Historia de Roma III

HISTORIA DE ROMA.

331

Esta institución de los siglos ha arrojado completamente a la sombra la de las tribus; y sólo a través del primero ha mantenido el nombre del rey Servio su renombre hasta nuestros días. Más sobre él se ha mantenido durante mucho tiempo y universalmente como un punto establecido, que esto se entienda con más certeza y precisión que cualquier otra parte de la constitución romana; porque es descrito por Dionisio y Livio, y esa descripción está expresada en números: y sólo unos pocos, que vieron con más claridad, se han aventurado a decir, que en todo caso estas representaciones no eran adecuadas para los tiempos de los que tenemos una historia contemporánea. En el presente esto en general ya no se cuestiona; y una mucho más auténtica

registro habiendo salido a la luz, los errores comunes a los dos su historiadores, y los peculiares de cada uno, pueden ser satisfactoriamente señalados fuera.

Ninguno de ellos puede haber estado familiarizado con el relato contenido en los comentarios que fueron adscritos al propio rey, pero he escrito a partir de informes muy diferentes y muy defectuosos: en cuanto a Cicerón, la única razón que nos cree que se ha extraído inmediatamente de la fuente auténtica, es decir, que la erudición de este tipo no se interponía en su camino; si no su estado

Los comentarios son extremadamente precisos y confiables. Los errores de los dos historiadores no tiene por qué sorprendernos; porque ellos no hablaban de una institución todavía existente, ni siquiera de una que haba sido cambiado recientemente, pero de lo que había desaparecido hace mucho. · dice Livio expresamente, que no tenía nada en común con la constitución de

los siglos en sus días: y esta es, además, la razón por qué lo describe, como lo hace con las antiguas tácticas en su relato de la guerra latina. Varias otras declaraciones también deben haber estado vigentes, conteniendo aún mayores discrepancias; para Plinio toma 110,000 ases para ser el límite para la propiedad de la primera clase, Gellius

125.000 1008; números, que tampoco pueden considerarse errores en los manuscritos, ni como deslizamientos en los escritores.

En un punto, ambos historiadores se equivocan: confundir los burgueses con la comunidad, se imaginan que un pueblo, en que hasta entonces había prevalecido la perfecta unión e igualdad, ahora era dividido en clases según la propiedad, de tal manera que todo el poder cayó en manos de los ricos, aunque incumbe sin ligeras cargas. Añade Dionisio. otro error a esto, en

contemplando los dieciocho siglos ecuestres, que tuvieron los primerosrango en la constitución de Servio, como una institución timocrática.

El principio de una aristocracia es mantener una perfecta igualdad

332

HISTORY OF ROME

dentro de su propio cuerpo. El noble más pobre y oscuro de Venecia, a cuya familia no había llegado ningún oficio de dignidad durante siglos, fue estimado en el gran concilio como igual a aquellos cuya riqueza

y su nombre los rodeó de esplendor. Un gobierno formado como el romano por un gran número de casas es una democracia completa en sí mismo, tanto como el de un cantón donde la población no es más numerosa: una aristocracia es únicamente en su relación con la comunidad. Esto fue malinterpretado por Dionisio y Livio: Servio no hizo ningún cambio en esta igualdad de los

burgueses antiguos: su timocracia sólo afectaba a quienes permanecían completamente sin la palidez de ese cuerpo, oa quienes, en el mejor de los casos, estaban apegados a él, pero lejos de participar en la misma igualdad.

Los seis siglos ecuestres establecidos por L. Tarquinius fueron incorporados por Servius en sus comitia; y recibió el nombre de los seis sufragia: de modo que estos comprendían a todos los patricios; entre a quienes no se puede concebir que en esta constitución, como en la anterior, existiera alguna distinción adaptada a la escala de su propiedad. Livio, aunque olvidó que los seis siglos había sido instituido por Tarquinius, hace una distinción perfectamente correcta entre ellos y los doce que fueron añadidos por Servio 1004; de los principales hombres del estado. como él dice: debería haber dicho, en la comunidad: porque los patricios estaban en las seis sujfragia, y ninguno de ellos puede haber sido admitido en los doce siglos.

Por tanto, Dionisio debería haberse limitado a estos doce siglos, cuando concibió que los caballeros eran elegidos por Servio entre las familias más ricas e ilustres; cuya noción extiende a los dieciocho 5: para los patricios, quienes sin duda alguna como cuerpo eran los hombres más ricos y destacados del estado, tenían todos ellos lugares en las seis sujfragia por nacimiento y descendencia, aunque algunos individuos particulares entre ellos podrían resulta ser extremadamente pobre.

De lo contrario, se desprende del carácter de la medida, que quien dispusiera esta división de filas, cuando reuniera a los notables y los separara de la comuna, pasaría por alto a los nobles de Medullia o Tellena que quedaran totalmente reducidos a la pobreza. a 1004 Festus (v. Sex Suffragia) en oposición directa a la verdad toma el seis por haber sido los siglos formados por Servio. A esto lo llevó la idea de que Tarquinius ya había instituido los doce. Ver arriba p. 275 1 nota 8! .12.

El pasaje de Cicerón sobre la selección de los caballeros censu maxima está mutilado y no se puede completar con certeza.

HISTORY OF ROME.

333

y la insignificancia, enrolaría en estos siglos a aquellos habitantes simplemente nacidos libres que cumplieran con la noción de que la clase poseía la riqueza suficiente para equipar a un jinete, siempre que su honor estuviera intacto; no aquellos cuyo carácter se destacó más, si sus medios eran demasiado pequeños. Marius no habría sido colocado entre los caballeros: el objeto de Servius, sin embargo, no era otorgar premios a las virtudes de los individuos, sino establecer un estado en la nación; para unir a los notables plebeyos con el patricio. Ahora bien, entre los griegos, dondequiera que el antiguo gobierno no se redujera a una oligarquía, la transición a ese orden posterior de cosas que el curso de la naturaleza provocó, se efectuó por el remanente de una aristocracia en decadencia que se unía en una clase con la los terratenientes más ricos entre la comunidad, la esta clase, por poder sufragar los gastos de servir como jinetes por sus propios medios, llevaban el nombre de j ,,. ,,., 7 ,; que se traduce mejor en inglés con la palabra caballeros, aunque al usarla se deben evitar ciertas asociaciones. Los filósofos griegos, cuando las antiguas nociones de ascendencia se habían perdido hace mucho tiempo, definieron la nobleza como que consistía, según la forma de pensar entonces prevalente, de un buen nacimiento hereditario junto con la riqueza hereditaria 1006, Donde la pobreza se ha entrometido, nadie más que una nobleza militar, como la de la que se enorgullecen varias provincias alemanas, puede mantener el carácter de clase en la opinión pública, que es la única que conserva eso. Es más, las clases privilegiadas han estimado universalmente la riqueza y el esplendor exterior que de ella fluye, como lo único que puede colocar a cualquiera al mismo nivel que ellos mismos. Tal que así siempre ha sido el caso. El Heráclido Aristodemo, el progenitor de los reyes espartanos, dijo: El dinero hace al hombre. Alcreus lo repitió en sus canciones, como un dicho de los 7 sabios: y tan malo como este.

Aunque suene mal, no se puede negar que, en una empresa como la del rey Servio, la riqueza y no el linaje puro debían tomarse como criterio para la aristocracia plebeya que iba a establecerse bajo una nueva forma.

Sólo debemos cuidarnos de confundir la primera institución con lo que sucedió después; como también de suponer que el estándar posterior de una fortuna ecuestre, un millón de ases, se deriva de 1006 Aristóteles Fro.gm. de Nobilitate. Alcreus en la Schol. en Pind. lsthm. u. 17. fragm. 50. ed. Matth. Aristodemo lo dijo en Esparta: de modo que esta tradición, como la nacional en Herodoto (vr. 52.), lo representaba como no muerto hasta que se completara la conquista.

HISTORY OF ROME.

334

the times of Servius. \Ve cannot suppose that the descendants of

those who were originally enrolled, took their station otherwise

than hereditarily, whether they were plebeians or patricians. Poly­

bius says, at present the knights are chosen according to fortune 1008 :

previously therefore it must have been on another principle; that

is, according to birth : and Zonaras informs us that the censors had

the power of rewarding merit by raising an rerarian into the tribes,

a mere plebeian into the equestrian order; and contrariwise of pun­

ishing a bad life by erasing from both of the two upper ranks 9•

Here the regulative principle is plainly the reverse of one that de­

pends upon property, such as prevailed in later times, when who­

ever could produce his four hundred thousands was entitled to

demand a place among the knights; and the want of a few thou­

sand sesterces, in spite of every virtue, kept a man down amid the

plebs 10• True, the censors in those times ordered an unworthy

possessor of a knight's horse to sell it: this however now formed

the whole of the censorian brand, unless they could also turn down

the tribesmen among the rerarians. Indeed this very power of con­

ferring the privilege of a knight's horse enabled the censors still to

reward civic virtues in individuals : as in Great Britain a general

or admiral who is raised to the peerage, if not wealthy, receives

from the nation a pension suitable to hi~ rank; although, as a body,

the House of Peers can only maintain its station by comprehending

the mass of the great landed proprietors. That the original eques·

trian fortune cannot have amounted as in aftertimes to a million, is

clear: for the classes from the fourth upward ascend by intervals of

25,000; and this would be followed by the enormous leap from a

hundred thousand ases to a million; whereas during the second

Punic war we find this interval subdivided, as was the part of the

scale below a hundred thousand into only two classes. 11 Thus

much may at all events be conjectured: that the obligation of those

who were registered as horsemen to serve as such at their own cost,

1008 Polybius v1. 20. , To"' ;,,,.,,,.,h

'To

µiv

1rd.1'.<t101

'""f<d.~tn-Jur If ?rpO'Tlpor", ?rMu'Tmflrr °)'•)'o~µon,

.;,,,.a

.:O''Ttpou'

i1oi610"1t.P

'Tou .,.,µnou T'ii,

ix>.o)''ii': since fortune has been taken as the standard in choosing them.

If

he had not intended to imply a casual connexion here, he would have writ­

ten °)'tr•µtrn', being clwsen according to their fortune.

9 Zonaras vu. 19. E;lir a.il'Toi'-i' 'TM q.uA"-'• xa.l i1 .,.;,, i7t'7t'i.J11.,

ul i, .,.;,, )'•PouO"lr1.1 t)')'pii~uv, Tou' I' oux 1il" ~1o'iwra.' "-71'"-J'T"-,:toBtr i'<t.Atl­

i'll'. '

10 Si quadringentis sex, septem millia desunt, Plebs eris.

11 Livy xnv. 11.HISTORY OF ROME.

335

when a knight's horse could not be assigned to them, was deter­

mined by a certain fixed amount of their property; and that, if it

fell short of this, they were bound under the· same circumstances

to enter into the infantry. The former regulation perhaps gave

occasion to the story, in the description of the general zeal to wipe

away the disgrace endured before Veii, that the knights who had

an equestrian fortune and no horse allotted them, volunteered to

serve on horseback at their own expense 1Du; and the latter is alluded

to in the tradition that L. Tarquitius, the friend of the great Cin­

cinnatus, and the bravest of the Roman youth, was compelled by

his poverty to serve on foot 13• The fixing such a sum was a mat­

ter of necessity: from the same reason it was probably altered from

time to time according to the changes in the value of money.

The prevalent opinion, that the equestrian rank from the begin­

ning was essentially connected with great wealth, and yet that all

the knights were furnished with horses by the state, and had a

yearly rent assigned for their keep, not only charges the Roman

laws with absurdity and injustice, but also overlooks Livy's express

remark, which follows close upon his account of the advantages en­

joyed by the knights, that all these burthens were shifted from the

poor upon the. rich 14• Would any one indeed answer for it that a

rich patrician, if he might have had his expenses defrayed, would

magnanimously have declined availing himself of this right, for the

benefit of his poorer brother patrician 1 And as for the plebeians,

if they too had a like right granted them by Servius, at all events it

cannot have been exercised for several generatiqns. At first how­

ever no doubt it was one of the patrician privileges: indeed the

1012 Livy v. 7: that is to say, a greater number than had been called out.

13 Livy III. 27. Though this particular instance itself belongs to the

poetical tradition. For Tarquitius was a patrician; and even those who do

not admit the certainty of the hypothesis that a citizen of this order did not

belong to any class, will allow that poverty in this case would either have

entirely excluded him from servillg, or at best would have degraded him into

a class in which his merits would never have been distinguished .

. 14 lime omnia indites a pauperibus inclinata oner&. Dionysius evi·

dently felt the absurdity that results from his representation, and therefore

sacrificed the opportunity, at other times so welcome to him, of deriving Ro­

man institutions from the Greek ; as Polybius would have Jed him to do by his

comparison of the Roman equestrian order with the Corinthian. I say Poly­

bius: for from him must Cicero have borrowed the notice of a circumstance,

which, as showing how widely such institutions were spread n.mong the an­

cients, is extremely interesting: though as a proof of any connexion between

Rome and Corinth it is good for nothing.336

HISTORY OF ROME.

incontestable meaning of the account in Cicero, representing this

allowance as an institution of the first L. Tarquinius, is, that its

origin was prior.to the establishment of the commonalty as an estate:

and, if restricted to those among the ruling burghers, who, though

equal to their fellows in rank, were below them in fortune, there

was nothing unfair or oppressive in it.

The sum of ten thousand ases for the purchase of a horse, by the

side of the sums at which oxen and sheep were rated in the table of

penalties*, seems to' be so exorbitant, that the correctness of the

number has been questioned. But in the first place it was not to

be a common nag; and compared with such a one at Rome as else­

where a war-horse was naturally very dear: and besides the equip­

ment was incomplete without at least a groom, a slave, who was to

be bought, and then to be mounted. One should be glad to know

whether the state did not replace such horses at least as were lost

on the field;· whether a horseman who was discharged on account

·of age, or the heirs of a deceased one, had not to pay back the ten

thousand ases that had been received. These are questions tow hich

it is scarcely probable that even a lucky moment of conjecture will

ever divine an answer: but surely I cannot be mistaken in suppos­

ing that, when the censor .commanded a knight to sell rhis horse,

the intention was, that the person thus degraded should refund to

the state the outfit-money which had been advanced to him, and

should procure the means of doing so by that sale : he cannot have

had the right of bargaining with another and entitling him on the

payment of the ten thousand ases to enter in his stead into the receipt

of the annual two thousand, as if it had been a transferable office

or luogo vacabile. For this penal command of the censors continued

in use down to the end of the republic; when the practice had long

been to give the knights pay and fodder in room of that allowance.

This change had already been introduced in the time of Polybius 1015 :

knight's horses furnished by the state are mentioned in inscriptions

under the emperors, as long as the old institutions lasted ; though

certainly it is in a very different sense 14 •

* . See below note 1058.

1015 Polybius VI. 39. 12. 13.

16 Cicero (de Rep. 1v. 2.) alludes to a change made by a decree of the

plebs ordaining that the horses should be restored; for when he makes Scipio

speak of any measure as intended, we are to suppose that it had actually taken

effect, but, according to the information pos5essed by Cicero, was later than

the date he assigns to Scipio's discourse. It is possible that the holders of

the outfit-money were enjoined to pay it into 'the treasury, that a great sumHISTORY OF ROME.

337

The form of the equestrian order was determined by that of the

older centuries, which were preserved unaltered as the six sujfra­

gia; and after them were the twelve plebeian centuries modelled.

The centuries of the knights were not connected with the form of

the army; the turms of the cavalry no way corresponded with them:

on the other hand the classes represented an army of infantry, in

exact accord with the constitution of the legion; troops of the line

and light-armed soldiers, with their body of reserve, their carpen•

ters, and thefr band ; and even with the baggage-train.

