisauna--Samnio cepit,
Subigit omne Loucanum--opsidesque abdoucit.-
_-'_-'_-'_||-'_-'_-'_
Innumerable others who had been at the head of the Roman commonwealth,
as well as this Roman statesman and warrior, might be commemorated as
having been of noble birth and of manly beauty, valiant and wise; but
there was no more to record regarding them. It is doubtless not the
mere fault of tradition that no one of these Cornelii, Fabii, Papirii,
or whatever they were called, confronts us in a distinct individual
figure. The senator was supposed to be no worse and no better than
other senators, nor at all to differ from them. It was not necessary
and not desirable that any burgess should surpass the rest, whether by
showy silver plate and Hellenic culture, or by uncommon wisdom and
excellence. Excesses of the former kind were punished by the censor,
and for the latter the constitution gave no scope. The Rome of this
period belonged to no individual; it was necessary for all the
burgesses to be alike, that each of them might be like a king.
Appius Claudius
No doubt, even now Hellenic individual development asserted its claims
by the side of that levelling system; and the genius and force which
it exhibited bear, no less than the tendency to which it opposed
itself, the full stamp of that great age. We can name but a single man
in connection with it; but he was, as it were, the incarnation of the
idea of progress. Appius Claudius (censor 442; consul 447, 458), the
great-great-grandson of the decemvir, was a man of the old nobility
and proud of the long line of his ancestors; but yet it was he who
set aside the restriction which confined the full franchise of the
state to the freeholders,(50) and who broke up the old system of
finance.(51) From Appius Claudius date not only the Roman aqueducts
and highways, but also Roman jurisprudence, eloquence, poetry, and
grammar. The publication of a table of the -legis actiones-, speeches
committed to writing and Pythagorean sentences, and even innovations
in orthography, are attributed to him. We may not on this account call
him absolutely a democrat or include him in that opposition party
which found its champion in Manius Curius;(52) in him on the contrary
the spirit of the ancient and modern patrician kings predominated
--the spirit of the Tarquins and the Caesars, between whom he forms
a connecting link in that five hundred years' interregnum of
extraordinary deeds and ordinary men. So long as Appius Claudius took
an active part in public life, in his official conduct as well as his
general carriage he disregarded laws and customs on all hands with the
hardihood and sauciness of an Athenian; till, after having long
retired from the political stage, the blind old man, returning as it
were from the tomb at the decisive Moment, overcame king Pyrrhus in
the senate, and first formally and solemnly proclaimed the complete
sovereignty of Rome over Italy.(53) But the gifted man came too early
or too late; the gods made him blind on account of his untimely
wisdom. It was not individual genius that ruled in Rome and through
Rome in Italy; it was the one immoveable idea of a policy--propagated
from generation to generation in the senate--with the leading maxims
of which the sons of the senators became already imbued, when in the
company of their fathers they went to the council and there at the
door of the hall listened to the wisdom of the men whose seats they
were destined at some future time to fill. Immense successes were
thus obtained at an immense price; for Nike too is followed by her
Nemesis. In the Roman commonwealth there was no special dependence
on any one man, either on soldier or on general, and under the
rigid discipline of its moral police all the idiosyncrasies of human
character were extinguished. Rome reached a greatness such as no other
state of antiquity attained; but she dearly purchased her greatness at
the sacrifice of the graceful variety, of the easy abandon and of
the inward freedom of Hellenic life.
Notes for Book II Chapter VIII
1. I. XI. Punishment of Offenses against Order
2. II. I. Right of Appeal
3. II. III. The Senate, Its Composition
4. II. I. Law and Edict
5. II. III. Censorship, the Magistrates, Partition and Weakening of
the Consular Powers
6. II. III. Laws Imposing Taxes
7. I. VI. Class of --Metoeci-- Subsisting by the Side of the Community
8. I. V. The Housefather and His Household, note
9. II. III. Praetorship
10. II. III. Praetorship, II. V. Revision of the Municipal
Constitutions, Police Judges
11. The view formerly adopted, that these -tres viri- belonged to the
earliest period, is erroneous, for colleges of magistrates with odd
numbers are foreign to the oldest state-arrangements (Chronol. p. 15,
note 12). Probably the well-accredited account, that they were first
nominated in 465 (Liv. Ep. 11), should simply be retained, and the
otherwise suspicious inference of the falsifier Licinius Macer (in
Liv. vii. 46), which makes mention of them before 450, should be
simply rejected. At first undoubtedly the -tres viri- were nominated
by the superior magistrates, as was the case with most of the later
-magistratus minores-; the Papirian -plebiscitum-, which transferred
the nomination of them to the community (Festus, -v. sacramentum-,
p. 344, Niall.), was at any rate not issued till after the institution
of the office of -praetor peregrinus-, or at the earliest towards the
middle of the sixth century, for it names the praetor -qui inter jus
cives ius dicit-.
12. II. VII. Subject Communities
13. This inference is suggested by what Livy says (ix. 20) as to the
reorganization of the colony of Antium twenty years after it was
founded; and it is self-evident that, while the Romans might very
well impose on the inhabitant of Ostia the duty of settling all his
lawsuits in Rome, the same course could not be followed with townships
like Antium and Sena.
14. II. I. Restrictions on the Delegation of Powers
15. People are in the habit of praising the Romans as a nation
specially privileged in respect to jurisprudence, and of gazing with
wonder on their admirable law as a mystical gift of heaven; presumably
by way of specially excusing themselves for the worthlessness of
their own legal system. A glance at the singularly fluctuating and
undeveloped criminal law of the Romans might show the untenableness
of ideas so confused even to those who may think the proposition too
simple, that a sound people has a sound law, and a morbid people an
unsound. Apart from the more general political conditions on which
jurisprudence also, and indeed jurisprudence especially, depends, the
causes of the excellence of the Roman civil law lie mainly in two
features: first, that the plaintiff and defendant were specially
obliged to explain and embody in due and binding form the grounds of
the demand and of the objection to comply with it; and secondly, that
the Romans appointed a permanent machinery for the edictal development
of their law, and associated it immediately with practice. By the
former the Romans precluded the pettifogging practices of advocates,
by the latter they obviated incapable law-making, so far as such
things can be prevented at all; and by means of both in conjunction
they satisfied, as far as is possible, the two conflicting
requirements, that law shall constantly be fixed, and that it
shall constantly be in accordance with the spirit of the age.
16. II. II. Relation of the Tribune to the Consul
17. V. V. The Hegemony of Rome over Latium Shaken and Re-established
18. Venus probably first appears in the later sense as Aphrodite on
occasion of the dedication of the temple consecrated in this year
(Liv. x. 31; Becker, Topographie, p. 472).
19. II. III. Intrigues of the Nobility
20. I. VI. Organization of the Army
21. II. III. Increasing Powers of the Burgesses
22. I. VI. the Five Classes
23. According to Roman tradition the Romans originally carried
quadrangular shields, after which they borrowed from the Etruscans the
round hoplite shield (-clupeus-, --aspis--), and from the Samnites the
later square shield (-scutum-, --thureos--), and the javelin (-veru-)
(Diodor. Vat. Fr. p. 54; Sallust, Cat. 51, 38; Virgil, Aen. vii. 665;
Festus, Ep. v. Samnites, p. 327, Mull.; and the authorities cited in
Marquardt, Handb. iii. 2, 241). But it may be regarded as certain that
the hoplite shield or, in other words, the tactics of the Doric
phalanx were imitated not from the Etruscans, but directly from the
Hellenes, As to the -scutum-, that large, cylindrical, convex leather
shield must certainly have taken the place of the flat copper
-clupeus-, when the phalanx was broken up into maniples; but the
undoubted derivation of the word from the Greek casts suspicion on the
derivation of the thing itself from the Samnites. From the Greeks the
Romans derived also the sling (-funda- from --sphendone--). (like
-fides- from --sphion--),(I. XV. Earliest Hellenic Influences).
The pilum was considered by the ancients as quite a Roman invention.
24. I. XIII. Landed Proprietors
25. II. III. Combination of the Plebian Aristocracy and the Farmers
against the Nobility
26. Varro (De R. R. i. 2, 9) evidently conceives the author of the
Licinian agrarian law as fanning in person his extensive lands;
although, we may add, the story may easily have been invented to
explain the cognomen (-Stolo-).