This exact conformity to the frame of the army was 'peculiar to

this institution, although in many of the Greek states the hoplites

and the full citizens were the same. Nay,the principle also, which

is justly assumed by Dionysius,-that the votes allotted to each

class bore the same proportion to the collective sum of votes,,as the

taxable property of its members bore to the total taxable property

of all the five classes, and that the numbers of the citizens contained

in each stood in an inverse ratio to the numbers that designated

their property,-was not unknown to the Greeks. Aristotle speaks

of votes the weight of which was regulated by the amount of the

property of the voters 101 ~.

might be in hand for largesses: the horses and equipment would have con­

tinued their property. Perhaps too Cicero was mistaken about the date; and the

higher pay mentioned by Polybius, and the fodder, might be meant as a com­

pensation. At all events the inscrip~ions referred to show that the measure

was not permanent. See for instance in Grutur, 404 (3.4.). 407 (6). 415 (3).

1017 Politic. YI. 3. p. 171. ~ul j-«p-oi OAl')'"P):,l1t.ol ('T•UTO J'iJt.«101) OTI

;., J'6~~· 'T~ <JrAtlOVI OU<Tl'1." Jt.<L'Td <Jr°A~a., i'"'P oua-i"" cp<t<rl Jt.pivt<r9<LJ liir. Fur­

ther: ToiiTo 11.upior ;,,.7,,,_071 ,,_·, oi wA<lou, 11.«l ,;, To 7lµnµ« wMlor. If out

of lO rich men and 20 poor, 6 of the rich and 5 of the poor voted on the one

side, 4 of the rich and 15 of the poor on the other, then ~woTIP"'' T~ Tiµ•µ"­

ii11"tfTtlru, a-uv«p19µouµl, ..v clµ,oT•P"' t11.«T¥•"• TouTo 11.up101. He cannot

posssibly have meant individuals here, for this would have led to intermina­

ble calculations,-but vrµµopi«1

'

I must also advert for a moment to the division into classes established by

Solon; for with an apparent likeness to that of Servi us, it has a totally differ­

ent character. The former related wholly to the eligibility to offices, tht>

latter to elections. No comitia according to the four classes were certainly

eve~ held at Athens : but as the archons in old times could only be chosen

out of the first (Plutarch Aristid. c. 1.), and the fourth was excluded from all

offices, so the second' must also have had certain privileges above the third.

In the Attic classes the houses and the commonalty were intermixed, even if

the expression of Demetrius Phalereus quoted in the passage just referred to

--t11. 7,., ,,.,,., 7r.v. 7« µIi''"""- 71µ6µ:t.T« Jt.t1t-rnpsvfl!r-authorize us to con­

clude that among the pentacosiomedimns none but the members of the houses

1.-ssHISTORY OF ROME.

338

The ground was laid for Rome to become a warlike state, when

military service and civic rights were connected with the hereditary

landed property of the plebehns: no freeman however was to feel

himself excluded; and those trades which were indispensable to

the army, but which a plebeian was not allowed to carry on, were

in their corporate capacity placed in a station, which was probably

advantageous, and higher than the individuals would have occupied

by the general principles of the census. For this reason the five

classes had the single centuries attached to them.

Scipio in Cicero's dialogue declines entering into a detailed re­

port of the Servian constitution of the centuries, it being a matter

well-known to his friends: in like manner I too may be excused

from countiug up how the 170 centuries were distributed among the

five classes. There are two points however which I would not

pass over. In the first place the Romans knew only of five classes:

so that Dionysius, who calls such as gave in less than 12,500 ases

a sixth class, is just as much mistaken in this as when he allows

them only one century. Next, here again the regularity of the

· scale assuredly puts it beyond a question that his statement of the

fortune of the fifth class at 12,500 ases or 1250 drachms, and not

Livy's at 11,000 ases, is the correct one. 'Vhether the last was oc­

casioned by Livy's finding it somewhere mentioned perhaps, that

the difference between the limit of the fifth class and the proleta­

rians amounted to 11,000 ases,_:or whether the account which gave

the first class 110,000 ases, estimated the fifth at a tenth of this,

as the sum in Dionysius would be a tenth of the 125,000 ases

which' others assign to the first class,-cannot be decicled; though.

the first is the more probable solution: but it is not a waste of time

to consider how such an error may have arisen. ,

The classes, and they alone, were divided into centuries of the

juniors and the seniors, equal in number; the former destined for

service in the field, the latter for the defence of the city: the age of

the seniors began with the completion of the forty-fifth year 1018,

The theology of the Romans taught 19 that twelve times ten solar

years were the term fixed by Nature for the life of man, and that

beyond this the gods themselves had no power to prolong it; that

Fate had narrowed its span to thrice thirty; that Fortune abridges

were allowed to draw lots for the dignity of the. archon eponymus. And

even the landed property was only rated at the value of the crops.

1018 Varro in Censorinus 14. Dionysius iv. 16. AllM>r-'l'ou' ri71'ep 'l'n·

'l'<tpiiJtoM'tt. 'x<tl ?l'fv'Tf

h~

)'l)'O>O'l'<t' i71'0 'T(l)V

19 Servius on lEn. 1v. 653.

i;tonr.or

IT<rp<t'T!r}ITl(.<01 'l"MV n1>.1xf<1.V.HISTORY OF ROME.

339

even this period by a variety of chances: against these the protection

of thegods was implored. Of the length assigned to man's life by

Fate, just half is marked off by the above mentioned limit: and

since boyhood according to Varro ceased with the fifteenth year,

after the close of which the prmtexta was exchanged for the manly

toga at the next Liberalia 1020 , we here again find the number thirty, a

third part of man's whole lifetime,_ as the number of the years con­

tained in the vigorous prime of life. Here again the numbers them­

selves are a sure thread to guide us; and with reference to the

original institution of Servius, what Gellius states on the authority

of Tubero, that persons were not reckoned to be seniors until the

completion of their forty-sixth year"', is _certainly erroneous. The

term of military service may always have been denoted by the ex­

pression, minoi· ·annis sex et quadraginta 22 : this however meant

the person who had not yet entered into his forty-sixth year 2•. I

have not overlooked. that this. year is included by Polybius in the

military age 24 : but the extension wall brought about by the want of

a more plentiful choice of men hardened by service;· and for this

purpose advantage was taken of an expression, the meaning of

which naturally became indistinqt, when the general connexion run­

ning through the ancient institutions had been lost sight of. In the

same manner Tubero, a contemporary of Cicero, a man of busi­

ness, and no antiquarian, accounts the sixteenth year a part of boy­

hood25; in oppositon to Varro and to the evidence afforded by the

symmetry of the numbers: and unquestionably Nature did not

allow herself to be dictated to by such forms; nor did the lad of

'of fifteen put on strength for a campaign together with the manly

1020 Noris Cenotaph. Pi.s. r. p. 116. ff. Diss. 11. 4. So al.most the whole

of the sixteenth year might elapse previously.

21 x. 28. Ad annum quadragesimum sextum juniores, supra eum an­

num seniores appellasse.

'

22 Livy XLIII. 14.

23 ·Such as were mirwrcs annis viginti quinque were prohibited, with a

few exceptions, from holding offices of trust or dignity: but annus vigesimus

quintus coeptus pro pleno habetur: Ulpian I. 8. D. de muneribus (L. 4). In an

affair connected with constitutional law the expression was interpreted after

the ancient legal practice.

. •

24 The Romans are liable to the conscription iv Toi, TaTT<1.pa'.&onet. &«1

·~ ~TfO'IY ..,,.. i'"'"'· VI. l!J.

25 Gellius x. 28. Pueros esse existimasse, qui minorcs essent annis

scptemdecim: that is, according to the explanation in the text, who had not

yet entered upon their seventeenth year. The next clause-inde ab anno

scptimodccimo militcs scripsisse-settlcs the question in favour of the disputed

reading, juniores ab annis l:leptemdecim scribunt, in Livy xxu. 57 .. ,340

llISTORY OF ROME.

toga. According1y during the first year he was kept merely to

bodily exerci8es, and instructed how to demean himself among

men: and so long as this schooling lasted, it can hardly have been

the custom for him to vote in his century: thus, even if he had the

right, the matter was put off; and if the time to be spent among,the

juniors was still reckoned at thirty years, men would only be­

come seniors with the forty-seventh. Accor<ling to what Gellius

farther quotes out of Tubero, all who were above forty-six would

have been numbered among ·the seniors: according to a different

well-known statement, only such as had not yet closed their sixtieth

year; with which all civic rights expired. , This opinion rests upon

respectable authorities; and the obligation of the seniores to defend

the city, as we read in Livy, speaks strongly for their having

been separate from the senes. The same is also confirmed by the

principles of Greek law; for though Aristotle considers the old men

who have obtained their dismissal, as well as the boys who are not

yet enrolled, in the light of citizens, it is only as imperfect ones 102 e,

Every body sees that one of the fundamental principles in this

ronstitution was to adapt the distribution of power, and of arms as

the means of maintaining power, to the scale of property 2 1; a

scheme akin to the theory which regar<ls a state as a joint-stock

c,ompany. Now in this relation between the juniors and the seniors

yet another purpose displays itself. The ancient nations often en•

trusted the charge of taking counsel for the common weal to the

elders exclusively; and in a like spirit the seniors are placed on a par

with the juniors as to the number of their centuries: nor can we

fail to perceive here the justness of Cicero's words, that. throughout

the whole of the system the aim was to withdraw the power of

deciding from the majority*: for in this way the minority were to

preponderate even within the same class. That is to say, the

seniors. v;hether we take them in the wider or the narrower extent,

were much fewer than the juniors. Returns of population, arranged

according to the different periods of human life, are rare ; nor do

I know of any Italian one; and certainly the relative numbers must

10~6 Politics lIJ. 1. Kctl '71"11.'ilct, <rou' f'~'ll""' Ji iiA111.lctr t')'')'t)'f"f'Plrovr

x.ctl

)'tponct, <r•u' d<;>ttµhou' <;>ct<re•r,eir«I µiv.,..,, 9TOAi'Tct'• oux, ,:11'1'.ll>' 11.

Though great generals were sometimes called to the command of armies at a

very advanced age, there is the less force in this argument with regard to

Rome, because the knights were not divided according to their time of life.

~7 The equestrian order, as has just been remarked, stands apart from

this system.

·

" De Re p. 11. 22. Curavit-ne plurimum valcant plurfoii. ,

'I'.•"'IIISTOR Y OF ROME.

341

inevitably vary in different climates: but assuredly we shall no where

be far from the mark, if we assume that the number of men living

who have completed their forty-fifth year and are under sixty-one,

amounts to less than a third, that of all who have passed their

forty-fifth year, only to about half, of those. living between seven­

teen and forty-six; in the tweQty-eight years which we must take

as the actual period of military service in the field, and of the cor­

responding franchise 1028 • Here again we find a numerical propor­

tion which makes it likely that in the scheme of the centurial con­

stitution the ratio of one to two was in reality taken as a basis,

whatever limit we may draw for the age of the seniors.

The difference among the nunibers contained in the centuries of

different classes must have been exceedingly great: the principle

of their original arrangement has already been pointed out 2 u; name­

ly, the proportion between the aggregate taxable property of each

class and that of the whole body •. Three persons of the first class,

four of the second, six of the third, twelve of the fourth, four and

twenty of· the fifth, stood on a level, taking an average, in poipt of

fortune; and consequently likewise in their votes : therefore the

numbers in the centuries of the lower classes must have increased

at the same rate. The second, third, and fourth classes must each

have possessed property amounting to a fourth of the aggregate for­

tune of the first: the fifth, to three-eighths ; for else it would not

have had thirty centuries. Accordingly the number of citizens in

the second class came to a third, that in the third to half, of those

in the first; that in the fourth was equal to it; that in the fifth

thrice as great. By the principle of this division, out of thirty-five

citizens six: belonged to the first class, twenty-nine to the other

four. Moreover if the juniors of the first class had not actually

been about 4000, there was no reason to make forty centuries of

them: the inconvenience of so large. a number for voting cannot

have escaped the legislator. If the seniors of the same class were

taken to be half the juniors, the numbers just set down came out in

thousands, giving 6000 for the first class, 35,000 .for the whole

five 80 , This sum in no way disagrees with the one recorded as the

1028 I have deduced this result from the English population-returns of the

year 1821. The· relative numbers for the males, accurately expressed, are,

from 17 to 45, 0.6637; from 45 to 60, 0.2035; above 60, 0.1328; or the total

above 45, 0.3363. Calculating from the close of the fifteenth year, the pro­

portion would be that of 0.6863 to 0.3137.

29 Above p. 337.

30 This ancient numerical proportion rnay 'VerY. probably contain the342

HISTORY OF RO.ME.

result of the first census, 84,700 1031 ; a number which however has no

better claim to pass for historical, tpan the statements in the Fasti

of the days on which king Servius triumphed. From all appear­

ance some calculation adapted to the above mentioned proportion

lies at the bottom of this number; it certainly was not hit upon at

random: but there is little chance of our being able so to combine

what we know, as to divine the number assumed for the knights

and for the centuries not included in the classes. From the very .

first the numbers in the classes can have afforded nothing more

than an approximation to the object aimed at,.of representing the

taxable property: in process of time, and as the nominal value of

things altered, they must have departed so far from any such rela­

tion, that, as is the fate of all similar forms, this too became utterly

unfit for use and unmeaning.

·

A second. division of the centuries was into, the assiduers or locu­

pletes and the proletarians. The former must have included the

craftsmen attached to the first and fifth class. The name of· assi­

duers however was given to all whose fortune came to 1500 ases 8 ~

and upward: so that they also comprised. all between this limit and

the fifth class : and since on pressing emergencies the proletarians

were called out and equipped with arms at the public expense, it

plainly follows that these assiduers, though comprehended in no

class, can still less have been exempted from military service; nor

can they have been without the right of voting, in which the pro­

letarians and the capitecensi partook. They must doubtless have

been the accensi, who, Livy says, voted like the musicians with

the fifth class: or, more correctly speaking, as we now know from

Cicero, they formed two centuries, the accensi and velati; which

were probably distinguished from each other by their census as well

as in other respects; so that those were perhaps called accensi, who

were rated at more than say 7000 ases; those velati, ·whose return

fell between that sum and the proletarians. It has already been

noticed as a peculiarity in old Latin, especially in te~hnical and

official phrases, that the names of two objects, which, whether from

reason why, when a century, as Cicero says (pro Plancio 20(49)), was only

a part of a tribe, the number 'of tribes was raised to just five and thirty, and

no higher.

31 Dionysius rv. 22. The odd thousands are wanting in Livy, where

we find the round number 80000; doubtless only through the carelessness of

the person to whom we owe our revision of the text. For Eutropius, who

takes every thing from Livy, speaks of 83000 (1. ,7). The statement of the

census found in some manuscripts of the epitome of Livy is an interpolation.

32 , Cicero de Re p. n. 22. · Gellius xvi. 10.HISTORY OF ROl\IE.

343

their contrast ·or affinity, were habitually referred to each other,

were combined by mere juxtaposition, without any conjunction; as

empti venditi, locati conducti, socii Latini, Prisci Latini*: thus it

was the practice to say and to write accensi velati; a practice fa­

voured by their being united, as is certain, in the one battalion of

the accensi. When the body of reserve no longer followed the

standards, as it had done under the old system; when the obligation

to military service and the mode of raising levies had been entirely

remodelled after a new plan; and yet centuries of accensi and velati,

though doubtless composed of persons of a very different sort, were

still subsisting-being preserved, it may be supposed, because by

the ritual the beadles who attended upon the magistrates even when

offering sacrifices were taken from amongst them 1033- ; the usage of

ancient times was then so totally forgotten, that writers spoke of

an accensus velatus, just as of a socius Latinus, which would have

offended Cato's ears as a gross solecism. Their military duty was

the lightest in the whole army; since they followed the legion

without any b_usiness or burthen; nor were they marched in troops

against the enemy; but one by one they filled up the gaps that

were made, and received arms for that purpose 34·: besides they acted

as orderlies to the officers down to ~he decurion 81 • A great many

of them must have returned home from the short Roman campaigns

without having ever come to blows,' and frequently not without

booty.