27. I. XIII. System of Joint Cultivation
28. I. XIII. Inland Commerce of the Italians
29. I. XIII. Commerce in Latium Passive, in Etruria Active
30. I. XIII. Etrusco-Attic, and Latino-Sicilian Commerce
31. I. XIII. Etrusco-Attic, and Latino-Sicilian Commerce
32. II. IV. Etruria at Peace and on the Decline, II. V. Campanian
Hellenism
33. The conjecture that Novius Flautius, the artist who worked at
this casket for Dindia Macolnia, in Rome, may have been a Campanian,
is refuted by the old Praenestine tomb-stones recently discovered,
on which, among other Macolnii and Plautii, there occurs also a Lucius
Magulnius, son of Haulms (L. Magolnio Pla. f.).
34. I. XIII. Etrusco-Attic, and Latino-Sicilian Commerce, II. II.
Rising Power of the Capitalists
35. II. III. The Burgess Body
36. II. III. The Burgess Body
37. II. III. Laws Imposing Taxes
38. II. III. The Burgess Body
39. II. VII. Construction of New Fortresses and Roads
40. We have already mentioned the censorial stigma attached to Publius
Cornelius Rufinus (consul 464, 477) for his silver plate.(II. VIII.
Police) The strange statement of Fabius (in Strabo, v. p. 228) that
the Romans first became given to luxury (--aisthesthae tou plouton--)
after the conquest of the Sabines, is evidently only a historical
version of the same matter; for the conquest of the Sabines falls in
the first consulate of Rufinus.
41. II. V. Colonizations in the Land of the Volsci
42. II. VI. Last Campaigns in Samnium
43. II. VIII. Inland Intercourse in Italy
44. I. III. Localities of the Oldest Cantons
45. I. II. Iapygians
46. II. V. Campanian Hellenism
47. II. VIII. Transmarine Commerce
48. II. VII. The Full Roman Franchise
49. II. VI. Battle of Sentinum
50. II. III. The Burgess-Body
51. II. VIII. Impulse Given to It
52. II. III. New Opposition
53. II. VII. Attempts at Peace
CHAPTER IX
Art and Science
The Roman National Festival--
The Roman Stage
The growth of art, and of poetic art especially, in antiquity was
intimately associated with the development of national festivals.
The thanksgiving-festival of the Roman community, which had been
already organized in the previous period essentially under Greek
influence and in the first instance as an extraordinary festival,
--the -ludi maximi- or -Romani-,(1) --acquired during the present
epoch a longer duration and greater variety in the amusements.
Originally limited to one day, the festival was prolonged by an
additional day after the happy termination of each of the three
great revolutions of 245, 260, and 387, and thus at the close of
this period it had already a duration of four days.(2)
A still more important circumstance was, that, probably on the
institution of the curule aedileship (387) which was from the first
entrusted with the preparation and oversight of the festival,(3) it
lost its extraordinary character and its reference to a special vow
made by the general, and took its place in the series of the ordinary
annually recurring festivals as the first of all. Nevertheless the
government adhered to the practice of allowing the spectacle proper
--namely the chariot-race, which was the principal performance--to
take place not more than once at the close of the festival. On the
other days the multitude were probably left mainly to furnish
amusement for themselves, although musicians, dancers, rope-walkers,
jugglers, jesters and such like would not fail to make their
appearance on the occasion, whether hired or not But about the year
390 an important change occurred, which must have stood in connection
with the fixing and prolongation of the festival, that took place
perhaps about the same time. A scaffolding of boards was erected at
the expense of the state in the Circus for the first three days, and
suitable representations were provided on it for the entertainment of
the multitude. That matters might not be carried too far however in
this way, a fixed sum of 200,000 -asses- (2055 pounds) once for all
appropriated from the exchequer for the expenses of the festival; and
the sum was not increased up to the period of the Punic wars. The
aediles, who had to expend this sum, were obliged to defray any
additional amount out of their own pockets; and it is not probable
that they at this time contributed often or considerably from their
own resources. That the new stage was generally under Greek influence,
is proved by its very name (-scaena-, --skene--). It was no doubt at
first designed merely for musicians and buffoons of all sorts, amongst
whom the dancers to the flute, particularly those then so celebrated
from Etruria, were probably the most distinguished; but a public stage
had at any rate now arisen in Rome and it soon became open also to
the Roman poets.
Ballad Singers, -Satura- --
Censure of Art
There was no want of such poets in Latium. Latin "strolling minstrels"
or "ballad-singers" (-grassatores-, -spatiatores-) went from town to
town and from house to house, and recited their chants (-saturae-(4)),
gesticulating and dancing to the accompaniment of the flute.
The measure was of course the only one that then existed, the
so-called Saturnian.(5) No distinct plot lay at the basis of the
chants, and as little do they appear to have been in the form of
dialogue. We must conceive of them as resembling those monotonous
--sometimes improvised, sometimes recited--ballads and -tarantelle-,
such as one may still hear in the Roman hostelries. Songs of this sort
accordingly early came upon the public stage, and certainly formed the
first nucleus of the Roman theatre. But not only were these beginnings
of the drama in Rome, as everywhere, modest and humble; they were, in
a remarkable manner, accounted from the very outset disreputable.
The Twelve Tables denounced evil and worthless song-singing, imposing
severe penalties not only upon incantations but even on lampoons
composed against a fellow-citizen or recited before his door, and
forbidding the employment of wailing-women at funerals. But far more
severely, than by such legal restrictions, the incipient exercise of
art was affected by the moral anathema, which was denounced against
these frivolous and paid trades by the narrowminded earnestness of
the Roman character. "The trade of a poet," says Cato, "in former
times was not respected; if any one occupied himself with it or was a
hanger-on at banquets, he was called an idler." But now any one who
practised dancing, music, or ballad-singing for money was visited
with a double stigma, in consequence of the more and more confirmed
disapproval of gaining a livelihood by services rendered for
remuneration. While accordingly the taking part in the masked
farces with stereotyped characters, that formed the usual native
amusement,(6) was looked upon as an innocent youthful frolic, the
appearing on a public stage for money and without a mask was
considered as directly infamous, and the singer and poet were in
this respect placed quite on a level with the rope-dancer and the
harlequin. Persons of this stamp were regularly pronounced by the
censors(7) incapable of serving in the burgess-army and of voting
in the burgess-assembly. Moreover, not only was the direction of the
stage regarded as pertaining to the province of the city police--a
fact significant enough even in itself--but the police was probably,
even at this period, invested with arbitrary powers of an
extraordinary character against professional stage-artists. Not only
did the police magistrates sit in judgment on the performance after
its conclusion--on which occasion wine flowed as copiously for those
who had acquitted themselves well, as stripes fell to the lot of the
bungler--but all the urban magistrates were legally entitled to
inflict bodily chastisement and imprisonment on any actor at any
time and at any place. The necessary effect of this was that dancing,
music, and poetry, at least so far as they appeared on the public
stage, fell into the hands of the lowest classes of the Roman
burgesses, and especially into those of foreigners; and while at
this period poetry still played altogether too insignificant a part
to engage the attention of foreign artists, the statement on the other
hand, that in Rome all the music, sacred and profane, was essentially
Etruscan, and consequently the ancient Latin art of the flute,
which was evidently at one time held in high esteem,(8) had been
supplanted by foreign music, may be regarded as already applicable
to this period.
There is no mention of any poetical literature. Neither the masked
plays nor the recitations of the stage can have had in the proper
sense fixed texts; on the contrary, they were ordinarily improvised
by the performers themselves as circumstances required. Of works
composed at this period posterity could point to nothing but a sort
of Roman "Works and Days"--counsels of a farmer to his son,(9) and
the already-mentioned Pythagorean poems of Appius Claudius(10) the
first commencement of Roman poetry after the Hellenic type. Nothing
of the poems of this epoch has survived but one or two epitaphs
in Saturnian measure.(11)
Roman Historical Composition
Along with the rudiments of the Roman drama, the rudiments of Roman
historical composition belong to this period; both as regards the
contemporary recording of remarkable events, and as regards the
conventional settlement of the early history of the Roman community.
Registers of Magistrates
The writing of contemporary history was associated with the register
of the magistrates. The register reaching farthest back, which was
accessible to the later Roman inquirers and is still indirectly
accessible to us, seems to have been derived from the archives of the
temple of the Capitoline Jupiter; for it records the names of the
annual presidents of the community onward from the consul Marcus
Horatius, who consecrated that temple on the 13th Sept. in his year of
office, and it also notices the vow which was made on occasion of a
severe pestilence under the consuls Publius Servilius and Lucius
Aebutius (according to the reckoning now current, 291), that
thenceforward a nail should be driven every hundredth year into the
wall of the Capitoline temple. Subsequently it was the state officials
who were learned in measuring and in writing, or in other words, the
pontifices, that kept an official record of the names of the annual
chief magistrates, and thus combined an annual, with the earlier
monthly, calendar. Both these calendars were afterwards comprehended
under the name of Fasti--which strictly belonged only to the list of
court-days. This arrangement was probably adopted not long after the
abolition of the monarchy; for in fact an official record of the
annual magistrates was of urgent practical necessity for the purpose
of authenticating the order of succession of official documents. But,
if there was an official register of the consuls so old, it probably
perished in the Gallic conflagration (364); and the list of the
pontifical college was subsequently completed from the Capitoline
register which was not affected by that catastrophe, so far as this
latter reached back. That the list of presidents which we now have
--although in collateral matters, and especially in genealogical
statements, it has been supplemented at pleasure from the family
pedigrees of the nobility--is in substance based from the beginning
on contemporary and credible records, admits of no doubt. But it
reproduces the calendar years only imperfectly and approximately: for
the consuls did not enter on office with the new year, or even on a
definite day fixed once for all; on the contrary from various causes
the day of entering on office was fluctuating, and the -interregna-
that frequently occurred between two consulates were entirely omitted
in the reckoning by official years. Accordingly, if the calendar years
were to be reckoned by this list of consuls, it was necessary to note
the days of entering on and of demitting office in the case of each
pair, along with such -interregna- as occurred; and this too may have
been early done. But besides this, the list of the annual magistrates
was adjusted to the list of calendar years in such a way that a pair
of magistrates were by accommodation assigned to each calendar year,
and, where the list did not suffice, intercalary years were inserted,
which are denoted in the later (Varronian) table by the figures 379,
383, 421, 430, 445, 453. From 291 u. c. (463 B. C.) the Roman list
demonstrably coincides, not indeed in detail but yet on the whole,
with the Roman calendar, and is thus chronologically certain, so far
as the defectiveness of the calendar itself allows. The 47 years
preceding that date cannot be checked, but must likewise be at least
in the main correct.(12) Whatever lies beyond 245 remains,
chronologically, in oblivion.
Capitoline Era
No era was formed for ordinary use; but in ritual matters they
reckoned from the year of the consecration of the temple of the
Capitoline Jupiter, from which the list of magistrates also started.
Annals
The idea naturally suggested itself that, along with the names of
the magistrates, the most important events occurring under their
magistracy might be noted; and from such notices appended to the
catalogue of magistrates the Roman annals arose, just as the
chronicles of the middle ages arose out of the memoranda marginally
appended to the table of Easter. But it was not until a late period
that the pontifices formed the scheme of a formal chronicle (-liber
annalis-), which should steadily year by year record the names of all
the magistrates and the remarkable events. Before the eclipse of the
sun noticed under the 5th of June 351, by which is probably meant that
of the 20th June 354, no solar eclipse was found recorded from
observation in the later chronicle of the city: its statements as to
the numbers of the census only begin to sound credible after the
beginning of the fifth century,(13) the cases of fines brought before
the people, and the prodigies expiated on behalf of the community,
appear to have been regularly introduced into the annals only after
the second half of the fifth century began. To all appearance the
institution of an organized book of annals, and--what was certainly
associated with it--the revision (which we have just explained) of the
earlier list of magistrates so as to make it a year-calendar by the
insertion, where chronologically necessary, of intercalary years, took
place in the first half of the fifth century. But even after it became
a practically recognized duty of the -pontifex maximus- to record year
after year campaigns and colonizations, pestilences and famines,
eclipses and portents, the deaths of priests and other men of note,
the new decrees of the people, and the results of the census, and
to deposit these records in his official residence for permanent
preservation and for any one's inspection, these records were still
far removed from the character of real historical writings. How scanty
the contemporary record still was at the close of this period and how
ample room is left for the caprice of subsequent annalists, is shown
with incisive clearness by a comparison of the accounts as to the
campaign of 456 in the annals and in the epitaph of the consul
Scipio.(14) The later historians were evidently unable to construct a
readable and in some measure connected narrative out of these notices
from the book of annals; and we should have difficulty, even if the
book of annals still lay before us with its original contents, in
writing from it in duly connected sequence the history of the times.
Such chronicles, however, did not exist merely in Rome; every Latin
city possessed its annals as well as its pontifices, as is clear from
isolated notices relative to Ardea for instance, Ameria, and Interamna
on the Nar; and from the collective mass of these city-chronicles
some result might perhaps have been attained similar to what has
been accomplished for the earlier middle ages by the comparison of
different monastic chronicles. Unfortunately the Romans in later times
preferred to supply the defect by Hellenic or Hellenizing falsehoods.
Family Pedigrees
Besides these official arrangements, meagrely planned and uncertainly
handled, for commemorating past times and past events, there can
scarcely have existed at this epoch any other records immediately
serviceable for Roman history. Of private chronicles we find no trace.
The leading houses, however, were careful to draw up genealogical
tables, so important in a legal point of view, and to have the family
pedigree painted for a perpetual memorial on the walls of the
entrance-hall. These lists, which at least named the magistracies held
by the family, not only furnished a basis for family tradition, but
doubtless at an early period had biographical notices attached to
them. The memorial orations, which in Rome could not be omitted at the
funeral of any person of quality, and were ordinarily pronounced by
the nearest relative of the deceased, consisted essentially not merely
in an enumeration of the virtues and excellencies of the dead, but
also in a recital of the deeds and virtues of his ancestors; and so
they were doubtless, even in the earliest times, transmitted
traditionally from one generation to another. Many a valuable
notice may by this means have been preserved; but many a daring
perversion and falsification also may have been in this way
introduced into tradition.
Roman Early History of Rome
But as the first steps towards writing real history belonged to
this period, to it belonged also the first attempts to record, and
conventionally distort, the primitive history of Rome. The sources
whence it was formed were of course the same as they are everywhere.
Isolated names like those of the kings Numa, Ancus, Tullus, to whom
the clan-names were probably only assigned subsequently, and isolated
facts, such as the conquest of the Latins by king Tarquinius and the
expulsion of the Tarquinian royal house, may have continued to live in
true general tradition orally transmitted. Further materials were
furnished by the traditions of the patrician clans, such as the
various tales that relate to the Fabii. Other tales gave a symbolic
and historic shape to primitive national institutions, especially
setting forth with great vividness the origin of rules of law. The
sacredness of the walls was thus illustrated in the tale of the death
of Remus, the abolition of blood-revenge in the tale of the end of
king Tatius(15), the necessity of the arrangement as to the -pons
sublicius- in the legend of Horatius Cocles,(15) the origin of the
-provocatio- in the beautiful tale of the Horatii and Curiatii, the
origin of manumission and of the burgess-rights of freedmen in the
tale of the Tarquinian conspiracy and the slave Vindicius. To the same
class belongs the history of the foundation of the city itself, which
was designed to connect the origin of Rome with Latium and with Alba,
the general metropolis of the Latins. Historical glosses were annexed
to the surnames of distinguished Romans; that of Publius Valerius the
"servant of the people" (-Poplicola-), for instance, gathered around
it a whole group of such anecdotes. Above all, the sacred fig-tree and
other spots and notable objects in the city were associated with a
great multitude of sextons' tales of the same nature as those out of
which, upwards of a thousand years afterwards, there grew up on the
same ground the Mirabilia Urbis. Some attempts to link together these
different tales--the adjustment of the series of the seven kings, the
setting down of the duration of the monarchy at 240 years in all,
which was undoubtedly based on a calculation of the length of
generations,(16) and even the commencement of an official record of
these assumed facts--probably took place already in this epoch. The
outlines of the narrative, and in particular its quasi-chronology,
make their appearance in the later tradition so unalterably fixed,
that for that very reason the fixing of them must be placed not in,
but previous to, the literary epoch of Rome. If a bronze casting of
the twins Romulus and Remus sucking the teats of the she-wolf was
already placed beside the sacred fig-tree in 458, the Romans who
subdued Latium and Samnium must have heard the history of the origin
of their ancestral city in a form not greatly differing from what
we read in Livy. Even the Aborigines--i. e. "those from the very
beginning"--that simple rudimental form of historical speculation as
to the Latin race--are met with about 465 in the Sicilian author
Callias. It is of the very nature of a chronicle that it should attach
prehistoric speculation to history and endeavour to go back, if not
to the origin of heaven and earth, at least to the origin of the
community; and there is express testimony that the table of the
pontifices specified the year of the foundation of Rome. Accordingly
it may be assumed that, when the pontifical college in the first half
of the fifth century proceeded to substitute for the former scanty
records--ordinarily, doubtless, confined to the names of the
magistrates--the scheme of a formal yearly chronicle, it also added
what was wanting at the beginning, the history of the kings of Rome
and of their fall, and, by placing the institution of the republic on
the day of the consecration of the Capitoline temple, the 13th of
Sept. 245, furnished a semblance of connection between the dateless
and the annalistic narrative. That in this earliest record of the
origin of Rome the hand of Hellenism was at work, can scarcely
be doubted. The speculations as to the primitive and subsequent
population, as to the priority of pastoral life over agriculture, and
the transformation of the man Romulus into the god Quirinus,(17) have
quite a Greek aspect, and even the obscuring of the genuinely national
forms of the pious Numa and the wise Egeria by the admixture of alien
elements of Pythagorean primitive wisdom appears by no means to be
one of the most recent ingredients in the Roman prehistoric annals.