While these held the lowest rank among the assideurs, the car­

penters on the other hand had a place allotted them by the side of

the first class. Cicero only gives them one century: and if we

*

Above pp. 224. 288.

1033 EvE:n Cato in ills time only knew thein as ministratores. Varro de

L. L. vr. 3. p. 92.

34 This is the account given by Varro, in the same place, of the adscrip­

tivi: and the passage quoted from him in Noni us de Doct. lndag. (xn) n. 8. v.

accensi, shows that in the section de adscriptivis he treated of the accensi.

Their identity as a body of reserve is also recognized by Festus in the Epit.

v. adscriptitii : so is that of the velati both there and again v. 'lJelati. Whether

they were really also the same with thefercntarii, as has been asserted, that

is, whether both together were embraced under that name, and whether their

business was to supply the soldiers in battle with arms and drink, are ques­

tions 1 leave undetermined. He that rejects my hypothesis has to show in

what way then those assiduers, who stood below the fifth class, served and

voted; and from what other body the accensi, who in the earlier form of th~

lt>gion made up thirty maniples, can have been taken. Livy too mentions

them along with the fifth class:

35 Varro in the same passage of Nonius.'344

IIISTORY OF ROME.

were reduced to the necessity of adopting the testimony of the most

trustworthy witness, I at least should not hesitate an instant between

him and the two historians. l4>wever here again a sure trace is

afforded us by the relation among the numbers. I shall speak

lower down of the comitia held in the camp*; where consequently

none· but the junior centuries and the five attached to them, the

Jabri, accensi, velati, liticines, and cornicines, were present: in

these no distinction was made between the juniors and the seniors,

any more than among the knights. Now the junior centuries

amounted to eighty-five; so that along with these five they made

up three times thirty, that number which runs through the earliest

institutions. This observation, I conceive, decides the matter; and

at the same time we may here catch a further glimpse of the reason

why, even if the. returns of the census had deviated considerably

from the abovementioned scheme, the number of centuries in the

classes would still have been fixed at just 170.

The proletarians in the most precise sense of the name, accord­

ing to Gellius 1088 , were those who gave in their property under 1500

ases, and above 375 : such as came below this mark, and those who

had noihing at all, were called capitecensi: in a wider sense, and

as contrasted with the assiduers, both these divisions were' com­

yrised under the name of prolefarians. That they formed two

centuries, the proletarians and the capitecensi, we should fincl

expressly stated in Cicero, but that the leaf of the manuscript

with the remainder of his account of the ce~turies, which breaks

off with the word proletariis, has been lost 3 7, It began beyond all

doubt with the words capite censis 8 ". Cicero reckoned 96 centu­

ries for the last four classes and the six odd centuries attached to

them: which number is made up, if, after the accensi, velati, liti­

cines, cornicines, we place two more; to wit, the proletarii and the

capitecensi 39 • Thus there would be 195 in the whole; a number

See the text to· note IO!l4.

1036 XVI. 10.

37 The sixth leaf of the eighteenth quaternion.

38 Let nobody guess that it was the century ni quis scivit; whi?h was

improperly termed a century, and was only called into existence when some

one stated that he had neglected to vote in his own.

39 Cicero has unfolded the whole system of this constitution with admi­

rable skill, at the very time that he declines giving a dry list of the classes.

Ignorant scribes indeed, and that unfortunate set of book-correctors who

waited in the train of the booksellers of antiquity, and who, as they even

boast in the declarations at the end of their manuscripts, improved them for

sale sine libris pro virihus in.genii, found him unintelligible; and thus throughlllSTORY OF ROME.

345

which is confirmed by another relation. For the 98 centuries

formed by' the knights and the first class being set in opposition to

all the rest so as to outvote them, it is natural that they should

amount to just half the sum total and one more: and such is the

case, if the lesser half consisted of the four lower classes, the six

centuries just mentioned, and the carpenters; in all 97. The car-

careless transcription and stupid and rash alterations did that hideous cor­

ruption arise by which the passage is disfigured. I have the same clear and

conscientious conviction that the restoration I have set forth in another place

is correct, as I have of the truth of my historical propositions. (The emend­

ations suggested by the author in Mai's edition were afterward reconsidered

Ly him in a tract Uebpr die Nacltricltt von den Comitien der Centurien im zwey­

ten Buck Ciceros de re publica, and in a controversial Duplik gegen Iierrn

Steinacker.) Perhaps others will feel no less certain, if they can but clearly

see the manner in which the corruption was produced. That a person not

familiar with manuscripts, and especially with very old ones, however free

he may be from prejudice, or however capable of pronouncing an opinion on

critical questions, will still find it difficult to enter into the following descrip­

tion, may easily be supposed: but this deficiency does not give him any

higher title to pass judgment. The clue in the labyrinth, as must be evident

on a candid consideration of the passage in its disorder, is this: Cicero di­

vided all the centuries into two masses: one contained the first class and the

carpenters attached to it; the other all the rest, the knights and the !J6 centu­

ries. And then he says: if &om among the latter the knights alone joined

the former, the 96 centuries, even if they kept inseparably together, were

outvoted.

The text .in its sound state ran thus': Nunc rationem vidctis esse talem ut

prima dassis, addita centuria qwe ad .mmmum usum urbis fabris tignariis est

data, LXXXI centurias kabeat: quibus ex cuv centuriis, tot enim reliqua: sunt,

equitum cent1triai cum sez suffragiis solflJ si accesserunt etc. In a passage 0£

this kind a reader will commonly go over the calculation; and thus some one

having written on the side decem ct octo, the number of the centuries in the

eque!ltrian order, the words crept into the text of a manuscript; so that the

clause now ran : equitum centurial cum sex suffragiis decem et octo solce si

accesserunt.

Now a line of this was left out-the words eq. c. e. s: Bil.ff. x. et-then sup­

plied in the margin, and in the transcript foisted into the wrong place, after

talem ut; so that now the passage was sheer nonsense, and read as follows:

.N'unr. rationem videtis esse talem ut eqvii:um centuria! cum sex S11jfrtigiis x et

prima classis ad c. q. a. s. u. u. f. t. e. d. LUXI. c. !. q. 11. cxiv. '· tot eni11& re•

liquai sunt octo solce si accesserunt etc.

Next came an ignorant emender, and fancied to put sense into it out of his

own head. The word octo had remained in its place: soon afterward the 96

centuries are spoken of: now as 96 and 8 make 104, cuv was altered into

c1v. In the same way x was struck out further back after sujfragiis, because

it did not give even a shadow of meaning. As to the Lxxxvw1, it arose from

a reader adding up the same vm with the LXXXI.

I.-TT346

HISTORY OF ROME.

penters, though stationed alongside of the first class, were yet by

their nature estranged from the aristocracy of birth and wealth 1040 •

The proletarians and capitecensi were not only inferior to the

locupletes from the insignificance of their share in the right of vot­

ing, but to all the assiduers in their civil capacity and estimation.

It is an obscure question how one citizen was a vindex for an­

other: none however but an assiduer could be so for his fellow"' :

and the phrase locuples testis demonstrates that even in giving evi­

dence there was a distinction humiliating to the poor 41 • Where

such was the case, it is impossible to suppose that the proletarians

were eligible to plebeian offices. But to make amends for this they

were exempted from taxes 42 •

\Vhether the five classes were on a perfect level as to their eli­

gibility to offices, is a point on which nothing, is known. What is

said concerning their being represented by the tribunes when the

number of these was raised to five*, seems certain; and therefore

probably each severally elected its deputy, and out of its own body.

The sums at which the plebeians and rerarians stand rated in

the census, were not the amount of their fortune after our notions,

,which account every source of income capable of transfer by inhe­

ritance or alienation a part of the capital ; but only that of such

property as they held in absolute ownership ; perhaps to the ex­

clusion of many kinds even of this. I have said, the plebeians and

rerarians: because it can hardly be supposed that the patricians ori·

ginally gave in any return of their fortune and paid a tax upon it;

the census furnished no measure for the.ir wealth. For the estates

in the pul:Jlic domains which they possessed and enjoyed the usu­

fruct or made grants of, transmitting by inheritance the same pos­

session and right of making such grants, under. a reservation of the

1040 Consequently Cicero might certainly have expressed himself much

more simply than he does in the passage explained in the last note; if in

treating of this obsolete matter Jie had recollected that the carpenters in rank

belonged to the upper half, in character to the lower. This is a further proof.

that there can have been only one century of them: and so of the other six

each belonged to a particular class of people.

* Gellius xvr. 10 from the twelve tables : Assiduo vindex assiduus

esto : proletario quoi quis volet vindex esto:

41 That locuples and assidu:us were equivalent, we learn from CiceJ:o de

Re p. 11. 22. Gellius too says : Assiduus in duodecim tabulis pro locuplete

et facile facienti dictus.

.

42 The etymology for the name of the opposite class, the assidui, ab asse

danda, from their being liable to be taxed, is evidently right.

* See note 1360.HISTORY OF ROME.

347

sovereign's title to resume the lands and to dispose of them other­

wise, cannot have been returned by them as property. They were

only a possession for a time: such refinements as those by which

modern nations extract a partial value, to be considered as absolute

property 1043, from a life-interest, were. unheard of among the an­

cients. As to the persons liable to taxation, it is clear that all those

things, which, as objects of Quiritary property, were in the strictest

sense called res mancipii 44 ,-such as brass coin, houses, parcels of

land, the rights attached to them, buildings and implements on them,

slaves, beasts of burthen and draught, and horses-were compre­

hended in the census. · But this statement of the jurists was pro­

bably much too confined for the early ages, even as a list of such

tl1ings as belonged to that particular kind of property' : flocks of

smaller cattle appertained to husbandry, just as much as beasts of

. draught and butthen; nor would the transfer of property in them

be attended with fewer formalities ; although it was not worth the

trouble to -employ the balance and to call witnesses for the sale of

a single goat or sheep. Gaius "pronounces silver and gold to be

res nee mancipii : yet Fabricius and Rufinus gave in a return of

their wrought silver to the censor* : and so,- even if res maneipii

and censui eensendo were equivalent from the beginning, we cannot

draw any certain conclusion from the lists in him and in Ulpian as

to the extent of the objects which made up the census of a Roman

c1t1zen. It is at least possible that at one time every thing which

did not come under the head of mere possession, granted ·whether

by the state or by a patron, was res mancipii and was called so ;

that the title to a ship might be maintained in court by the same

proc_ess as . that to a house ; and that all this was reckoned into a

person's capital. But a decisive discovery on this point is just as

little to be hoped foi: as on the mode of assessing the capital. An

actual valuation would have been impracticable : mention is made

of a formulary used by the censors 45 : hereby. we must doubtless

understand a table of rates for every kind and sort of taxable ob­

1043 For the sake of representing a freehold.

44 If scholars, remembering how the genitive Tulli and like are written,

would be content to regard mancipi as the genitive of mancipium, property,

and .would make this apparent by their way of spelling it, we should be rid of

an unprofitable puzzle.·

* F'lorus 1. 18. 2'2: and the passages quoted by Camera in the note.

45 Livy XXIX.15. Placere ccnsum in cploni~s agi ex fonnula ab Roman is

ccnsoribus data.348

, HISTORY OF ROME.

jects, which rates might be applied to particular cases by multipli­

cation.

•

.

.

Not only however were many elements of wealth omitted in the

census : what made it still more inadequate as a criterion of pro­

perty, was, th.at debts, as the sequel of this history will show, were

not deducted*. It would be a most fruitless effort, to pore over the

ll!Jmbers in the scheme of the centuries with the hope of discover·

ing what may throw light on the wealth of Rome.

A peculiar stumbling block in every attempt to make out the na·

ture of the census lies in the numbers employed as measures of

property; which sound so enormous. In an explanation of the in·

stitutions which are handed down as the acts of Servius Tullius,

this difficulty must some where or other be elucid11-ted; more espe·

cially, since the coining the first Roman money is also attributed

to him: wherever such a discussion were inserted, it would be an

episode; and my reason for introducing it here, before the inquiry

into the nature of the tribute which corresponded to the census, is,

that I believe there is no other pla<:e where it would not still more

interrupt the connexion.

·

Dionysius gives the census of the classes in drachms, whereby

he means denaries : for these were originally minted ·of the same

weight and value with the Greek silver coin; and even after they

had been clipped and debased, it continued usual, at least in the

language of books, to call them by the Greek name, His numbers

in drachms are exactly the tenth of Livy's, whose estimate is in

asest 048 : and this was the proportion between them, before the as

was lowered to an ounce in weight. But the ases weighing the

sixth of a pound, with which the statement of Dionysius agrees,

were themselves on a reduced scale: and it is impossible to discarcl

the question what was the value in silver of the sums enumerated

in the census at the time the centuries were instituted; when, as is

universally assumed, the as weighed a full pound. The first thought

that suggests itself is, that it must then have been worth in silver

·r61!'ths of a drachm, or nearly 4 obols.

It was a remarkable and very singular peculiarity of the nations

. in the middle of Italy, to employ copper in heavy masses for their

currency, not silver: whereas the southern provinces, and the coast

as far as Campania, though the mode of computing by ounces'was

* See the text to note 1287.

1046 With regard to the fifth class they followed accounts that did not

·agree : see p. 338.HISTORY OF ROME.

349

not unknown even in Sicily, made use of silver money. That tl1e

Etruscans, Umbrians, and some of the Sabellian tribes coined cop­

per, is proved by the inscriptions on specimens that remain: as to

the Latins and Samnites, no such pieces of their m<>ney with in·

scriptions have been found, any more than silver coins of theirs

belonging to an early age 1047, But the great variety in the form of

the ases without inscriptions shows that they must have been minted

in a number of towns: the large sums of brass-money the Roman

armies obtained amid their booty in Samnium, while but an incon­

siderable quantity of silver was carried home in the triumph, evince

that the former was the currency there : so was it undoubtedly in

Latium: and a part of those nameless coins probably belonged to

these two nations. Rome had the same currency; and according

to a tradition, which very clearly proves how far and wide Servius

Tullius was celebrated. as the author of all institutions on civil

matters of importance, he was named by Timreus as the person

who first stamped money at Rome; the people before his time

having.employed brass in the lump, tell rude 48•

We will let this account take its place by the side of other stories

about our hero~ a further statem~nt connected with it, that the

imprc!is on the first ases was an ox, must be rejected as positively

wrong. For a piece with that impress has been preserved 49, as to

the genuineness of which there can be no doubt: an impostor would

have given it the full weight of a pound; but it weighs only eight

ounces: and although no Roman as hitherto discovered is quite

equal to a full pound in weight, there are many far heavier thau

that one; nor indeed have we any ground to question there having

been ases of full weight, though they have now disappeared. The

pieces that Timreus had heard of were not coined till after the

standard lrad already 'undergone several reductions. There would

be nothing unwarrantable in supposing that this unusual image con­

tained an allusion to the law of the consuls C. Julius and P. Papi­

rius, who, certain fines having been imposed in head of cattle, fixed

the value of each several head in money 50•

If instead of money, properly so called, which is only a measure

of value, some commodity or other,· which as such is an object.of

1047 The denaries of the Latin colonies are all of them more recent than

the oldest Roman ones.

48 Pliny, H. N. xxx1r1. 13.

49 Eckhel Doctr. num. vet. v. p. 14. The oblong pieces with an ox on

them (p. 11) belong likewise to this class. ·

50 Cicero de Re p. JJ, 35, compared with Gellius u. 1.350

HISTORY OF ROME.

dP-mand, be employed, one of the disadvantages necessarily con·

nected with it is the inconvenient size of the particular pieces : thus

it is with the pieces of cloth or of rocksalt in Abyssinia, with the

cocoa in :Mexico; and thus it was with the brass in ancient Italy.