The pedigrees of the noble clans were completed in a manner analogous
to these -origines- of the community, and were, in the favourite style
of heraldry, universally traced back to illustrious ancestors. The
Aemilii, for instance, Calpurnii, Pinarii, and Pomponii professed to
be descended from the four sons of Numa, Mamercus, Calpus, Pinus, and
Pompo; and the Aemilii, yet further, from Mamercus, the son of
Pythagoras, who was named the "winning speaker" (--aimulos--)
But, notwithstanding the Hellenic reminiscences that are everywhere
apparent, these prehistoric annals of the community and of the leading
houses may be designated at least relatively as national, partly
because they originated in Rome, partly because they tended primarily
to form links of connection not between Rome and Greece, but between
Rome and Latium.
Hellenic Early History of Rome
It was Hellenic story and fiction that undertook the task of
connecting Rome and Greece. Hellenic legend exhibits throughout an
endeavour to keep pace with the gradual extension of geographical
knowledge, and to form a dramatized geography by the aid of its
numerous stories of voyagers and emigrants. In this, however, it
seldom follows a simple course. An account like that of the earliest
Greek historical work which mentions Rome, the "Sicilian History" of
Antiochus of Syracuse (which ended in 330)--that a man named Sikelos
had migrated from Rome to Italia, that is, to the Bruttian peninsula
--such an account, simply giving a historical form to the family
affinity between the Romans, Siculi, and Bruttians, and free from all
Hellenizing colouring, is a rare phenomenon. Greek legend as a whole
is pervaded--and the more so, the later its rise--by a tendency to
represent the whole barbarian world as having either issued from the
Greeks or having been subdued by them; and it early in this sense spun
its threads also around the west. For Italy the legends of Herakles
and of the Argonauts were of less importance--although Hecataeus
(after 257) is already acquainted with the Pillars of Herakles, and
carries the Argo from the Black Sea into the Atlantic Ocean, from the
latter into the Nile, and thus back to the Mediterranean--than were
the homeward voyages connected with the fall of Ilion. With the first
dawn of information as to Italy Diomedes begins to wander in the
Adriatic, and Odysseus in the Tyrrhene Sea;(18) as indeed the
latter localization at least was naturally suggested by the Homeric
conception of the legend. Down to the times of Alexander the countries
on the Tyrrhene Sea belonged in Hellenic fable to the domain of the
legend of Odysseus; Ephorus, who ended his history with the year 414,
and the so-called Scylax (about 418) still substantially follow it.
Of Trojan voyages the whole earlier poetry has no knowledge;
in Homer Aeneas after the fall of Ilion rules over the Trojans
that remained at home.
Stesichorus
It was the great remodeller of myths, Stesichorus (122-201) who first
in his "Destruction of Ilion" brought Aeneas to the land of the west,
that he might poetically enrich the world of fable in the country of
his birth and of his adoption, Sicily and Lower Italy, by the contrast
of the Trojan heroes with the Hellenic. With him originated the
poetical outlines of this fable as thenceforward fixed, especially the
group of the hero and his wife, his little son and his aged father
bearing the household gods, departing from burning Troy, and the
important identification of the Trojans with the Sicilian and Italian
autochthones, which is especially apparent in the case of the Trojan
trumpeter Misenus who gave his name to the promontory of Misenum.(19)
The old poet was guided in this view by the feeling that the
barbarians of Italy were less widely removed from the Hellenes than
other barbarians were, and that the relation between the Hellenes and
Italians might, when measured poetically, be conceived as similar to
that between the Homeric Achaeans and the Trojans. This new Trojan
fable soon came to be mixed up with the earlier legend of Odysseus,
while it spread at the same time more widely over Italy. According to
Hellanicus (who wrote about 350) Odysseus and Aeneas came through the
country of the Thracians and Molottians (Epirus) to Italy, where the
Trojan women whom they had brought with them burnt the ships, and
Aeneas founded the city of Rome and named it after one of these Trojan
women. To a similar effect, only with less absurdity, Aristotle
(370-432) related that an Achaean squadron cast upon the Latin coast
had been set on fire by Trojan female slaves, and that the Latins
had originated from the descendants of the Achaeans who were thus
compelled to remain there and of their Trojan wives. With these tales
were next mingled elements from the indigenous legend, the knowledge
of which had been diffused as far as Sicily by the active intercourse
between Sicily and Italy, at least towards the end of this epoch.
In the version of the origin of Rome, which the Sicilian Callias
put on record about 465, the fables of Odysseus, Aeneas, and Romulus
were intermingled.(20)
Timaeus
But the person who really completed the conception subsequently
current of this Trojan migration was Timaeus of Tauromenium in Sicily,
who concluded his historical work with 492. It is he who represents
Aeneas as first founding Lavinium with its shrine of the Trojan
Penates, and as thereafter founding Rome; he must also have interwoven
the Tyrian princess Elisa or Dido with the legend of Aeneas, for with
him Dido is the foundress of Carthage, and Rome and Carthage are said
by him to have been built in the same year. These alterations were
manifestly suggested by certain accounts that had reached Sicily
respecting Latin manners and customs, in conjunction with the critical
struggle which at the very time and place where Timaeus wrote was
preparing between the Romans and the Carthaginians. In the main,
however, the story cannot have been derived from Latium, but can only
have been the good-for-nothing invention of the old "gossip-monger"
himself. Timaeus had heard of the primitive temple of the household
gods in Lavinium; but the statement, that these were regarded by the
Lavinates as the Penates brought by the followers of Aeneas from
Ilion, is as certainly an addition of his own, as the ingenious
parallel between the Roman October horse and the Trojan horse, and the
exact inventory taken of the sacred objects of Lavinium--there were,
our worthy author affirms, heralds' staves of iron and copper, and an
earthen vase of Trojan manufacture! It is true that these same Penates
might not at all be seen by any one for centuries afterwards; but
Timaeus was one of the historians who upon no matter are so fully
informed as upon things unknowable. It is not without reason that
Polybius, who knew the man, advises that he should in no case be
trusted, and least of all where, as in this instance, he appeals to
documentary proofs. In fact the Sicilian rhetorician, who professed to
point out the grave of Thucydides in Italy, and who found no higher
praise for Alexander than that he had finished the conquest of Asia
sooner than Isocrates finished his "Panegyric," was exactly the man to
knead the naive fictions of the earlier time into that confused medley
on which the play of accident has conferred so singular a celebrity.
How far the Hellenic play of fable regarding Italian matters, as it
in the first instance arose in Sicily, gained admission during this
period even in Italy itself, cannot be ascertained with precision.
Those links of connection with the Odyssean cycle, which we
subsequently meet with in the legends of the foundation of Tusculum,
Praeneste, Antium, Ardea, and Cortona, must probably have been already
concocted at this period; and even the belief in the descent of the
Romans from Trojan men or Trojan women must have been established at
the close of this epoch in Rome, for the first demonstrable contact
between Rome and the Greek east is the intercession of the senate on
behalf of the "kindre" Ilians in 472. That the fable of Aeneas was
nevertheless of comparatively recent origin in Italy, is shown by
the extremely scanty measure of its localization as compared with
the legend of Odysseus; and at any rate the final redaction of these
tales, as well as their reconciliation with the legend of the origin
of Rome, belongs only to the following age.
While in this way historical composition, or what was so called among
the Hellenes, busied itself in its own fashion with the prehistoric
times of Italy, it left the contemporary history of Italy almost
untouched--a circumstance as significant of the sunken condition of
Hellenic history, as it is to be for our sakes regretted. Theopompus
of Chios (who ended his work with 418) barely noticed in passing the
capture of Rome by the Celts; and Aristotle,(21) Clitarchus,(22)
Theophrastus,(23) Heraclides of Pontus (about 450), incidentally
mention particular events relating to Rome. It is only with Hieronymus
of Cardia, who as the historian of Pyrrhus narrated also his Italian
wars, that Greek historiography becomes at the same time an authority
for the history of Rome.
Jurisprudence
Among the sciences, that of jurisprudence acquired an invaluable basis
through the committing to writing of the laws of the city in the years
303, 304. This code, known under the name of the Twelve Tables, is
perhaps the oldest Roman document that deserves the name of a book.
The nucleus of the so-called -leges regiae- was probably not much more
recent. These were certain precepts chiefly of a ritual nature, which
rested upon traditional usage, and were probably promulgated to the
general public under the form of royal enactments by the college of
pontifices, which was entitled not to legislate but to point out the
law. Moreover it may be presumed that from the commencement of this
period the more important decrees of the senate at any rate--if not
those of the people--were regularly recorded in writing; for already
in the earliest conflicts between the orders disputes took place as
to their preservation.(24)
Opinions--
Table of Formulae for Actions
While the mass of written legal documents thus increased, the
foundations of jurisprudence in the proper sense were also firmly
laid. It was necessary that both the magistrates who were annually
changed and the jurymen taken from the people should be enabled to
resort to men of skill, who were acquainted with the course of law and
knew how to suggest a decision accordant with precedents or, in the
absence of these, resting on reasonable grounds. The pontifices who
were wont to be consulted by the people regarding court-days and on
all questions of difficulty and of legal observance relating to the
worship of the gods, delivered also, when asked, counsels and opinions
on other points of law, and thus developed in the bosom of their
college that tradition which formed the basis of Roman private law,
more especially the formulae of action proper for each particular
case. A table of formulae which embraced all these actions, along with
a calendar which specified the court-days, was published to the people
about 450 by Appius Claudius or by his clerk, Gnaeus Flavius. This
attempt, however, to give formal shape to a science, that as yet
hardly recognized itself, stood for a long time completely isolated.
That the knowledge of law and the setting it forth were even now a
means of recommendation to the people and of attaining offices of
state, may be readily conceived, although the story, that the first
plebeian pontifex Publius Sempronius Sophus (consul 450), and the
first plebeian pontifex maximus Tiberius Coruncanius (consul 474),
were indebted for these priestly honours to their knowledge of law,
is probably rather a conjecture of posterity than a statement
of tradition.
Language
That the real genesis of the Latin and doubtless also of the other
Italian languages was anterior to this period, and that even at its
commencement the Latin language was substantially an accomplished
fact, is evident from the fragments of the Twelve Tables, which,
however, have been largely modernized by their semi-oral tradition.
They contain doubtless a number of antiquated words and harsh
combinations, particularly in consequence of omitting the indefinite
subject; but their meaning by no means presents, like that of the
Arval chant, any real difficulty, and they exhibit far more agreement
with the language of Cato than with that of the ancient litanies.
If the Romans at the beginning of the seventh century had difficulty
in understanding documents of the fifth, the difficulty doubtless
proceeded merely from the fact that there existed at that time in Rome
no real, least of all any documentary, research.
Technical Style
On the other hand it must have been at this period, when the
indication and redaction of law began, that the Roman technical style
first established itself--a style which at least in its developed
shape is nowise inferior to the modern legal phraseology of England in
stereotyped formulae and turns of expression, endless enumeration of
particulars, and long-winded periods; and which commends itself to the
initiated by its clearness and precision, while the layman who does
not understand it listens, according to his character and humour, with
reverence, impatience, or chagrin.
Philology
Moreover at this epoch began the treatment of the native languages
after a rational method. About its commencement the Sabellian as well
as the Latin idiom threatened, as we saw,(25) to become barbarous,
and the abrasion of endings and the corruption of the vowels and more
delicate consonants spread on all hands, just as was the case with the
Romanic languages in the fifth and sixth centuries of the Christian
era. But a reaction set in: the sounds which had coalesced in Oscan,
-d and -r, and the sounds which had coalesced in Latin, -g and -k,
were again separated, and each was provided with its proper sign;
-o and -u, for which from the first the Oscan alphabet had lacked
separate signs, and which had been in Latin originally separate but
threatened to coalesce, again became distinct, and in Oscan even the
-i was resolved into two signs different in sound and in writing;
lastly, the writing again came to follow more closely the
pronunciation--the -s for instance among the Romans being in many
cases replaced by -r. Chronological indications point to the fifth
century as the period of this reaction; the Latin -g for instance was
not yet in existence about 300 but was so probably about 500; the
first of the Papirian clan, who called himself Papirius instead of
Papisius, was the consul of 418; the introduction of that -r instead
of -s is attributed to Appius Claudius, censor in 442. Beyond doubt
the re-introduction of a more delicate and precise pronunciation was
connected with the increasing influence of Greek civilization, which
is observable at this very period in all departments of Italian life;
and, as the silver coins of Capua and Nola are far more perfect than
the contemporary asses of Ardea and Rome, writing and language appear
also to have been more speedily and fully reduced to rule in the
Campanian land than in Latium. How little, notwithstanding the labour
bestowed on it, the Roman language and mode of writing had become
settled at the close of this epoch, is shown by the inscriptions
preserved from the end of the fifth century, in which the greatest
arbitrariness prevails, particularly as to the insertion or omission
of -m, -d and -s in final sounds and of -n in the body of a word,
and as to the distinguishing of the vowels -o -u and -e -i.(26) It is
probable that the contemporary Sabellians were in these points further
advanced, while the Umbrians were but slightly affected by the
regenerating influence of the Hellenes.
Instruction
In consequence of this progress of jurisprudence and grammar,
elementary school-instruction also, which in itself had doubtless
already emerged earlier, must have undergone a certain improvement.
As Homer was the oldest Greek, and the Twelve Tables was the oldest
Roman, book, each became in its own land the essential basis of
instruction; and the learning by heart the juristico-political
catechism was a chief part of Roman juvenile training. Alongside of
the Latin "writing-masters" (-litteratores-) there were of course,
from the time when an acquaintance with Greek was indispensable for
every statesman and merchant, also Greek "language-masters"
(-grammatici-)(27)--partly tutor-slaves, partly private teachers,
who at their own dwelling or that of their pupil gave instructions
in the reading and speaking of Greek. As a matter of course, the rod
played its part in instruction as well as in military discipline and
in police.(28) The instruction of this epoch cannot however have
passed beyond the elementary stage: there was no material shade
of difference, in a social respect, between the educated and
the non-educated Roman.
Exact Sciences--
Regulation of the Calendar
That the Romans at no time distinguished themselves in the
mathematical and mechanical sciences is well known, and is attested,
in reference to the present epoch, by almost the only fact which can
be adduced under this head with certainty--the regulation of the
calendar attempted by the decemvirs. They wished to substitute for the
previous calendar based on the old and very imperfect -trieteris-(29)
the contemporary Attic calendar of the -octaeteris-, which retained
the lunar month of 29 1/2 days but assumed the solar year at 365 1/4
days instead of 368 3/4, and therefore, without making any alteration
in the length of the common year of 354 days, intercalated, not as
formerly 59 days every 4 years, but 90 days every 8 years. With the
same view the improvers of the Roman calendar intended--while
otherwise retaining the current calendar--in the two inter-calary
years of the four years' cycle to shorten not the intercalary months,
but the two Februaries by 7 days each, and consequently to fix that
month in the intercalary years at 22 and 21 days respectively instead
of 29 and 28. But want of mathematical precision and theological
scruples, especially in reference to the annual festival of Terminus
which fell within those very days in February, disarranged the
intended reform, so that the Februaries of the intercalary years came
to be of 24 and 23 days, and thus the new Roman solar year in reality
ran to 366 1/4 days. Some remedy for the practical evils resulting
from this was found in the practice by which, setting aside the
reckoning by the months or ten months of the calendar (30) as now no
longer applicable from the inequality in the length of the months,
wherever more accurate specifications were required, they accustomed
themselves to reckon by terms of ten months of a solar year of 365
days or by the so-called ten-month year of 304 days. Over and above
this, there came early into use in Italy, especially for agricultural
purposes, the farmers' calendar based on the Egyptian solar year of
365 1/4 days by Eudoxus (who flourished 386).