The brass, I say: for it is only to avoid singularity of expression,

when it can be avoided, that I follow others in giving the name of

copper money to what in reality was· bronze; copper, made more

fusible by an admixture of tin~ 051 or· zinc. How very general the

use of this metal was, is proved by the armour of the Servian legion:

and there can be no question that all the better household utensils

were of the same material. Thus brass was a thing of daily need;

and the masses of it were so easily transformed by fusion, that no

loss was incurred by that process ; at the same time the impress

upon it saved the trouble·of weighing. Nothing but a very illtimed

recollection of our own customs with regard to money has given rise

to the notion that the quadrangular or oval pieces were not money

just as much as the round: and. in this manner it may be perfectly

well explained how pieces were coined of still greater weight than

an as, up to a decussis. Even in late times, perhaps in those of

Timreus, the Ligurians, poor as they were, had shields of brass 59•

This general use implies its abundance and cheapness: to be em­

ployed for the armour of all the hoplites brass must havl'.l been pro­

curable at a lower rate than ·iron : and indeed foreign traders in

the Homeric age bring iron to Italy, to obtain a cargo of copper 53 •

The produce of copper mines is very variable; and those of Tuscany,

especially in the country about Volterra, not to mention that in that

depopulated region they may be neglected without sufficient reason,

may now be exhausted, and notwithstanding may once have been

immensely productive: to this was added the produce of the mines

in Cypnis, ascertained to have been enormous; the influx of which

into Italy is attested by the Latin and our own name for the metal.

The dependence of that island upon the Phenicians in very remote

times opened a way for this to the Punic marts ; and Carthaginian

1051 , As Klaproth has proved by analysing some.

52 Strabo tv. p. ·202. d ..

53 See above p. 49, note 195. Mr Arnold, the scholar who introduced

the first edition of this history to the English public by a friendly review, has

called my attention to an opinion of Werner's-which a German indeed ought

not to have had suggested to him by a foreigner-that copper, which·of all

metals is the oftenest found pure in the ore, for this reason probably was also

the first that was wrought. Ile further remarks in support of the view in

which it givt>s me pleasure to find him ·concurring, that the Massagetes ac­

cording to Herodotus (1. 215) had only brass, no iron.

·.

HISTORY OF ROME.

351

vessels must have brought it into.Italy. The low price consequent

on such plenty agrees with every thing that is known concerning

the quantity of brass money and its value in the times before the

introduction of silver money. Ten thousand pounds of it for the

purchase, two thousand annually for the keep of a knight's horse,

are sums which, according to the weight and the market price, would

in later times have been so extravagant as to be utterly inconceivable.

The heavy copper money was piled up in .rooms 1054 ; and it is re­

corded that during the Veientine war some persons sent the tribute

they owed to the state in wagon loads to the treasury 55, · The

younger Papirius in his triumph after .the Samnite war brought

above two million pounds weight of copper money*; Duilius still

more 58 : in both cases the money of this kind far surpassed in value

the silver taken in the same war. 'Whether at the time when the

census was introduced the as was still full weight, or had already

become lighter, is beyond our knowledge: thus much however is

evident from a comparison of prices, that Dionysius, so far as any

thing like a proportion can be made out, was justified in assuming

that the old as was of the same· value relatively to silver with the as

reduced to the weight of the old sextant: in other words the

weight of the brass coin was diminished, because the metal had

become so much dearer in comparison with silver.

It is a gross mistake in Pliny,-and one quite unpardonable, since

he must a thousand times have seen pieces of money which palpably

confuted his error,-to regard the first reduction of the as which

he seems to have found recorded in the Annals, as the first actually

made. Even at the present day every collection of pieces of heavy

copper money contains the most striking evidence that the weight

was only lowered to two· ounces by degrees 57, · The rise in the

price of copper is attributable to the same causes which enhance its

value when the currency is in a nobler metal; to the decrease in the

produce of the mines, and the increase in its consumption an<l ex­

portation. The weight may have begun to be. diminished very

1054 Varrq de L. L. 1v. 36. p. 50. Non in area ponebant, sed in aliqua

cella stipabant.

55 Livy 1v. GO.

* Livy x. 46.

56 2,100,000: as appears from the inscription on the column.

57 It would throw light on the history of the arts, if the impresses on

the ases and the lesser coins were examined, in connexion with the gradual

diminution in their weight; for they exhibit the execution of the artists in a

regular series through more than two centuries. The most recent may have

followed ancient models: in the oldest we see what the art was already able

to effect.352

HISTORY OF ROME.

early: if however the coin which Timreus held to be the oldest,

referred, as I have suggested, to the establishment of a determinate

sum for mulcts, at the time of that measure it was still four times

as heavy as after it had been lowered in the first Punic war. Now

as the consuls Julius and Papirius valued a sheep at ten ases, so at

Athens, where the currency was silver, it was rated by the laws of

Solon at a drachm 1058 : an ox, which the Roman law estimated at a

hundred ases, at Athens was only worth five drachms. It is pro·

bable that between the time of Solon and the Peloponnesian war

there had been a general rise of prices through Greece and Italy;

and an ox at Rome too about the year 160 may probably have sol<l.

for no more than fifty ases: what I am aiming at is only to show

that of the heavy ases, no le.ss than of the lighter, ten may on the

average be taken for equivalent to a drachm. On this point the prices

of corn are decisive: if the diminution in the weight of the as .had

lessened its value as money; there must needs have been a nominal

increase in the price of ~om.

This was regarded as singularly low about the year 814, when

corn fell to an as a modius: but an equally low price was recorded

by the chronicl.es in the year 504, when the as no longer weighed

more than two ounces 59 ; and a hundred years later, when copper

coins, having been reduced to a twelfth of their original weight,

were merely used for a sm"all currency, and all prices were ·rated. in

silver, wheat often sold in Cisalpine Gaul for no more than two

light asesoo. On the other hand after the dictatorship of Scylla the

modius in Sicily was at two or som~times three sesterces, that is,

from 8 to 12 depreciated ases~ two to the ounce 81 : and these were

customary prices in an age when the money-value of every thing

had risen to several times its ancient amount; while the former was

so extremely low as to be noticed in the chronicles. Now had not

the price of brass been continually rising, so that the weight of it

which corresponded in value to a fixed quantity of the universal

currency, silver, was constantly diminishing, the price, which three

centuries and a half before was unusuahy small, must have been

1058 Gellius xx. 1. Demetrius Phalereus in Plutarch Solon. c. 23.

5!) Pliny xvm. 4. As this was in the first Punic war, Italy must at that

time have been accustomed to j!Xport corn, and was then suffering from a glut

owing to the stoppage.

·

60 Polybius u.15. Ile says, the Sicilian medimnus often sold for4 obols,

or two thirds of a drachm : the denary already consisted ofl6 ases. Borghesi

has completely proved that the last diminution of the as did not take place till

the time of Sylla.

61 Cicero against Verres 2. 111. 75.HISTORY OF ROME.

353

twice or thrice as high as the above mentioned common market

prices.

The deteriorating the coinage in the manner usual among barba­

rous nations and in ages of ignorance is mostly to serve very gross,

nay profligate ends: nevertheless there may also be a state of things

in which it is wise, and even necessary, to adopt a lower.standard.

Through a nation's .own fault its own smaller currency, or through

circumstances that could not be forestalled lighter money from abroad,

may have become predominant and have driven the heavier out of

circulation: attempting to restore it were to swim against the stream,

and can only breed mischief and disgrace. If a s~te has fallen

into the unfortunate system of paper money, and this sinks in com­

parison with silver, then, should a juncture of favourable circumstances

furnish the means of re-establishing a metallic currency, it is alto­

gether· absurd, nay purely disastrous, to make the metal resume its

place with its standard unchanged, and the sums in all contracts

abide by their nominal amount, while it is impossible to keep up

prices at the height where they stood at the time of the paper cir­

culation106s•. Nay if, even without paper money, all prices have for

a course of years been forced up by extraordinary circumstances far

above the mean of those which prevailed during the preceding gene­

rations ; if the expenses and bur thens of the country have increased

at the same rate; and then at length this feverish condition subsides,

and every thing drops down for a continuance to the lowest average

prices ; in such a case the only hope of safety lies in a proportionate

reduction of the standard: and to. this result common sen.se led men

in former times, whereas theory and delusion uow cry out against

itss. At Rome the exigency was still more pressing. As in the

middle ages, from the constant and unreplaced efilux of money

toward the East, silver became scarcer and scarcer on the north of

the Alps, and all prices kept on progressively falling; so at Rome,

1002 . In this way the state has to pay a fictitious debt: whereas of itself

every funded system, if prolonged without a reduction, first breeds a herd of

lazy and ignorant fundholders, and of beggars, and after all ends in a. bank­

ruptcy, only too late.

63 In the years from 1740 to 1750 corn in England sold for about three­

fifths of the price it had stood at GO years earlier : in France the prices at the

two epochs were nominally equal ; because the standard had been altered in

the proportion of 13 to 20. Supposing• now that the landed property in the

two countries had been generally burthened with mortgages, thousands, who

in the former must have been ruined, would have been saved in the latter;

and that not only among the proprietors who would have retained their inher­

itance; but even among the mortgagees.

1.-uu354

HISTORY OF ROME.

as we have seen, copper gradually grew dearer in comparison with

silver, and consequently with all other commodities: and this,

although Rome had no national debt, and her citizens no hereditary

mortgages, must still have produced extreme hardship and distress

in abundance of instances. The pay to the horsemen and foot­

soldiers ·stood fixed at a stated number of ases: and though the

countrymen now received fewer ases for his crop, he. had neverthe~

Jess to pay the same sum as if money were not worth more than

before. This of itself would settle the question: without· doubt

however the times when reductions were resolved upon, were chiefly

those when the state was desirous of relieving the debtors: and

history presents so many such occasions, that there is surely ground

for believing we may discover with tolerable accuracy when those

progressive diminutions in the weight of the as, which the collec­

tions exhibit, took place.

After Rome had acquired the dominion over Campania and the

south of Italy, where silver was in generd circulation, more com­

plex causes were at work. The tithes and farmed duties would

come in from thence in silver: the silver coined in the South with

the superscription of Rome undoubtedly circulated within the city

itself: at length denaries were issued as the national money. Now

if in doing this.a false proportion was assumed; if a decussis of

thirty ounces in weight,-on which scale, as the number of pieces

we find infer, the coinage must have stood .still for some time,

although for a much shorter than on that of four ounces to the as1os 4

-was worth more than a denary; things must have gone on as

they do now, when it is attempted to keep gold and silver in fixed

and false proportions beside each other in circulation : the metal

which is rated too low quits the country 65 • A direct proof that

such was the case with the Italian copper money, is supplied by

the immensely large sum .which Duilius brought out of. Sicily,

althou,gh the currency there was that of the Greeks, silver and gold:

so that the copper must have been introduced by traffic; in exchange

for silver. Now if brass grew dearer in consequence of the Punic war,

because the importation of Cyprian copper and of tin was ~topped,

1064 · Here surely I may say with confidence, ever since the secession to

the Janiculan; that is, during about thirty years.

,

65 That trafficking in money and speculations in different sorts of it

were by no means unknown to the ancients, is proved by a remarkable pass­

age in Xenophon de Vectigalibus 3. 2. The attic drachms were of fine silver;

and Xenophon was very well aware that a state promotes its own advantage

by coining good money.HISTORY OF ROME.

355

the republic had no more choice whether she would lower her ases

to the weight.of a sextant or not, than France had forty years ago

about altering her gold coinage. . If such a measure was not taken,

all the money of that metal would go out of the country; and the

state lose as much as its nominal value was too low. The rise of

copper still continued; and two ounces were still too heavy: but

when the weight was reduced to one, this was going too far, and it

was necessary to make the sesterce equivalent to four ases.

It is our duty attentively to investigate in what way the authors

through whom we derive our knowledge of ancient history, have

been led to the misunderstandings they have fallen into; and thus

to find :m excuse for their ·errors, instead of abusing them. This

like every act of dutifulness has its reward: for the discovery of the

place where they went astray from the right road, establishes its

coiirse. Pliny confounded the as which was employed to measure

the amount of the res grave, with the full-weighted coin. ·The

former was resorted to from necessity; since copper money was

used so far and wide, but in all varieties' of size: every where the

weight was reduced, owing to the same causes as at Rome; but,

inasmuch as it was in towns wholly independent of each other, the

reductions were different in different places •. All these moneys

were of the same metal; nor had a state any motive for forbidding

any coin but its own to circulate, since a seignorage was a thing

unknown to antiquity: 'accordingly a hundred pounds, whether in

the newest Roman money or in mixed sorts, were of the •same

value 1066 • , To bring these to a common standard was the end served

by the scales used in all bargains: these, as well as the witnesses,

had an important purpose, and were by no means a piece of sym­

bolical trifling. Had the old pounds continued undiminished, and

no others been current, the scales could never have been thought

of: payments would h~ve been by tale. · The weight supplied a

common measure for the national money and all these divers sorts;

and no less so for the old Roman coins, without any necessity of

melting them 'down, unless for every-day use; hence they might

continue to circulate. It is an utter misapprehension to attach

the name res grave to none but the heavier sorts: it bore the same

relation to minted ases, that pounds of silver do to pounds sterling~

When the currency became silver, and the· practice to count by

1066 That this is more than a bare possibility, and that the greatest variety

of pieces were in circulation at the ~ame time, is plain from the coins which

are often found in a single heap.

­356.

HISTORY OF ROME.

sesterces, this whole mode of reckoning ceased: from that time

forward wherever ases are spoken of, coined ones reckoned by tale

are meant: so that an antiquarian might very correctly say that in

the first Punic war the Romans passed from using pounds of cop­

per to using ases weighing the sixth of a pound: and then the mis­

take into which Pliny, or the author he followed, fell, lay close at

hand.

I return from this digression to treat of the census. Every

Roman was strictly bound to .make an honest return of his own.

person, his family, and his taxable property; and his neglecting to

do so was severely punished. , The Jaws also provided the means

for detecting false returns. All children on their birth were regis­

tered in the temple of Lucina; all who entered into youthhood in

that of Juventas; all the deceased in that of Libitina; ,all sojourners

with their wives and children, at th_e Paganalia: obsolete institu­

tions which Dionysins knew of only from the report of L. Piso 106 7.

All changes of abode or of landed property were to be announced

to the magistrates of the district, the tribunes or the overseers of

the pagi or vici: which Dionysius misinterprets into a prohibition

against any body dwelling without the region of his tribe 68 • In like

manner notice must have been given on every alienation of an arti­

cle liable to tribute ; and the purpose of the witnesses prescribed

by law, who confessedly represented the five classes, was at least

quite as much to trace the object of the sale for the census, as to

ensure the proprietor. One ·sees that these enactments 'made it

necessary that a good deal should be written; and for thi1:1 to ha~e

been done in the service of the state is not at variance with the

scarcity of books •

. h was by the plebs that the regular tax according to the census

was paid: its very name, tributum, was deduced from the tribes of

this order6 9• It was an impost varying with the exigencies of the

state, regulated by the thousands of a man's capital in the census;

but not a property-tax anywise corresponding to the income of the

tributary class: for the stories about the plebeian debtors plainly

show that debts were not deducted in the valuation of a fortune*.

It was a direct tax upon objects, without any regard to their pro­

duce, like a land and house tax: indeed this formed the main part

1067 IV. 15.

68 IV.14.

69 Varro de L. L. IV. 36. p. 49. Livy reverses this, saying, tribus ap­

pellatal a trilruto, i. 43. The tax was levied according to the tribes : Diony·

sius IV. 14: by the tribuni rerarii: Varro IV. 36.

* See the text to note 1287.. HISTORY OF ROME.

357

of it; included however in the general return of. the census 10 7°,

What must have made it peculiarly oppressive was its variable­

ness71, It did not extend below the assiduers: the proletarians

merely made a return of what they had. The notion of their pay­

ing a polltax is built on an unfounded interpretation of the t~ibutum

in capite, or more correctly in capita7 9 , which is mentioned as dis·

tinct from the tribute according to the census, and the nature of

which I believe will appear from the following explanation.

The purchase money for a knight's horse is called by Gaius te8

equestre 78 : the right there was to distrain for it rieed not excite ap.y

doubt about Livy's statement, that it was paid out of the common

treasury; since the same summary process was granted against the

tribunus rerariu8 for the res militare 74 • The annual provision for

a knight's horse the lawyer terms UJ8 l~ordearium. With regard

to the latter, Livy's account, that every knight received it from a

widow, sounds exceedingly strange: for, even if it was confined to

but a few hundred, so large a number of rich widows seems incon­

ceivable. In the first plac~ however the word vidua is to be un·

derstoo<l, after its original meaning, which is recognized by the

Roman jurists, -0f .every single woman generally, maiden as well

as widow7 5 ; and therefore of an . heiress (iwi1<>..npo~) : and besides

1070 Beside these two taxes, it embraced several, of those which in Eng­

land are called assessed taxes; only there were differences in the mode of raising

them. With regard to landed property at least the only possible method was

for a. survey to be taken according to regions, corresponding with the census;

so tha.t if an estate was sold to a Latin or a. Cwrite not ,esident a.t Rome, it

did not escape paying tribute, a.lthough the owner could not be cited in person.

71 The distress and weakness of Rome down to the passing of the Li·

cinian law are a memorable instance of .the evils that ensue from making a.

la.nd tax the chief source of national Te venue; more especia.lly when it is borne

by a. single class, which thus finds itself ip the same relation to such as a.re

privileged, as a. la.ndholder in a heavily taxed country to one where the bur­

thens are less.

72 Festus v. tributorum conlationem. As the tributum in capite stands

first in the list, it assuredly cannot ha.ve been insignificant. When, to show

the last honour to a. statesma.n, a. general decree of the people provided for his

furneral (p. 422) by levying a. qua.drant or sextant a. hea.d, this indeed was also

a. collatio in capita (Livy 11. 33), but of a.nother kind; a.nd the proletaria.ns ha.d

the honour of joining in contributing what even the poor could give.

'Z3 ___ .J.V;27. By the by, a.b eo qui distrilruebat cannot stand there, a.nd

must be changed into a.. e. q. <£S trilruebat.

74 Ca.to in Gellius vu. 10.

75 In consequence of the change that had a.lrea.dy taken pla.ce in the use

of the word, this expla.na.tion wa.s given by Labeo; in the a.bstra.ct of Ja.vole­

nus 1. 242. D. de verborwn signific. Vidua.m esse non solum earn quw a.Ii·HISTORY OF ROME.

358

Livy has also forgotten the orphans. Cicero, in citing the example

of the Corinthians, among whom the knight's horse money was paid

by rich widows and orphans 10 7 8 , as the prototype of the Roman in­

stitution, obviously ascribes the same extent to the latter: and thus

we have a perfect explanation why the orphans and i.:dngle women

(orbi orb:eque) are mentioned apart in the populatio~ returns 77, It

is true they did not come under the- general principle of. the nu­

meration: boys, who were not yet called out to military service,

could not stand in their own capacity registered in a census which

represented the muster-roll of an army with every thing belonging

to it; still less could women of whatever age; they could only be

set down under the caput of a father or husband. Ilut the pecu­

liarity in the mode of taxing them was the decisive cause of their

orn1ss10n. If the bachelors were bound to-pay on the same footing

with those two classes, as Camillus is said to have enacted, it can

only have been for a season7 8 : there was not the same cause here.

For in a military state it could not be e:;;teemed unjust, that the wo­

men and the children were to contribute largely for thos~ who

fought in behalf of them and of the commonwealth.

The same was reasonable with regard to those who ~ere de­

fended and protected . by the state without being·bound to military

service: for only such as belonged to a plebeian tribe came under

the regular annual conscription: others were called out merely in

extraordinary cases, and when civic legions were formed. If any

one was turned out of a tribe, he thereby lost the right of ser~ing

in the legion: levies were made according to the tribes 79 ; for which

quando impta fuisset, sed earn quoqne mulierem qure virum non habuis~et:

and even Modestinus still in his time says I. 101. eod. tit. Adulterium in

nuptam, stuprum in viduam committitur:

1076 De Re p. u. 20.

.

71 The common phrase in Livy is; censa. sunt -civium capita,-prreter

orbos orbasque.

·

78 Plutarch Camill. c. 2. His notion that the orphans had previously

been exempt from tribute must go. for nothing.

79 Dionysius Iv.14._ I will transcribe this passage, which I have already

often referred to, in the manner in which it must be read and stopped: the

words in brackets are interpolations. Toil, d.rBpJ,,.ou' ~ .... ,,,, 'l"ov' h '""""'

f<OlP'f- .;,.,;;,,,..,., p.~ ..... Ad.p.~«vtlY

'T"''

'""P"'

o-iJ<HO'SPo

""""i'P"'<I>"' ,,..,, ""P""'°'"°''· J<«l

µn'T•

iiA1'•81

71'0U 0-VJ'l"tAfir.

""' 1io-7l'p«,1i' """'· ;-oop.11«' ,,..,,

')(,pnp.«Toov th "" ""P«'l"leo'TlK-<t. ""' ...,., - t!AA«' ')(_pt1'.,.,, «~ tJ<<tcT'l"Of Uu "If'

"°'''!' 71'«fE)(,flV, [l<otl) ou11. fr1 """"' 'l"<H "P'j' <!>UA<t' ...,..,., ;-eri""'• [cr'Tp«'l"lll,.

'I"ll<«) ~' 7l'p6..-1pov, 'ti.7-.Atl l<<t'l"<t • ,,.,,_,- 'l"icrcr«p«' ""'' 'TO"'l""' (l<«lJ 'l"«C ~f>'

t@'l"•u i1«T«X,81{ct«' t11"0ltl'l"o. His error in taking the four civic tribes for

'l"t

the only local one3 is of no consequence.HISTORY OF ROME.

359

reason moreover the century in the original legion consisted of

thirty men, one from each tribe; and was reckoned by the annals at

twenty for the time when the tribes were reduced to that number 1080 :

this principle of raising troops by the tribes lasted as long as there

was any distinction between the plebeians and rerarians. It ap­

pears probable to me that the centuries were so constructed as to

include all who in any manner of way bore the name of Romans:

although the exclusive oLligation of the plebeians to serve leads us

to suspect that originally they alone formed the classes. But be

this as it may, the clients of the patricians must have b.een admitted

into. them very early; for by their means their patrons exercised

great influence in the elections: nay, when the pkbeians made des­

perate by oppression withdrew from the comitia, the election might

still be concluded without apparent informality by the clients

alone 81 • At the same time they were so far from serving in the

legions, that, during the first disputes with the plebeians, the arm­

ing the clients in their stead is only talked of as a measure of ex­

treme necessity*. The story that in the earliest ages of.the consul­

ship the isopolites voted in the centuries, may be altogether apocry­

phal: still it shows what the ancient institutions were; just like the

above mentioned pretended pr<?tocols of solemn transactions under

the kings 89 • In later times every Italian, on complying with cer­

tain conditions, was entitled to remove to Rome and be registered

there; and, like the slave who received his freedom and secured it

by getting enrolled in the census with his master's consent, neces­

sarily acquired the civic franchise, without however thereby be-

In a war of little importance when only half a complete army was to be

sent out, the number of the tribes being then twenty-one, soldiers were levied

from but ten of them. Livy rv. 46. Decem tribus sorte ductre sunt; ex his

scriptos juniores tribuni ad helium duxere.

,

1080 The passages that prove this, as thei.r meaning would not be quite

clear yet, will be found below in note 10!)3.

81 See below notes 1307-1308. It is true the example in the former of

these notes, belonging to the times anterior to the decemvirate, may perhaps

have got into the annals from a confusion between two distinct states ofthings.

* Below note 1314.

·

82 See above p. 264. Unless indeed the story that Cassius wanted to

carry through his agrarian law by their mean~ originated with a very late

annalist, who transferred to that age the proceedings under the Gracchl .. If

the grounds for it existed in the pontifical books, this at least was forgotten,

that evidently the right of voting coiild only be exercised by such as were

settled at Rome with prope'rty equal to that of the class they Claimed to be­

long to. ~ee the text to note 365, vol. ir.360

HISTORY OF ROME.

coming the member of a' tribe*. But as to those early times we

are never likely to make out whether every town entitled to an

intercharge of franchise did not perhaps form a bond of hospitality

with some family or some house; ·whereby such of its citizens as

settled at Rome found a clientary relation already established,

which they were forced to adopt: or whether it was left to the op~

ti on of such Latins and Crerites to choose a . patron or to maintain

their own interests in person. At all events thus much is certain,

that they and the descendants of freedmen were rerarians, and were

not enlisted in the field-legions. .So that the exacting a higher tri­

bute from them was just as fair as from the purveyors for knights'

horses: and since their fortune was in the main of a totally dif­

ferent kind -from that of the plebeians or free landholders, being

the produce of commerce and trade, a different system was also ap­

propriate; that of taking an estimate of the property of each indivi­

dual1088, This arbitrary taxation arose so essentially from the cir­

cumstances of the order, that it was even ex(ltcised ag:iinst one of the

most illustrious Roman citizens, when the abuse of a formal official

right had degraded him from his tribe and placed him among the

rerarians: the census of Mam. JEmilius was octupled by the cen­

sors84. We may readily believe that every inhabitant also paid a

stated sum for protection; but it must have been very trifling: now

this, together with the rates imposed individually on the rerarians,

and the funds for knights' horses, must surely be the tributum in

capita spoken of8 5 •

To an arbitrary taxation of this kind must the commonalty have

been subjected .before the legislation of Servius, which substituted

the regular tribute according to the census i.n its stead; and hence

* Below note 1320.

1083 . They must have been subject to a tax somethi'ng like that on permits

for exercising trades, rated according to an estimate of the profits, such as

prevails under the name of Pate:ntes in France, of Pate:ntsteuer and Gewerb­

steuer in Germany.

84 Livy 1v. 24. Octuplicato censu rorarium fecerunt.

85 The commentator on the orations against Verres, wrongly called As­

conius; had correct information on this point: on the Divin. 3. Censores

cives sic notabant ut-qui plebeius esset in Croritum tabulas referretur et

rorarius fieret; ac per hoc non esset in albo centuriro sure (the century here is

taken as a pars tribus, see n. 1030); sed ad hoc esset civis tan tum ut pro capite

suo tributi nomine <era pe:nderet. The text here is garbled. The Laurent.

MS. LIV. 27, which Lagomarsini collated as being an authentic copy of

Poggio's transcript, reads: sed ad hoc non esset civis: tantum modo-ut p. c". s.

rora prtl',beret.HISTORY OF ROME.

361

came the story that down to this time a polltax was paid, and the

burthens of the poorest and the richest were equal1° 86 • This no­

tion is sufficiently absurd, even when the meaning is, that the state

was not to receive more from any citizen than the poorest could

afford ; but it is an almost unparalleled example of thoughtlessness

for any one to have set down in writing, that Tarquinius the tyrant

exacted a polltax of ten drachms ahead•1 •. Here again however we

have a tradition, which ought not to be p_rejudiced by its sounding

so irrational in the mouth of the reporter. Dionysius confounds

the payer with the receiver. I shall show hereafter, that a hundred

ases were the monthly pay of a foot-soldier: for the present I will

express my conjecture, that this pay, the res militare, for which

the soldier had in like manner an immediate right of distraining,

was originally a charge on the rerarians, as the. funds for knights'

horses were on widows and infants : so that the rich had several to

satisfy ; while of the poorer sort several were clubbed together for

the suppor( of a single soldier. I am convinced that the very name

of the rerarian.y came from this res: and that the change which is

represented as the inttoduction of pay, consisted in its being no

longer confined, as it had previously been, to the existing number

of pensions chargeable upon the rerarians ; but so extended that

every sold.ier received his share: that now however the plebeians

also, along with the exclusive obligation to serve in the foot, were

likewise made universally aml regularly liable to tribute for paying

the army. And this was the view of those ann~lists more accu­

rately acquainted with ancient times, whom Livy follows when he

relates how the tribunes of the people murmured that the tri­

bute was only levied for the sake of ruining the plebs*: nor can

the measure imputed to Tarquinius be understood in any other

way.

As to the patricians one cannot suppose that they were taxed

like the rerarians: what befel Mam • .l.Emilius was an arbitrary im­

position. The other ranks might be satisfied, if the patricians paid

1086 Dionysius 1v. 43. T 1tp11.6vio, 11.«-ri.>.ucrt <r«' ,;.,,.~ 'T"'' 'Tlµnµ«<r"'' 1iir­

'1'01 ~! ti.px.'i, 'Tpo,,.or ""'""'"-ri .. -r•.. •· 11.otl-To ; .. or J1ot~opo1 o ,,,..,,_

O'T«To' 'T'f "1''>.ou<T{tf ._,,Ji.pep1. He had already said what amounts to the

same thing under the reign of Servius Tullius. Livy too has: Censum insti­

tuit-ex quo belli pacisque munia non viritim, ut ante, sed pro habitu pecuni-.

arum fierent : 1. 42.

87 1v. 43. Tou 1~µ0'1111.ou ,,..,.,~Sou,-iv«;-11.«c!'oµlvou 11.«'I«

lp11.x,­

µ«' Ji11.1t 1i.. .pip10.

* , See note l2JO.

~·P"~' 11.otl

'"'P".,.,"'

1.-vv362

IIISTORY OF ROME.

on the same footing with the plebeians for property of the same

kind, while for the national lands in their occupation they contri­

buted some adequate portion of the profits 1088 • That th~ was the

case under the kings, is probable even from the great public works,

the means for executing which were supplied according to the Roman

custom by the manubire; that is, partly by the produce from the

sale of booty; partly by the profits of the conquered lands, or the

rent charge on individuals for the usufruct allowed them. In after

times the patricians got rid of this charge; and hence, so long as

they were sole rulers, no building worth mention was erected 89 •

The same law by which the plebeians· exclusively were bound

and called out to serve in the infantry, and' which regulated the ar­

mour every class was to wear, would of course forbid the rerarian's

to procure themselves a suit of armour. Even among the plebe~

ians; only the three upper classes were heavy armed: and since

every one had to equip himself at his own cost, .the poorer, above

all the proletarians, had not the means, of providing the arms and

armour without which they were no match for their richer brother

plebeians•. And though in those extraordinary cases where civic

legions were raised, and E;ven the artisans were enlisted, and where·

the proletarian moreover was armed by ihe state, necessity produced

·changes in tliis respect, they certainly did not outlast the occasion.

From the very large number of the centuries in the first class

Dionysius took it into his head,-and he has brought over all the

moderns to his opinion,-that at all event!! it had to pay very

dearly for its superiority in rank and weight; because it was inces­

santly under arms, and that too in a fat greater proportion than the

rest, making up nearly half the whole legion. Now though it is

true the early wars were not very bloody, any more so than those

of the Greeks were usually, before they took an entirely new cha­

racter with the Sicilian expedition; still, such as they w'ere, they

must speedily have led to a mere mob-government, if the flower of

the respectable citi.zens had thus been abandoned 'year after year

to destruction. w· e must not allow ourselves to impute an institu­

tion of this nature to the Roman law-giver; it is worth while how­

ever to show by other l;lrguments than moral ones, which by many

108& The payment of a tax on profits among the Romans was a decisive

proof that he who made it was only a usufructuary. The Greek notions on

this point were different: among them Pisistratus at the time we are speaking

of, Hiero three centuries later, exacted a tithe as a property-ta:i; from the land­

holders.

89 The tunnel from the Alban lake was a work enjoined by necessity.HISTORY OF ROME.

363

are little heeded, how far the opinion of Dionysius is from the

truth.

The phalanx, which was the battle-array of the ancient Greeks,

and which Philip merely adapted to the peculiar character of his'

subjects 1090, was the form in which the Roman armies als~ were

·originally drawn up 91 • The mo.de of arming the Servian centuries

too is Greek throughout, without a single distinguishing feature of

the Roman legioi1. The chief weapon, and indeed the only one

the lansquenet could use until the battle was won or lost, was his

spear; the .length of which, even before Philip introduced the

enormous sarissa,,seems to have allowed that the fourth line should

still employ it with effect; so that for every man in the first rank

four spear-heads were stretched out to meet the enemy. Here we

get an explanation of the differences in the defensive armour of the

Servian classes : where the second had no coat of mail, the third

neither this nor greaves. They might be spared the expense : for

their contingents made up the hinder ranks,' which were covered

by the bodies and weapons of the men before them. This fact,

that the first class formed the van, was known to Dionysius.