Structural and Plastic Art
A higher idea of what the Italians were able to do in these
departments is furnished by their works of structural and plastic art,
which are closely associated with the mechanical sciences. Here too we
do not find phenomena of real originality; but if the impress of
borrowing, which the plastic art of Italy bears throughout, diminishes
its artistic interest, there gathers around it a historical interest
all the more lively, because on the one hand it preserves the most
remarkable evidences of an international intercourse of which other
traces have disappeared, and on the other hand, amidst the well-nigh
total loss of the history of the non-Roman Italians, art is almost
the sole surviving index of the living activity which the different
peoples of the peninsula displayed. No novelty is to be reported in
this period; but what we have already shown(31) may be illustrated
in this period with greater precision and on a broader basis, namely,
that the stimulus derived from Greece powerfully affected the
Etruscans and Italians on different sides, and called forth among
the former a richer and more luxurious, among the latter--where it
had any influence at all--a more intelligent and more genuine, art.
Architecture--
Etruscan
We have already shown how wholly the architecture of all the Italian
lands was, even in its earliest period, pervaded by Hellenic elements.
Its city walls, its aqueducts, its tombs with pyramidal roofs, and its
Tuscanic temple, are not at all, or not materially, different from the
oldest Hellenic structures. No trace has been preserved of any advance
in architecture among the Etruscans during this period; we find among
them neither any really new reception, nor any original creation,
unless we ought to reckon as such the magnificent tombs, e. g. the
so-called tomb of Porsena at Chiusi described by Varro, which vividly
recalls the strange and meaningless grandeur of the Egyptian pyramids.
Latin--
The Arch
In Latium too, during the first century and a half of the republic,
it is probable that they moved solely in the previous track, and it
has already been stated that the exercise of art rather sank than rose
with the introduction of the republic.(32) There can scarcely be named
any Latin building of architectural importance belonging to this
period, except the temple of Ceres built in the Circus at Rome in 261,
which was regarded in the period of the empire as a model of the
Tuscanic style. But towards the close of this epoch a new spirit
appeared in Italian and particularly in Roman architecture;(33) the
building of the magnificent arches began. It is true that we are not
entitled to pronounce the arch and the vault Italian inventions.
It is well ascertained that at the epoch of the genesis of Hellenic
architecture the Hellenes were not yet acquainted with the arch, and
therefore had to content themselves with a flat ceiling and a sloping
roof for their temples; but the arch may very well have been a later
invention of the Hellenes originating in more scientific mechanics;
as indeed the Greek tradition refers it to the natural philosopher
Democritus (294-397). With this priority of Hellenic over Roman
arch-building the hypothesis, which has been often and perhaps justly
propounded, is quite compatible, that the vaulted roof of the Roman
great -cloaca-, and that which was afterwards thrown over the old
Capitoline well-house which originally had a pyramidal roof,(34) are
the oldest extant structures in which the principle of the arch is
applied; for it is more than probable that these arched buildings
belong not to the regal but to the republican period,(35) and that
in the regal period the Italians were acquainted only with flat or
overlapped roofs.(34) But whatever may be thought as to the invention
of the arch itself, the application of a principle on a great scale is
everywhere, and particularly in architecture, at least as important as
its first exposition; and this application belongs indisputably to the
Romans. With the fifth century began the building of gates, bridges,
and aqueducts based mainly on the arch, which is thenceforth
inseparably associated with the Roman name. Akin to this was the
development of the form of the round temple with the dome-shaped roof,
which was foreign to the Greeks, but was held in much favour with the
Romans and was especially applied by them in the case of the cults
peculiar to them, particularly the non-Greek worship of Vesta.(37)
Something the same may be affirmed as true of various subordinate,
but not on that account unimportant, achievements in this field.
They do not lay claim to originality or artistic accomplishment;
but the firmly-jointed stone slabs of the Roman streets, their
indestructible highways, the broad hard ringing tiles, the everlasting
mortar of their buildings, proclaim the indestructible solidity and
the energetic vigour of the Roman character.
Plastic and Delineative Art
Like architectural art, and, if possible, still more completely, the
plastic and delineative arts were not so much matured by Grecian
stimulus as developed from Greek seeds on Italian soil. We have
already observed(38) that these, although only younger sisters of
architecture, began to develop themselves at least in Etruria, even
during the Roman regal period; but their principal development in
Etruria, and still more in Latium, belongs to the present epoch, as is
very evident from the fact that in those districts which the Celts
and Samnites wrested from the Etruscans in the course of the fourth
century there is scarcely a trace of the practice of Etruscan art.
The plastic art of the Tuscans applied itself first and chiefly to
works in terra-cotta, in copper, and in gold-materials which were
furnished to the artists by the rich strata of clay, the copper mines,
and the commercial intercourse of Etruria. The vigour with which
moulding in clay was prosecuted is attested by the immense number of
bas-reliefs and statuary works in terra-cotta, with which the walls,
gables, and roofs of the Etruscan temples were once decorated, as
their still extant ruins show, and by the trade which can be shown to
have existed in such articles from Etruria to Latium. Casting in
copper occupied no inferior place. Etruscan artists ventured to make
colossal statues of bronze fifty feet in height, and Volsinii, the
Etruscan Delphi, was said to have possessed about the year 489 two
thousand bronze statues. Sculpture in stone, again, began in Etruria,
as probably everywhere, at a far later date, and was prevented from
development not only by internal causes, but also by the want of
suitable material; the marble quarries of Luna (Carrara) were not yet
opened. Any one who has seen the rich and elegant gold decorations
of the south-Etruscan tombs, will have no difficulty in believing the
statement that Tyrrhene gold cups were valued even in Attica.
Gem-engraving also, although more recent, was in various forms
practised in Etruria. Equally dependent on the Greeks, but otherwise
quite on a level with the workers in the plastic arts, were the
Etruscan designers and painters, who manifested extraordinary activity
both in outline-drawing on metal and in monochromatic fresco-painting.
Campanian and Sabellian
On comparing with this the domain of the Italians proper, it appears
at first, contrasted with the Etruscan riches, almost poor in art.
But on a closer view we cannot fail to perceive that both the
Sabellian and the Latin nations must have had far more capacity
and aptitude for art than the Etruscans. It is true that in the proper
Sabellian territory, in Sabina, in the Abruzzi, in Samnium, there are
hardly found any works of art at all, and even coins are wanting.
But those Sabellian stocks, which reached the coasts of the Tyrrhene
or Ionic seas, not only appropriated Hellenic art externally, like
the Etruscans, but more or less completely acclimatized it. Even in
Velitrae, where probably alone in the former land of the Volsci their
language and peculiar character were afterwards maintained, painted
terra-cottas have been found, displaying vigorous and characteristic
treatment. In Lower Italy Lucania was to a less degree influenced
by Hellenic art; but in Campania and in the land of the Bruttii,
Sabellians and Hellenes became completely intermingled not only in
language and nationality, but also and especially in art, and the
Campanian and Bruttian coins in particular stand so entirely in point
of artistic treatment on a level with the contemporary coins of
Greece, that the inscription alone serves to distinguish the one
from the other.