Among the hereditary forms which have long outlived their

causes, was the Roman practice of drawing up in file ten deep,

handed down from the time when every century had thirty. men.

If th:e phalanx was uniform, such a century stood with three men

in front: but if half of it was made up of men completely armed,

while the other half w·ere imperfectly so, it became necessary to

form each century into six half files, instead of three full ones ; so

that the half-armed should be stationed behind the men "in full

'1090 Had not the· Macedonians been barbarians, strong in body, rude in

understanding; had it not been clear that in such a nation there must inevi­

tably be a great scarcity of officers fit t6 be trusted with independent com­

mands; had not Philip's destructive .wars called for incessant supplies of raw

recruits, who were to be made serviceable without delay; this great prince

would assuredly have chosen a different system of tactics. But as it was he

turned the materials which he had at his command· to the best possible ac­

. count: and this was all he wanted; since the Greeks, whose array was the

same, persisted in that imperfect form of it, above which he had raised him­

self.

91 Livy vm. 8. Clypeis antea. Romani usi sunt: deinde, postquam sti­

pendiarif facti sunt, scuta pro clypeis fecere, et quod antea phalanges similes

Macedonicis, hoc postea manipulatim structa a.cies crepit esse. Dionysius in

his Jl.CCount of the c~nturies, and in th.ose ,of the earliest Roman wars, often

talks of the phalanx; and this .cannot arise merely from his wish to use a

Greek word for the legion: for in speaking of an Etruscan army he mentions

the force with which the phalanx drove the enemy down hill. .364

HISTORY OF ROME.

armour, in the sixth and the following ranks 109 ~. Their mode of

acting in the phalanx was almost entirely mechanical, giving force

to its onset and compactness to its mass. If the number of centu­

ries furnished by the second and third class was only just the same

as what the junior.3 of those classes Yoted with, they formed merely

a third of the legion: the principle of the array would be the same;

but it would have been in nine ranks, to avoid broken or mixed

ones, which were contrary to the spirit of the ancient nations. And

indeed the proportion between the numbers might tempt us to as- .

sume that this was the array, instead of the one in ten ranks: but

we find a statement worthy of unconditional belief, which, rightly

explained and understood, proves that the latter was the true one,

and places the scale whereon the classes served with palpable evi­

dence before us.

· For this statement we are indebted· to the kind genius that has

taken occasions to all appearance accidental to preserve what, pro­

vided we are not lazy in searching, will always be substantially

sufficient to revive the image of antiquity. The plan of the Roman

consuls in the battle near Vesuvius to increase the strength of their

army by departing from the beaten track of the usual order of battle,

led an annalist well acquainted with ancient customs to describe

that order; and he did it so ably that, though Livy quite misunder­

stood what he was transplanting into his history, it may be com­

pletely restored. The arms had already been altered; the phalanx

resolved into maniples: but this resolution did not change its com­

position. No man ever conceived a greater invention, 'than he

who transformed tha.t inanimate mass and organized it into the

living body of a Roman legion; combining in it every variety of

troops, as in an army complete ~ithin itself, the absolute perfection ·

of a military division; prepared to overcome every battle-array and

every kind of troops, every form assumed by the spirit of war in

nations the most different from each other. But this too is one of

those great inventors whose names are buried for ever in obscurity:

and yet assuredly we read his name in the Fasti, although in his­

tory it is stripped of its most brilliant renown, even if, as there is

ground for suspecting, it was Camillus.

1092 Dionysius, vn. 59 1 says of the second class, 'TH1 u'll'o/J•fd•xvi11.1 'TaE11

ir 'Tei, µ•x,.ur 1Tx.1• of the third, 'Tff<•/AIL 11:.t,or l>.11.'J'Tor 'T,., 1 111

x11.l

.,.,;_;,, 'TH1 t?r' ix1iro". So in lv. 16, to the same effect, the youth of the first

class ;l(,oifll.V 1'.Gt'l'tl ,:ti 'l'H1 fr'fOll.#'fll1l~Of<b•1 'Tii, 't&>.11.#'#'0' o>.u• t,hat of the Second

ixocr,utiTo ;, 'Toi, 11.'I',."'' ,u1-r11. Tou, 'll'f•(A.i)(.OIW of that of the third ,-,d,cr1s iir

.,,p,.,,

,_.,.,.,,, -rou,

i~IO''l'Ql'Tll.'

iroig 7Tpop.ix,o".HISTORY OF ROME.

365

The time and place for. explaining this order of battle in de­

tail will occur hereafter. For the present those who have hitherto

found me as far remove.d from hastiness as from insincerity, will

take the following points as results, for the correctness of which

I am their pledge until I bring _forward my proofs. In the great

war with the Latins the Romans still served according to the classes,

.but no longer in a phalanx. The first class sent forty centuries,

the exact number of the junior v-0tes in it: thirty of these formed

the principes, ten were statione~ among the t~iarians: who must

doubtless have owed their name to their being made up .out of all

the three heavy-armed classes. The second and third in like man­

ner furnished forty centuries; twenty apiece, double the number

of their junior votes: ten of each score made up the hastates who

bore shields, and ten stood among the triarians. The fourth and

fifth class again supplied forty centuries: the former, ten, the has­

tates who carried javelins without shields; the latter, the thirty

centuries of the rorarians; which again was double the number of

its junior votes. . Here we have three divisions, each of twelve

hundred men: the first of hoplites in full armour; the second of

men in half armour; the third without any armour, the 40,of: and

we cannot fail to recognize that these forms belonged to the Roman

state in very remote ages :. for the centuries are supp'osed. to have

their full complement, according to the original scheme, that of

Servius, when there were thirty tribes 1098 , The anxiety to preserve

1003 At the time of the Latin war there were seven and twenty tribes;

and consequently just so m1J,ny aoldiers in a century: but this variable num­

ber would have given rise to perplexities .. To obviate misunderstanding, or

from his own uncertainty, Livy calls that part of the legion which in our

phraseology would be termed a battalion, by the indefinite words, acies, agmen;

instead of the true name, co/tort, which was afterward transferred to a very

differently constructed part.of the new legion. As the original number of the

tribes furnished cohorts of nine hundred men, they cannot, when the tribes

were reduced to twenty, have consisted ·of more than six hundred. '

This was rightly understood by the annalist who wrote that in the Volscian

war of the year 2!)2 four cohorts of six hundred men apiece were drawn up

before the gates of Rome: Dionysius IX. 71. In 2!.JO the legate P. Furius,

when the .lEquians were storming his camp, fell upon them with two cohorts

amounting to no more than a thousand men: ~ ....., J'I J'uo v·1nlpe1.1, oii 1n.1iov~

ti.vJ'p .. v i;t,ouvoc1 ;t,1~;.,,. where the translation of Gelenius dua cohortes quinge­

narite, which is meant to be free, introduces an erroneous notion. They con­

sisted of the principes, 600 instead of 900, and the heavy armed hastates,

400 instead of 600: Dionysius IX. 63. Again L. Siccius commands a cohort of

eight hundred veterans who were no longer liable to service; that is to say,

twenty from every senior century of the first class: Dionysius J. 43.

With such accuracy were these fiction• adapted to, the forms of ancient366

HISTORY OF ROME.

numerical symmetry is again perceptible in the contingent of the

fourth class being no more than equal to the number of its junior

centuries; while in all the other three lower classes it doubles the

number of theirs : besides, being stationed among the light armed

troops, a greater number of them was not wanted, and indeed if

too great would have been an ipcumbrance. Now since the first

class supplied the same number of centuries as the next two be-·

tween thein, we get the proportion conjectured above for the pha­

lanx, five ranks of the former, five of the two latter .

.The number of the light infantry was half that of the troops in

the phalanx ; which agreed with the system of the Greeks. The

accensi stood apart from the phalanx and the caterua, as they did

apart from the classes. Their business being to take the arms and

the places of the killed or missing, was easily managed in such an

order of battle : for as soon as a gap was made, it was naturally

filled up by the man who stood just behind, and the next to him

advanced into his place ; so that the substitute had to come in far

back in the rear, where the mass of his comrades taught him per­

force to stand, to march, to face about, and hardly any thing was

wanted but strength of lit~b. well trained soldiers were' only

needed as serjeants and corporals, ot in the companies at the end

of the line, which by wheeling rouhd might become the head of a

column; and in some degree in the companies that stood near the

end.

·

Now although the first class was so far from being drained out

of proportion to its numbers, that it rather look.I, which however

may be a mere delusion, as if the second had been unfairly dealt

with from the love of numerical symmetry; yet the former did not

gain its political privileges for nothing: for its centuries, as they

formed the front lines, stood the brunt of the fight. The knights

too purchased their precedence by a larger share of danger: for they

were defectively equipped, easily disarmed, and more exposed than

the rest to darts, and to the stones and lead of the slingers.

These hundred and twenty centuries standing under 'arms may

perhaps have given sanction to the testament which the soldier

made before battle : for in its original spirit this ceremony cannot

possibly have been a mere declaration before witnesses; but was just

as much a decree of acceptance by the community for the plebeians,

i

•

·

;

times : and thus the foregoing statements evince that both these propositions

were recognized as historically true-that originally there were thirty tribes,

and afterward only twenty.

· ·HISTORY OF RO.ME.

367

as it was for the patricians when the curies legalized a testament or

an alteration of gentile rights. And thus I have no doubt that the

plebeian testaments were at first accepted in the comitia of the

classes, the exercitus vocatus, on the field of Mars: the place of

which assembly, so long as the affair was a mere formality, might

be filled by the lines in battle array, the viri vocati; although here

the votes were differently balanced*, This difference however,

and the neglect of the rights of the first cl3.$s 1 were far from imma­

terial, when,-what assuredly happened very much oftener than it

has been recorded,-a real law was to be passed in the camp: as it

is related that the decree of the. curies against the Tarquins was

confirmed by the army before Ardea. On such occasions therefore

the constitutional proportion among the s,everal classes was restored.

If .we call to mind .the state of things, all the senior centuries were

wanting:. the junior, when the double contingents. were reunited,

came to 85; and besides there were th~ five unclassed ones, making

ninety in all. Of these the first class with the carpenters had 41 ;

the other four with the four odd centuries 4~. Now a legion con­

tain~d 300 horsemen, or ten turrns; each. of which was equivalent

to a century of thirty men, and therefore no doubt voted like one :

so that in this way the knights and the first class together hacl 51

votes, and exceeded the lesser moiety by two: all together made up

just a hundred_. What were the circumstances· attending the law

in the camp at Sutrium, by which a duty of five per cent was im­

posed on manumissions, is a very perplexing question ; since it is

'

stated to have been passed by the tribes 109 4 ,

The regular comitia of the centuries of both ages assembled on

the field of Mars;. every ce~tury under its captain. Summoned by

the king, or by the magistrate who occupied his place, they deter­

mined o~ such· proposals of the senate concerning elections and

laws as were put to the vote by.the person who presided; with

perfect liberty to reject them; but ,their acceptance did not acquire

full force until' approved by the curies'. In capital caus~s, where

the charge concerned an offence against the whole nation, not a

violation of the rights of a particular o..-der, they decided alon~ 95 :

* See Velleius Paterc. 11. 5.. Plutarch Coriolan. c. 9.

1094 Tributim. Livy vu. 16.

95 This at least is represented by Dionysius, when relating the trial of

Coriolanus, to have been the principle of the constitution: vn. 59. On these

occasions they would be summoned by the duumvirs of, treason: and such

Dionysius conceives to have been the process against Sp. Cassius: vm. 77:

my scruples on which point I will bring forward in the proper place: see Vol.

n, note 366.368

HISTORY OF ROME.

at least after the time of the decemvirs. As it may be considered ,

unquestionable that the plebeians originally made their testaments in

the field of Mars, just as the patricians did in the Comitium; ·so it

would seem equally certain that, as an arrogation required a decree

of the curies*, the adoption of plebeians must have taken)lace before

the centuries. Nay the same may with great likelihood be conjec­

tured of every transaction for the formal completion of which five

witnesses were in aftertimes required. As the curies were repre­

sented by the lictorst, so were the classes by these witnesses, when

the consent of the comitia had become a ~atter' of course ; and

since the auspices; so long as the ancient customs prevailed, were

no doubt taken, at least in all transactions materially affecting per­

sonal relations, the formality was fully sufficient.

· The liberties of the commonalty, as forming a part of one branch

of the legislature, were confined to this, that, if the legitimate

course of things was not disturbed by force or by artifice, no na­

tional magistrate and no law could be thrust upon them against their

decided negative. Out of their own body no proposition could ori­

ginate; nor could any come forward and speak on the propositions

laid before them. So that the sacrifice made by the patricians at

this change was very "trifling: there is no trace which would lead

us to suspect that the senate was not composed of them exclusively;

and if at any tim'e a proposition offensive to their order was not­

withstanding brought before the centuries and accepted, there was

nothing to hinder the ·younger patres from. throwing itout in their

own comitia. On the other hand the patrician estate, and the gov­

ernment of which it formed the soul, possessed influence and means

for working on the centuries even within the narrow sphere of their

authority, partly by the votee of the rerarians~ partly by taking the

·assembly by surprise or tiring it out, so as to force decrees upon it

directly adverse to the will of the plebeians.

·

Nevertheless it is said that these slight restrictions, and the mea­

sures which, without withdrawing any thing from.the houses in the

other departments of government, merely gave the commonalty

freedom, .dignity, and 'respectability, were not conceded by the

patricians according to the t~gular forms'; so that the whole wears

the look of having been effected by the absolute power of the king:

it is said that they took away the king's life in an insurrection,

with which he had long been aware that they were threatening him.

·so runs the tradition: and that there. was at least a stubborn re­

* GelliuB v. rn.

t

Cic~ro de Leg. Agr. u. 12. (31).HISTORY OF ROME.

369

sistance on the part of the houses, we may presume with the same

certainty with which even contemporary memoirs could establish it.

For every oligarchy is envious, oppressive, and deaf to reason and

to prudence. Not that these qualities cleave to a class bearing any

particular name: it is the same spirit of oligarchy, under the smock­

frock of the yeoman of Uri, who not only denies the sojourner all

higher privileges, even though his forefathers have been settled in

the c::.nton for generations, but robs him of such bare common

rights as he has long enjoyed 1000 ; and under the velvet mantle of the

Venetian noble: the patricians in their conduct and character stood

very much nearer the former than the latter.

What the patricians wished to perpetuate against the plebeians,

was what the Spartans maintained against the Lacedemonians and

the 1r1plo11<01 : and the history of Sparta is the mirror of what the

Roman, but for the freedom of the plebeians, would have displayed.

As the Spartans did not repair their losses by admitting new citi­

zens, and did not spare their blood, they were reduced to so few,

that after Leuctra·their empire fell to pi~ces in an instant, and the

existence of the state was only preserved by the fidelity of a part of

the Laconians. This however did not awaken the conscience of

the Spartans; nor were their eyes opened when the greater part of

the surrounding country joined their hereditary foes; when they

found themsel\res living scattered about here and there in their 8pa­

cious city amid an alien or hostile population; when they were

forced to hire mercenaries for their wars, and to beg for subsidies

from foreign princes. Thus their state continued strengthless,

despised, and arrogant, dragging on an utterly morbid existence for

a century after its fall: at last, when not even a ray of hope was

left, its kings, to whom their country was not a matter of indif­

ference as it was to the oligarchs, endeavoured to save it by a revo­

lution which transformed those plebeians so long trampled under

foot into a new Lacedemonian people. In this people the Spartans

were merged., having in fact already become utterly insignificant:

and in their stead the Lacedemonians appeared for a while with

the splendour of ancient Sparta. Ilut it was too late: revolution

followed upon revolution, without any one condition lasting long

enough to be endowed by opinion and custom with the saving

power of legitimacy, which every constitution may acquire: the

time had long since been let slip, when the Spartans might have

10[)6 I take this instance, because just now, as I am writing this, it has

been brought forward in a remonstrance by the canton of the Grisons.

1.-ww370

HISTORY OF ROME.

secured to their posterity every thing they felt pride in, and far

more, for as long a period as the mutability of human things will

allow.

To institutions like those of Servius the consent of the· order

which afterward overthrew them, could not have been obtained

except in semblance, by force or fraud. There was more frankness

in the dealings of a prince, who felt himself called by .heaven to

decide what was fair and just before the tribunal of his own con­

science, instead of letting it'.rest with the parties to be judges in their

own cause: their claim to be so was founded on rights, of which the

real substance had undergone ·a change, and the continuance was

only nominal and apparent.

The well establised right of the indviduals who composed the

oligarchy to exercise the government, held only for that sphere

within which their ancestors had enjoyed it; here too it had been

narrowed in the same proportion in which they had sunk below

their forefathers in number, importance, and force : and that which

had become extinct among them, had transferred itself to the quarter

where a new life had risen up. If they wished to preserve their

own corporation unchanged, they were bound to replenishitand keep

it fresh and full. As to the entirely new growth which had sprung

up and was flourishing iµdependently of that sphere, they had no

manner of right over it: and whatever share in such a right might

be granted them by compact was so much pure gain for them.

It is no encroachment on that which is already existing, for a

new existence to awaken beside it: it is murder, to stifle the stirrings

of this life; murder and rebellion against Providence. As the most

perfect life is that which animates the most complex organization;

so that state is the noblest, in which powers, originally and defi­

nitely distinct, unite after the varieties of their kind into centres

of vitality, one beside the other, to make up a whole. The mea·

sure adopted at Athens indeed was unjust and mischievous, when

Clisthenes, one of the nobles, from a grudge against his own order,

by transforming the tribes levelled the distinction of· ranks, and

introduced .an equality which led to a frantic democracy; Athens

being unaccountably preserved by. fortune from falling under the

dominion of tyrants. But Servius in no way trenched on the liber­

ties of the Romans; those slowly earned liberties, with regard to

which it was now forgotten that the minor houses and the secondary

centuries were at first no less destitute of them, than the commonalty

was now.

The time too came~ when the manes of the proud patricians,HISTORY. OF ROME.

371

wan<lering among their late descendants, and beholding the great­

ness achieved by them and by the whole republic through those

very laws the introduction of which had so roused their indigna­

tion and seduced them into insurrection and into high treason, must,

if indeed their country had been truly dear to them, have con­

fessed and been penitent for their blindness. Without these laws

Rome like Etruria might have become powerful for a season; but

her power must in like manner have been brief: like Etruria she

would have been unable to form a regular infantry: while the power

of the Samnites, founded on their noble body of foot, would have

approached nearer and nearer to Rome, and, before they met, would

have preponderated.

If this constitution now, along with the laws connected with it,

such as they are ascribed to Servius, had continued to subsist, Rome ·

would have attained two centuries sooner and without sacrifices to

'a happiness, which, after the main part of what was granted had

been torn away, cost her hard contests and bitter sufferings before

she finally reached it anew. It is true, if the story of a people is

like a life ; if the weal of one age makes amends fot the woe of

another, without which it could never have come to pass; then no

harm was done to Rome by the delay: the putting off the comple­

tion of the constitution also put off its downfal, and the deprave­

ment of the nation for no short time; and her hard struggles dis­

ciplined and trained her. But woe to them by whom the offence

cometh! and a curse upon those, who, so far as in them lay, de­

stroyed the freedom of the plebeians !L. TARQUINIUS THE TYRANT, AND THE

BANISHl\IENT OF THE TARQUINS.

Tms destruction was the work of the usurper, this the price for

which h_is compl_ices allowed him to rule as king, without even the

bare show of a confirmation by the curies. Every right and privi­

lege conferred by Servius upon the commonalty was !:!wept away;

the assemblages at sacrifices and festivals, which had tended above

all other things to cement them into united bodies, were prohibited;

the equality of civil rights was abolished, and the right of seizing

the person of a debtor re-established: the rich plebeians were sub­

jected, like the sojourners, to arbitrary taxation: the poor were

kept at task-work with sorry wages and scanty food, and these

hardships drove many to put an end to themselves*.

Soon however the oppressed had the wretched solace of seeing

the exultation of their oppressors turned into dismay. The senators

and men of rank were, as under the Greek tyrants, the object most

exposed to the mistrust and the cupidity of the usurper: after the

manner of those tyrants )le had formed a body-guard, with which

he exercised his sway at pleasure. Many lost their lives; others

'Yere banished, and their fortunes confiscated: the vacant places

were not filled up: and even this senate, insignificant as its small

number made it, was never called together.

Though Tarquinius was a tyrant, and as bad a one as any among

the Greeks of the same age 1097 , he was no less capable than any of

these to engage in great enterprises for the splendour of his country;

and fortune long continued to favour him : indeed the goddess

might easily prosper the undertakings of one whom no scruple

*

Cassius Hemina. in Servius on lEn. xu. 603. Pliny xxxv1. 24.

1097 Those of the Ma.cedonia.n age, mostly the leaders of profligate mer­

cenaries, were a mu~h worse breed than the earlier ones before _the Pelopon­

nesian war.

'HISTORY OF ROME.

373

deterred from making use of whatever would best further his

designs. In Latium,his influence was widely spread, by means of

Octavius Mamilius of Tusculum, to whom he had given one of his

<laughters in marriage: and Turnus Herdonius of Aricia, who con­

jured the Latms not to trust themselves to him, was condemned to

death by their national assembly on a false accusation brought by

Tarquinius; some arms, which had been conveyed into his lodging

by treacherous slaves, appearing to convict him of guilt. Latium

bowed beneath the majesty of Rome; and thenceforward it was the

office of the Roman king to sacrifice the bull at the Latin/eria: upon

the Alban mount before the temple of Jupiter Latiaris, in behalf of

all the allies, every city receiving a portion of the flesh. Each sent its

stated share to this sacred festival, lambs, milk, cheese, cakes: they

were holidr.ys full of primitive merrim'ent, for which the folly of

later times devised a symbolical meaning: the swinging puppets for

instance were to commemorate how when Latinus disappeared he

was sought after in the air as well as upon the earth. The Her­

nicans too did homage to the king, and joined in this festival: but

their cohorts were kept apart from the legions which they accom­

panied, and which were composed of•Roman and Latin centuries

united into maniples •

. The first place attacked by fhis army was Suessa Pometia, the

most flourishing of the V olscian cities, rich from the possession of

wide and luxuriantly fertile plains, the granary of Rome in years of

scarcity. It was taken: the inhabitants, freemen and slaves, were

sold with all their substance; and the tithe of the money produced

was devoted

building the Capitoline temple, which the king's

father had vowed in the Sabine war.

The foundations of this temple consumed the spoils of Pom.etia;

and heavy taxes were needed, and hard task-work, to pursue the

building. Ever since the time of Tatius the Capitoline hill had

been full of altars and chapels, small consecrated spots, a few feet

square; severally dedicated to a variety of deities, who could not

be displaced from their abodes without the consent of the auspices.

To the union of the three highest beings in the Etruscan religion,

Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva, they all gave way, save Juventas and

Terminus: a token that the youth of the Roman empire would

never fade, its boundaries would never fall back, so long as the

pontiff should mount the steps of the Capitol with the silent virgin

in honour of the gods*. The name of. Capitol was given to the

to

* Livy v. 54.37'1

lllSTURY OF ROME.

temple, and from it to the Tarpcian hill, in consequence of a hu­

man head found by the workmen as they were digging the founda­

tions, which was undecayed and trickling with blood: a sign that

this place was destined to become the head of the world.

Within this temple, in Jupiter's cell. under ground, the Sibyl­

line books were preserved. An unknown old woman had offered

to sell the king nine books for three hundred pieces of gold : being

treated with scorn she burnt three, and then three more, and was

on the point of destroying the others, unless she received the same

price for them which she had asked for all. The king repented

of the incredulity that had lost him the greater part of an irreplace­

able treasure : the prophetess gave him the last three books, and

vanished.

The expedition against Pometia was. the beginning of the wars

against 'the Volscians, which .fill the early annals of the republic:

in the conquered territory Tarquinius founded two colonies, Signia

and Circeii.

The greatness of Gabii in very ancient times is still apparent in

the walls of the cell of the temple of Juno; and Dionysius saw it

yet more conspicuous in the ruins of the extensive wall by which

the city, standing in the plain, had been surrounded, and which had

been demolished by a destroying conqueror, as well as in those of

several buildings. It was one of the thirty Latin cities ; but it

scorned th~ determination of that confederacy,-wherein those were

equal in votes wh.o were far from equal in power,-to degrade

themselves: .hence began an obstinate war between it and Rome.

The contending cities were only twelve miles apart; and the coun­

try betwixt them endured for years all the evils of military ravages,

no end of which was to be foreseen: for within their walls both

were invincible.

Sextus, the tyrant's son, pretended to rebel: the king, whose

anger seeme<l to have been provoked by his wanton insolence, con­

demned hiin to a disgraceful punishment as if he had been the

meanest of his subjects. He came to the Gabines under the mask

of a fugitive: the bloody mark of his stripes, and still more the in­

fatuation which comes over men doomed to perish, gained him be­

lief and good will: at first he led a body of volunteers ; then troops

~ere trusted to his charge: every enterprise succeeded ; for booty

and soldiers were thrown in his way at certain appointed places :

'and the deluded citizens raised the man, under whose command

they promised themselves the pleasures of a successful war, to the

dictatorship. The last step of his treachery was yet to come: noneHISTORY OF ROME.

375

of the troops being hirelings, it was a hazardous venture to open a

gate. Sextus sent to ask his father in what way he should deliver

Gabii into his hands. Tarquinius was in his garden when he re·

ceived the messenger: he walked along in silence, striking off the

heads of the tallest poppies with his stick, and dismissed the man

without an answer. On this hint Sextus put to death or by means

of false charges banished such of the Gabines as were able to op·

pose him: by; distributing their fortunes he purchased partisans

among the lowest class; and acquiring the uncontested rule brought

the city to submit to his father.

But the security of uninterrupted good fortune was disturbed by

an appalling prodigy: a serpent crawled out from the altar in the

royal palaces 1098, and seized on the flesh brought for sac{ifice. It

was the time when the Pythian oracle was in the highest repute:

the king sent his sons Titus and Aruns with costly gifts to Delphi9 9,

to learn what was the clanger that menaced him : 'the priestess, whose

suggestions gave strength and copfidence only to those forebodings

whereby we are to explore and find out our way through the dark·

ness of our destinies, while they mislead those who were without

such feelings, answered, that he would fall, when a dog should

speak with a lmman voice 1100 • The person <lesignated by the god

was standing with the envoys in the temple; having propitiated

him with the gift of a golden stick, incloscd and concealed in a hol­

low wooden one. The sister of king Tarquinius, wedded to M.

Junius, had borne two sons, whom their father left behind under

age: the elder was put to death by the tyrant for the sake of his

wealth: the younger, Lucius, saved his life by putting on a show

of stupidity; he ate wild figs and honey 1• The Romans like other

nations fooked upon a madman as sacred; and Tarquinius, as his

guardian, enjoyed his idiot kinsman's fortune: this L. ,Junius, hence

called Brutus, had accompanied the young Tarquins to Delphi.

When the youths had performed their commission, they inquired

1098 Ovid Fast. II. 711. Or out of a pillar. Here again forgers, on the

look out for something possible, turned the altar into a colmnna lignea. Livy

1. 56.

Dionysius has a pestilence as the 'cause of the mission to Delphi.

!)!) Cicero de Re p. 11. 2-1.

1100 Zonaras n. 11.

I Albinus in Macrobius II. 16. Stultum sese brutumque faciebat;

grossulos ex melle edebat. There cannot be a livelier wayofexpressingfohy,

in an age that has not yet Jost its primitive simplicity. Our language has no

word for grossi, the fruit of the wild fig tree, used in caprification, as it is ex­

plained by Niclas on the Geoponics, p. 2:l8, from Pontedera. In comparison

to the figs we eat they are as unp:datable, as wild fruits are compared with

g~rden fruits of the same kind.370

HISTORY OF ROME.

of the oracle in their own behalf, who was to rule at Rome after

their father. Ile that.first kisses his mother, answered the priestess.

The princes agreed to decide the matter by lot, and to keep it a

secret from Sextus : Brutus in running down the hill fell, and his

lips touched the earth, in the centre of which Pytho, its primitive

sanctuary, stood.

Other prodigies and dreams harassed the king. Some eagles

had built their nest on a palm in his garden: ·they had flown out to

fetch food; meanwhile vultures came in great numbers to the nest,

tossed out the unfledged eaglets, and drove away the old birds on

their too tardy return. He dreamt that two rams sprung from one

sire were brought to him before the altar; that he chose the finest

for the s~crifice ; the other pushed him down with its horns : at the

same time the sun changed his course and turned back from the

West toward the East*. In vain was he warned by the inter­

preters of dreams against the man whom he deemed simple as a

sheep: in vain did the voice of the oracle concur with the nightly

vision: fate must have its way.

Ardea, the city of the Rutulians, refused to submit to the king,

and was besieged with a large force. It stood upon an insulated

volcanic hill, with sides cut sharply down: where the rock was

low, it ~as surmounted by walls built of square blocks of tufo. A

fortress of this kind would have been impregnable even to the im­

proved engineering of those later times, when the mechanical arts

were carried to perfection as the gifts of genius and oratory had been

before: unless towers could be built of the same height with the

rock and driven close up to the foot of it: but in those days, except

treachery lent its aid, famine was the only means of reducing a

place, which could neither be scaled or undermined. Hence the

Roman armr lay idle in its tents before Ardea, until the Rutulians

should have consumed their provisions.

Here as the king's sons and their cousin L. Tarquinius were

sitting over their cups, a dispute arose on the virtue of their wives.

This cousin, who was surnamed from Collatia, where he dwelt

invested with the principality 1102, was the .grandson of Aruns, that

elder brother of the first Tarquinius, after whose death Lucumo re­

* Attius, quoted byCicero de Divinat. 1. 22.

1102 Egerius, his father, lived there as governor: Livy 1. 38. That is to

say, the poem related this, to explain how Collatinus and Lucretia happened

to reside there: so here again it is evident that the genuine old form of the

story has been preserved by Livy, not by those who removed their abode to

Rome.HISTORY OF ROME.

377

moved to Rome. Nothing was going on in the field : they moun­

ted horse straightway to visit their homes by surprise: at Rome the

princesses were revelling at a banquet, surrounded by flowers and

wine:. from thence the youths hastened to Collatia; where at the

late hour of the night Lucretia was spinning in the circle of her

handmaids.

It was not the bloodthirstiness, nor the avarice of the tyrants

of antiquity, that was the most dreadful evil for their subjects: it

was, that whatsoever object had aroused their fierce passions, were

it a wife, a maiden, or' a boy, death alone could save it from shame.

Outrages, such as Lucretia suffered, happened daily; just as the

Christians under the Turkish empire are exposed to them without

any protection; and always were so, before any one yet thought

on the possibility of breaking the accursed yoke: but the daughter

of Tricipitinus was of noble birth, and this was the ruin of the

Tarquins. Inflamed by wicked lust, Sextus went back the next

day to Collatia., and according to the rights of gentile hospitality

was lodged in his kinsman's house. At the dead of night he entered

sword-in-hand into the chamber of the matron; and by threatening

that he would lay a slave with his throat cut beside her body,

would pretend to have avenged her husband's honour, and would

make her memory for ever loathsome to the object of her love,

wrung from her what the fear of death could not obtain.