Latin
It is a fact less known, but not less certain, that Latium also, while
inferior to Etruria in the copiousness and massiveness of its art,
was not inferior in artistic taste and practical skill. Evidently the
establishment of the Romans in Campania which took place about the
beginning of the fifth century, the conversion of the town of Cales
into a Latin community, and that of the Falernian territory near Capua
into a Roman tribe,(39) opened up in the first instance Campanian art
to the Romans. It is true that among these the art of gem-engraving so
diligently prosecuted in luxurious Etruria is entirely wanting, and we
find no indication that the Latin workshops were, like those of the
Etruscan goldsmiths and clay-workers, occupied in supplying a foreign
demand. It is true that the Latin temples were not like the Etruscan
overloaded with bronze and clay decorations, that the Latin tombs were
not like the Etruscan filled with gold ornaments, and their walls
shone not, like those of the Tuscan tombs, with paintings of various
colours. Nevertheless, on the whole the balance does not incline in
favour of the Etruscan nation. The device of the effigy of Janus,
which, like the deity itself, may be attributed to the Latins,(40)
is not unskilful, and is of a more original character than that of
any Etruscan work of art. The beautiful group of the she-wolf with the
twins attaches itself doubtless to similar Greek designs, but was--as
thus worked out--certainly produced, if not in Rome, at any rate by
Romans; and it deserves to be noted that it first appears on the
silver moneys coined by the Romans in and for Campania. In the
above-mentioned Cales there appears to have been devised soon after
its foundation a peculiar kind of figured earthenware, which was
marked with the name of the masters and the place of manufacture,
and was sold over a wide district as far even as Etruria. The little
altars of terra-cotta with figures that have recently been brought
to light on the Esquiline correspond in style of representation as in
that of ornament exactly to the similar votive gifts of the Campanian
temples. This however does not exclude Greek masters from having also
worked for Rome. The sculptor Damophilus, who with Gorgasus prepared
the painted terra-cotta figures for the very ancient temple of Ceres,
appears to have been no other than Demophilus of Himera, the teacher
of Zeuxis (about 300). The most instructive illustrations are
furnished by those branches of art in which we are able to form a
comparative judgment, partly from ancient testimonies, partly from
our own observation. Of Latin works in stone scarcely anything else
survives than the stone sarcophagus of the Roman consul Lucius Scipio,
wrought at the close of this period in the Doric style; but its noble
simplicity puts to shame all similar Etruscan works. Many beautiful
bronzes of an antique chaste style of art, particularly helmets,
candelabra, and the like articles, have been taken from Etruscan
tombs; but which of these works is equal to the bronze she-wolf
erected from the proceeds of fines in 458 at the Ruminal fig-tree in
the Roman Forum, and still forming the finest ornament of the Capitol?
And that the Latin metal-founders as little shrank from great
enterprises as the Etruscans, is shown by the colossal bronze figure
of Jupiter on the Capitol erected by Spurius Carvilius (consul in 461)
from the melted equipments of the Samnites, the chisellings of which
sufficed to cast the statue of the victor that stood at the feet of
the Colossus; this statue of Jupiter was visible even from the Alban
Mount. Amongst the cast copper coins by far the finest belong to
southern Latium; the Roman and Umbrian are tolerable, the Etruscan
almost destitute of any image and often really barbarous.
The fresco-paintings, which Gaius Fabius executed in the temple of
Health on the Capitol, dedicated in 452, obtained in design and
colouring the praise even of connoisseurs trained in Greek art in
the Augustan age; and the art-enthusiasts of the empire commended
the frescoes of Caere, but with still greater emphasis those of Rome,
Lanuvium, and Ardea, as masterpieces of painting. Engraving on metal,
which in Latium decorated not the hand-mirror, as in Etruria, but the
toilet-casket with its elegant outlines, was practised to a far less
extent in Latium and almost exclusively in Praeneste. There are
excellent works of art among the copper mirrors of Etruria as among
the caskets of Praeneste; but it was a work of the latter kind, and
in fact a work which most probably originated in the workshop of a
Praenestine master at this epoch,(41) regarding which it could with
truth be affirmed that scarcely another product of the graving of
antiquity bears the stamp of an art so finished in its beauty and
characteristic expression, and yet so perfectly pure and chaste,
as the Ficoroni -cista-.
Character of Etruscan Art
The general character of Etruscan works of art is, on the one hand, a
sort of barbaric extravagance in material as well as in style; on the
other hand, an utter absence of original development. Where the Greek
master lightly sketches, the Etruscan disciple lavishes a scholar's
diligence; instead of the light material and moderate proportions of
the Greek works, there appears in the Etruscan an ostentatious stress
laid upon the size and costliness, or even the mere singularity, of
the work. Etruscan art cannot imitate without exaggerating; the chaste
in its hands becomes harsh, the graceful effeminate, the terrible
hideous, and the voluptuous obscene; and these features become more
prominent, the more the original stimulus falls into the background
and Etruscan art finds itself left to its own resources. Still more
surprising is the adherence to traditional forms and a traditional
style. Whether it was that a more friendly contact with Etruria at the
outset allowed the Hellenes to scatter there the seeds of art, and
that a later epoch of hostility impeded the admission into Etruria
of the more recent developments of Greek art, or whether, as is more
probable, the intellectual torpor that rapidly came over the nation
was the main cause of the phenomenon, art in Etruria remained
substantially stationary at the primitive stage which it had occupied
on its first entrance. This, as is well known, forms the reason why
Etruscan art, the stunted daughter, was so long regarded as the
mother, of Hellenic art. Still more even than the rigid adherence to
the style traditionally transmitted in the older branches of art,
the sadly inferior handling of those branches that came into vogue
afterwards, particularly of sculpture in stone and of copper-casting
as applied to coins, shows how quickly the spirit of Etruscan art
evaporated. Equally instructive are the painted vases, which are found
in so enormous numbers in the later Etruscan tombs. Had these come
into current use among the Etruscans as early as the metal plates
decorated with contouring or the painted terra-cottas, beyond doubt
they would have learned to manufacture them at home in considerable
quantity, and of a quality at least relatively good; but at the period
at which this luxury arose, the power of independent reproduction
wholly failed--as the isolated vases provided with Etruscan
inscriptions show--and they contented themselves with buying
instead of making them.
North Etruscan and South Etruscan Art
But even within Etruria there appears a further remarkable distinction
in artistic development between the southern and northern districts.
It is South Etruria, particularly in the districts of Caere,
Tarquinii, and Volci, that has preserved the great treasures of art
which the nation boasted, especially in frescoes, temple decorations,
gold ornaments, and painted vases. Northern Etruria is far inferior;
no painted tomb, for example, has been found to the north of Chiusi.
The most southern Etruscan cities, Veii, Caere, and Tarquinii, were
accounted in Roman tradition the primitive and chief seats of Etruscan
art; the most northerly town, Volaterrae, with the largest territory
of all the Etruscan communities, stood most of all aloof from art
While a Greek semi-culture prevailed in South Etruria, Northern
Etruria was much more marked by an absence of all culture. The causes
of this remarkable contrast may be sought partly in differences of
nationality--South Etruria being largely peopled in all probability by
non-Etruscan elements(42)--partly in the varying intensity of Hellenic
influence, which must have made itself very decidedly felt at Caere in
particular. The fact itself admits of no doubt. The more injurious on
that account must have been the early subjugation of the southern half
of Etruria by the Romans, and the Romanizing--which there began very
early--of Etruscan art. What Northern Etruria, confined to its own
efforts, was able to produce in the way of art, is shown by the copper
coins which essentially belong to it.
Character of Latin Art
Let us now turn from Etruria to glance at Latium. The latter, it is
true, created no new art; it was reserved for a far later epoch of
culture to develop on the basis of the arch a new architecture
different from the Hellenic, and then to unfold in harmony with that
architecture a new style of sculpture and painting. Latin art is
nowhere original and often insignificant; but the fresh sensibility
and the discriminating tact, which appropriate what is good in others,
constitute a high artistic merit. Latin art seldom became barbarous,
and in its best products it comes quite up to the level of Greek
technical execution. We do not mean to deny that the art of Latium,
at least in its earlier stages, had a certain dependence on the
undoubtedly earlier Etruscan;(43) Varro may be quite right in
supposing that, previous to the execution by Greek artists of the clay
figures in the temple of Ceres,(44) only "Tuscanic" figures adorned
the Roman temples; but that, at all events, it was mainly the direct
influence of the Greeks that led Latin art into its proper channel,
is self-evident, and is very obviously shown by these very statues as
well as by the Latin and Roman coins. Even the application of graving
on metal in Etruria solely to the toilet mirror, and in Latium solely
to the toilet casket, indicates the diversity of the art-impulses that
affected the two lands. It does not appear, however, to have been
exactly at Rome that Latin art put forth its freshest vigour; the
Roman -asses- and Roman -denarii- are far surpassed in fineness and
taste of workmanship by the Latin copper, and the rare Latin silver,
coins, and the masterpieces of painting and design belong chiefly to
Praeneste, Lanuvium, and Ardea. This accords completely with the
realistic and sober spirit of the Roman republic which we have already
described--a spirit which can hardly have asserted itself with equal
intensity in other parts of Latium. But in the course of the fifth
century, and especially in the second half of it, there was a mighty
activity in Roman art. This was the epoch, in which the construction
of the Roman arches and Roman roads began; in which works of art like
the she-wolf of the Capitol originated; and in which a distinguished
man of an old Roman patrician clan took up his pencil to embellish a
newly constructed temple and thence received the honorary surname of
the "Painter." This was not accident. Every great age lays grasp on
all the powers of man; and, rigid as were Roman manners, strict as was
Roman police, the impulse received by the Roman burgesses as masters
of the peninsula or, to speak more correctly, by Italy united for the
first time as one state, became as evident in the stimulus given to
Latin and especially to Roman art, as the moral and political decay of
the Etruscan nation was evident in the decline of art in Etruria.
As the mighty national vigour of Latium subdued the weaker nations,
it impressed its imperishable stamp also on bronze and on marble.
Notes for Book II Chapter IX
1. I. XV. Earliest Hellenic Influences
2. The account given by Dionysius (vi. 95; comp. Niebuhr, ii. 40) and
by Plutarch (Camill. 42), deriving his statement from another passage
in Dionysius regarding the Latin festival, must be understood to apply
rather to the Roman games, as, apart from other grounds, is strikingly
evident from comparing the latter passage with Liv. vi. 42 (Ritschl,
Parerg. i. p. 313). Dionysius has--and, according to his wont when in
error, persistently--misunderstood the expression -ludi maximi-.
There was, moreover, a tradition which referred the origin of the
national festival not, as in the common version, to the conquest of
the Latins by the first Tarquinius, but to the victory over the Latins
at the lake Regillus (Cicero, de Div. i. 26, 55; Dionys. vii. 71).
That the important statements preserved in the latter passage from
Fabius really relate to the ordinary thanksgiving-festival, and not to
any special votive solemnity, is evident from the express allusion to
the annual recurrence of the celebration, and from the exact agreement
of the sum of the expenses with the statement in the Pseudo-Asconius
(p. 142 Or.).
3. II. III. Curule Aedileship
4. I. II. Art
5. I. XV. Metre
6. I. XV. Masks
7. II. VIII. Police f.
8. I. XV. Melody
9. A fragment has been preserved:
-Hiberno pulvere, verno luto, grandia farra
Camille metes-
We do not know by what right this was afterwards regarded as the
oldest Roman poem (Macrob. Sat. v. 20; Festus, Ep. v. Flaminius,
p. 93, M.; Serv. on Virg. Georg, i. 101; Plin. xvii. 2. 14).
10. II. VIII. Appius Claudius
11. II. VIII. Rome and the Romans of This Epoch
12. The first places in the list alone excite suspicion, and may have
been subsequently added, with a view to round off the number of years
between the flight of the king and the burning of the city to 120.
13. I. VI. Time and the Occasion of the Reform, II. VII. System of
Government
14. II. VIII Rome and the Romans of This Epoch. According to the
annals Scipio commands in Etruria and his colleague in Samnium, and
Lucania is during this year in league with Rome; according to the
epitaph Scipio conquers two towns in Samnium and all Lucania.
15. I. XI. Jurisdiction, second note.
16. They appear to have reckoned three generations to a hundred years
and to have rounded off the figures 233 1/3 to 240, just as the epoch
between the king's flight and the burning of the city was rounded off
to 120 years (II. IX. Registers of Magistrates, note). The reason why
these precise numbers suggested themselves, is apparent from the
similar adjustment (above explained, I. XIV. The Duodecimal System)
of the measures of surface.
17. I. XII. Spirits
18. I. X. Relations of the Western Italians to the Greeks
19. The "Trojan colonies" in Sicily, mentioned by Thucydides, the
pseudo-Scylax, and others, as well as the designation of Capua as a
Trojan foundation in Hecataeus, must also be traced to Stesichorus
and his identification of the natives of Italy and Sicily with
the Trojans.
20. According to his account Rome, a woman who had fled from Ilion
to Rome, or rather her daughter of the same name, married Latinos,
king of the Aborigines, and bore to him three sons, Romos, Romylos,
and Telegonos. The last, who undoubtedly emerges here as founder
of Tusculum and Praeneste, belongs, as is well known, to the legend
of Odysseus.
21. II. IV. Fruitlessness of the Celtic Victory
22. II. VII. Relations between the East and West
23. II. VII. The Roman Fleet
24. II. II. Political Value of the Tribunates, II. II.
The Valerio-Horatian Laws
25. I. XIV. Corruption of Language and Writing
26. In the two epitaphs, of Lucius Scipio consul in 456, and of the
consul of the same name in 495, -m and -d are ordinarily wanting in
the termination of cases, yet -Luciom- and -Gnaivod- respectively
occur once; there occur alongside of one another in the nominative
-Cornelio- and -filios-; -cosol-, -cesor-, alongside of -consol-,
-censor-; -aidiles-, -dedet-, -ploirume- (= -plurimi-) -hec- (nom.
sing.) alongside of -aidilis-, -cepit-, -quei-, -hic-. Rhotacism is
already carried out completely; we find -duonoro-(= -bonorum-),
-ploirume-, not as in the chant of the Salii -foedesum-, -plusima-.
Our surviving inscriptions do not in general precede the age of
rhotacism; of the older -s only isolated traces occur, such as
afterwards -honos-, -labos- alongside of -honor-, -labor-; and the
similar feminine -praenomina-, -Maio- (= -maios- -maior-) and -Mino-
in recently found epitaphs at Praeneste.
27. -Litterator- and -grammaticus- are related nearly as elementary
teacher and teacher of languages with us; the latter designation
belonged by earlier usage only to the teacher of Greek, not to a
teacher of the mother-tongue. -Litteratus- is more recent, and
denotes not a schoolmaster but a man of culture.
28. It is at any rate a true Roman picture, which Plautus (Bacch. 431)
produces as a specimen of the good old mode of training children:--
... -ubi revenisses domum,
Cincticulo praecinctus in sella apud magistrum adsideres;
Si, librum cum legeres, unam peccavisses syllabam,
Fieret corium tam maculosum, quam est nutricis pallium-.
29. I. XIV. The Oldest Italo-Greek Calendar
30. I. XIV. The Oldest Italo-Greek Calendar
31. I. XV. Plastic Art in Italy
32. II. VIII. Building
33. II. VIII. Building
34. I. XV. Earliest Hellenic Influences
35. I. VII. Servian Wall
36. I. XV. Earliest Hellenic Influences
37. The round temple certainly was not, as has been supposed, an
imitation of the oldest form of the house; on the contrary, house
architecture uniformly starts from the square form. The later Roman
theology associated this round form with the idea of the terrestrial
sphere or of the universe surrounding like a sphere the central sun
(Fest. v. -rutundam-, p. 282; Plutarch, Num. 11; Ovid, Fast. vi. 267,
seq.). In reality it may be traceable simply to the fact, that the
circular shape has constantly been recognized as the most convenient
and the safest form of a space destined for enclosure and custody.
That was the rationale of the round --thesauroi-- of the Greeks as
well as of the round structure of the Roman store-chamber or temple of
the Penates. It was natural, also, that the fireplace--that is, the
altar of Vesta--and the fire-chamber--that is, the temple of Vesta
--should be constructed of a round form, just as was done with the
cistern and the well-enclosure (-puteal-). The round style of building
in itself was Graeco-Italian as was the square form, and the former
was appropriated to the store-place, the latter to the dwelling-house;
but the architectural and religious development of the simple -tholos-
into the round temple with pillars and columns was Latin.
38. I. XV. Plastic Art in Italy
39. II. V. Complete Submission of the Campanian and Volscian Provinces
40. I. XII. Nature of the Roman Gods
41. Novius Plautius (II. VIII. Capital in Rome) cast perhaps only the
feet and the group on the lid; the casket itself may have proceeded
from an earlier artist, but hardly from any other than a Praenestine,
for the use of these caskets was substantially confined to Praeneste.
42. I. IX. Settlements of the Etruscans in Italy
43. I. XV. Earliest Hellenic Influences
44. I. VI. Time and Occasion of the Reform
TABLE OF CALENDAR EQUIVALENTS
A.U.C.* B.C. B.C. A.U.C.
------------------------------------------------------
000 753 753 000
025 728 750 003
050 703 725 028
075 678 700 053
100 653 675 078
125 628 650 103
150 603 625 128
175 578 600 153
200 553 575 178
225 528 550 203
250 503 525 228
275 478 500 253
300 453 475 278
325 428 450 303
350 303 425 328
375 378 400 353
400 353 375 378
425 328 350 403
450 303 325 428
475 278 300 453
500 253 275 478
525 228 250 503
550 203 225 528
575 178 200 553
600 153 175 578
625 128 150 603
650 103 125 628
675 078 100 653
700 053 075 678
725 028 050 703
750 003 025 728
753 000 000 753
*A. U. C. - Ab Urbe Condita (from the founding of the City of Rome)
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