Who after Livy can tell of Lucretia's despair 1103 ? She entreated

her father and her husband .to come to her; for horrible things had

taken place. Lucretius came accompanied by P. Valerius, who

afterward gained the name of, Publicola; Collatinus with the out­

cast Brutus. They found the disconsolate wife in mourning attire,

sitting in a trance of sorrow : they heard the tale of the crime, and

swore to ave~ge her: over the body of Lucretia as over a victim

they renewed the oath of their league. 'fhe moment was arrived

for Brutus to cast off his disguise, as Ulysses threw off the garb of

the beggar. They bore the corpse into the market-place of Collatia:

the citizens renounced Tarquinius, and vowed obedience to the de·

liverers. Their young men attended the funeral procession to

Rome. Here the g~tes were closed, and the people convoked by

Brutus as tribune of the Celeres. All ranks were inflamed by one

single feeling: with one voice the decree of the citizens deposed

1103 Dionysius relates it with great discrepancies, and far worse. It is

more interesting to compare Ovid's very finely wrought but heartless narra­

tive (Fast. 11. 685-B52,) with the noble account in Livy, which crowns his

first book, the masterpiece of his whole history.

1.-xx3i8.

HISTORY OF ROME.

the last king from his throne, and pronounced the sentence of ban­

ishment upon him and his family. Tullia fled from the city unhurt:

the people left her punishment to the spirits of those whom she

had murdered.

On the tidings of an insurrection the king broke up with a few

followers for Rome : but the city was shut against him: meanwhile

Brutus marched with some volunteers by a by-way to the camp.

All bickerings with the patricians, every wrong, all distrust was

forgotten : the .centuries of the army confirmed the decree of the

curies. The deposed king, with his sons Titus and Aruns, took

refuge in Cmre, where Roman exiles were entitled to settle as

citizens*: Sextus went back to Gabii, as to his own principality:

ere long this audacious act afforded the friends of those who had

perished by his means, the opportunity of taking vengeance for

their blood.

A truce was concluded with Ardea, and the army returned to

Rome. The centuries by a formal decree in the field of Mars con­

firmed the resolution of the curies and of the army; banished Tar­

quinius and his detested house for ever; abolished for ever the dig­

nity of king; and outlawed every one who should dare to frame a

wish of ruling as king at Rome. This was sworn to by the whole

nation for themselves and their posterity. The laws of king Ser­

vius were re-established: bondage for debt :was again prohibited;

the right of the plebeians to assemble according to their tribes and

regions was recognized; and, as the'. same code liad prescribed, the

royal power was entrusted to two men for. the term of a year. The

centuries chose Brutus and Collatinus consuls: the curies invested

them- with the imperium.

From Crere, where the banished prince had only found a retreat,

he repaired to Tarquinii: here ['.llU ,to the Veientines he offered the

districts which Rome had conquered from them. Etruscan embas­

sadors were sent to demand his restoration from the Roman sen­

ate; or at least that they should be responsible for his property,

and that of all who had left their. homes to follow him: these were

numerous 1104 , and the members of powerful families. The curies 5­

for the decision rested with them; as what was confiscated went to

. See above, pp. 247. 295.

1104 That they were so considered in the tradition, is evident from this

among other grounds, that in the accounts of the battles the Roman emigrants

appear as a separate body. See the text to note 1230.

,

5 · Dionysius v. 6.HISTORY OF ROME.

379

the estates of the burghers 11 n 6 -resolve<l to give up the property.

This afforded the ambassadors time to excite a conspiracy, in which

the Vitellii, with their sister's children, the two sons of Brutus, an<l

the Aquillii, who were akin to Collatinus, were involve<l along

with many others. Many regretted the loss of that license for their

vices, which their birth and connexions gave them under. the Tar­

quins: not a few may perhaps have found the liberties of the ple­

beians more grating than all the misdeeds of the tyrant. An honest

slave, who perceived that mischief was brewing, became an unob­

served ear-witness of their last conference, for which the complices

had met together in a dark chamber: few rooms in the Roman houses

had any light except when the door was open. On his information

the conspirators were seized, and early in the morning, when the

consuls were sitting at justice in the Comitium ami<l the assemble<l

citizens, were brought bef<'.lre them. Brutus condemned his sons

to death in his capacity of a father, ·from whose sentence there was

no appeal: the_ manner of inflicting it he determined according to his

duty as consul. 'J'.he other criminals, as patricians, had the right of

appealing to the curies; but such a sentence from a father made

weakness impossible: they were all beheaded.

The agreement to give up the property was annulled by this

attempt to foment treason: it became clear too that freedom could not.

be sec:urely established except by the fidelity of the commonalty.

The chattefa of the Tarquius were abandoned to the mob to plun­

der: their landed estates and the royal demesnes were parcelled out

among the plebeians: the field between the city and the river was

consecrated to Mars, the father of Rome. Harvest-time came on;

to take the sheaves seemed to be a sin: they were thrown into the

river, the waters of which are shallow in summer: by running

against each other their course was checked, and they accumulated

so as to form the foundation of an island, which seven generations

after became the seat of the Epidaurian god.

The whole Tarquinian house was banished: even Collatinus

had to lay down his office and to leave Rome; he did not join the

enemy, but died at Lavinium. P. Valerius was appointed in his

stead.

A large army of V eien tines and Tarquiniaus advanced . with the

Tarquins: the Romans marched out to meet them. The Etruscan

cavalry wa:i headed by Aruns Tarquinius, the Roman by Brutus:

1106 The very phrase in publicum rtdigere implies that it was confiscatPd

for the populus.

· ' ,

·380

HISTORY OF ROME.

both of them gallopped on before the legions, and encountered: both

fell mortally wounded. Then the infantry took up the battle, and

fought until night parted them: both armies were equally worn out,

and neither would own itself vanquished. About midnight how·

ever they both heard the voice of the wood-genius out of the neigh·

bouring forest of Arsia, declaring that the victory belonged to the

Romans; for on the Etruscan side one more had fallen. It was a

voice of the kind by which panic terrors were spread. The Etrus·

cans fled: when the dead were counted, eleven thousand three hun­

dred Etruscans were lying on the field; the Romans were fewer by

one*. P. Valerius returned to the city in triumph: on the next day

he solemnized the obsequies of Brutus. The matrons mourned a

year for him as for a father: the republic erected a bronze statue to

him in the Capitol, with a drawn swQrd, in the midst of the seven

kingst.

Valerius was dilatory in procuring the election of a successor to

Brutus, and was moreover building a stone house on the top of the

Velia, where Tullus Hostilius had resided-near S. Francesca Ro·

mana,-and where from the Forum it had the look of a castle: this

excited a suspicion that he aimed at usurping kingly power. His

innocence kept him unconscious of this: when told ofit he stopped the

b'uilding: the people, ashamed and penitent, granted him a piece of

ground at the foot of the ascent up the Velia, and, as a perpetual

mark of their gift, the privilege of having his doors open back into

the strcet:j:.

The object of Valerius in wishing to remain alone in the consulate,

was that he might no.t have a colleague, whose opposition would be

an insuperable obstacle, to impede him in enacting laws for restrain·

ine the consular power within fixed bounds; such as with regard to

the regal, the origin of which lay beyond the age of written ordi·

nances, had only existed by custom, and had often been transgressed.

He acknowledged that the curies were the source of his power, and

that the consuls owed homage to the majesty of that assembly, by

lowering the fasces before it; for which act he received the name of

Publicola. Jn like manner it was an acknowledgement of the right

of the plebeians to appeal to the tribunal of their own order from

sentences of corporal punishment pronounced by the consul .on the

strength of his plenary authority, when it was settled that thence·

'

.

* Plutarch Publicol. c. 9.

t

Dion. Cassius XLln. 45. Plutarch Brut. c. I.

t Plutarch Publicol. c. 10. Pliny H. N. xxxv1. 24.HISTORY OF ROME.

381

forward there should be no axe in the bundle of rods carried before

him within the city. As soon as the Valerian laws were passed,

Publicola transferred the fasces to Sp. Lucretius as his senior.

Lucretius did not live to the end of the year: it was closed by his

successor M. Horatius, who at its expiration was called a second

time to the consulate along with P. Valerius.

Ill blood was excited between the two colleagues by the desire of

each to leave an enduring memorial of his name. The Capitoline

temple, which was incomplete when Tarquinius was driven from

the throne, had been finished under the consuls; and it had been

decided by lot that 1\1, Horatius should dedicate it. At the moment

that he was grasping the doorpost, and about to pronounce the

solemn w9rds, l\1. Valerius, the consul's brother, came to him with

these false tidings of sorrow: 0 ~Marcus, what art thou doing! be­

hold, thy son lieth dead. A word of lamentation would have broken

off the ceremony: Horatius, firm as Brutus, made answer: Cast

away the body; it concerneth not me. Thus he accomplished the

dedication; and his name was read on the entablature of the portico

until the destruction of the temple in the time of Sylla. The ides

of September, on which he had consecrated it, formed the com­

mencement of the era for keeping account of. which a nail was driven.

in there on the same day of every year.

Among the works of art with which the last king had meant to

decorate this temple, was a four-horsed chariot of baked clay, des­

tined to be placed at top of the pediment. This piece, which was

to be executed by an artist at Veii, swelled out so prodigiously in

the fire, that it was necssary to break open the furnace in order to

take it out. Such a marvel would have been deemed of unequivo­

cal import. even among a people less familiar with the ways of

destiny than the Etruscans: accordingly the Veientines refused to

deliver up the chariot to the Romans;. pretending that it had not

been made for the state, but for Tarquinius. The gods however

would not allow Rome to be robbed of a work, which they had

purposed should be a token of her fate. During the next Circen­

sian games at Veii the horses that had been victorious darted away

impetuously to Rome; and at the foot of the Capitol, near the

Porta Ratumena, the name of which came from this Etruscan 1107,

dashed their driver lifeless to the ground. Foreboding that a like

1107 The penultimate is long; for it has the common termination of Tu•­

ean gentile names, Hke Vibenna, Ergenna. See note 922 ..382

HISTORY OF ROME.

misfortune would turn all their festivals into mourning, the Veien·

tines were fain to comply with the Roman people 1108 •

The thought of being inclebted to the tyrant for this temple, the

chosen seat of the highest gocls, ancl, long before the time when it

surpassed that at Delphi in riches, the most splendid ornail1ent of

Rome, was repugnant to the feelings of the later Romans: it seemed

to them too as if those happy signs of the future which manifested

themselves while the builcling was rreparing, could only be revealecl,

as if those prophetic books which were to guide the public in times

of great embarrassment, could only be vouchsafecl, to one who had

found favour with the gods. Hence the laying the foundations at

least of the Capitol, together with the omens of a universal empire

and of its eternity, were assigned l/y many, the visit of, the Si by1

by some, though but a few, to the father, L. Tarquinius Priscus.

Earlier ages were of a different way of thinking: to them it was

no stumbling-block, that the higher powers should show favour

even to a reprobate, who was observant of their service, until the

measure of his guilt was filled; or that they should allow such a

man to convey their blessings to a people whom they loved: was

the people to suffer, because the gods themselves had not the power

of commanding N attire to endow its rulers with virtue?

· · In all the accounts however the building of the Capitol is con­

nected by a vow with the Sabine war of the first Tarquinius: but

the older legend confined itself to this 9 • The most lying of all the

annalists• 0 , Valerius Antias, by a clumsy transfer from the tradition

about Suessa Pometia, fabricated the story that king Priscus ob·

tained the means of executing the substructions from the spoils of

the unknown Latin town, Apiolm 11 • In order that the work might

not continue at a stand through the whole reign of Servius Tullius,

and"yet at the same time that the people might not seem to have been

oppressed under him, a further expedient was devised, perhaps by

1108 Plutarch Publicol. c. 13. The groundwork of the legend is the same

in Festus v. Ratumena porta; only a different story is there made of it. The

Veientines are compelled by arms to deliver up the chariot; and it has al­

ready been erected when the horses run away; at the sight of it they stand

still.

9 Thus in Cicero de Re p. 11. 20, it is said of Priscus, <edem in Capito­

lio faciendam vovisse: and u. 24, of Superbus, votum patris Capitolii <edifica·

tione persolvit. David too only made the vow: the temple was built from the

ground by Solomon.

10 Adeo nullus mentiendi modus est, says Livy of him: xxv1. 49. ·

11 Pliny H. N. ur. 9. Strabo v. p. 231. a.HISTORY OF ROME.

383

the same writer: Servius was said to have carried on the building

by employing the labour of the alliesll 12•

The site of the Capitoline temple was on the lower summit of

the Tarpeian hill, now called. .JJJonte Caprino, which is separated

from the .11.rx, where .11.ra Cefi1 3 stands, by a hollow at present

almost imperceptible 14• There was not a flat surface here large,

enough: so it was gained, as on Mount Moria, by levelling the

peaks, and by walling in a certain space, and then filling it up: works

which in cost of labour are not inferior even to the buildings of the

temple. .On this area a basement of considerable height was

erected, eight hundred feet in compass; it was nearly an equilateral

quadrangle, the length being not fifteen feet greater than the breadth.

The triple sanctuary of Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva, underneath the

same roof, with party.walls to separate them, was surrounded by

rows of pillars; a triple colonnade on the south, a double one on

the other sides 15• Beyond a doubt the whole temple was built of

peperino: the pillars were of blocks, which can hardly have been

even masked with 1>tucco: no marble can have shone from its walls:

the doors were certainly of brass; so perhaps was the roof. As­

suredly it was not a less noble building than the temples of Pres­

tum; majestic in its simple grandeur, the course of ages and the

victories of three hundred years gradually arrayed it in all that was

splendid and precious. The artists who built and embellished the

Capitol, were sent for out of Etruria' 6 : the severity of the ancient

Italian principle, which would not tolerate any corporeal represen­

tations of the gods, had already been overpowered by the influence

of Greece.

The tradition that the du.umvirs who had the care of the Sibylline

books 17 "'.ere instituted by the last Tarquinius, is evidently derived

from the pontifical or artgural records, like the statements concern­

ing the establishment of the priestly offices by Numa. When we

look at it historically, it seems that the original appointment of a

duumvirate taken from among the patricians must have been prior

to the opening of the Vestal priesthood and of the senate to the

, 1112 Tacitus Hist. 111. 72. Servius Tullius sociorum studio.

13 Which name seems to be a corruption of Arx.

14 This view was that of all the older and better topographers before

Nardini: to me it was first imparted by Hirt. See his Dissertation on this

temple in the Berlin Transactions for 1812-1813.

15 Dionysius 111. W. iv. 61.

16 Livy I. 57.

17 References to the pas•ages that speak of the Sibylline oracles may

easily be foun<l in Fabricius Bibi. Grrec. ed. Harl. 1. p. 248. foll.

'384

HISTORY OF ROME.

third tribe: for unquestionably it is improbable that after that time

it would be excluded from the custody of foreign objects of reli­

gious reverence, wherein the plebeians were allowed to take part

sooner than in the consulate and the higher colleges of priests : and

the improbability is heightened by the Tarquins having belonged to

that tribe. But when the question lies between the father and son,

this objection goes too far: and the lesser houses may possibly have

been represented by one of the duumvirs, just as the Tities were

by one of the two who held the other priestly offices.

That the Sibylline oracles kept in the Capitol made. up three

books, and consequently that by the tenor of the legend nine were

brought to the king, seems to follow from the keepers of them

being charged to look into the Sibylline books; in opposition to

Pliny's statement that two of them were burnt, and only orie re­

tained111s. After they had been consumed in the time of Sylla, their

guardians may have ventured to tell what pl'eviously must not have

crossed their lips: and so we may safely adopt Varro's account, that

they were written upon palm-leaves; and partly in verses, partly in

symbolical hieroglyphics 10: that statement is the less suspicious, as

this material for writing ·is scarcely mentioned elsewhere among

the ancients. Pliny takes for granted that they were written on

papyrus ; because he thought all books were so before the invention

of parchment: this is of no weight against an express assertion: and

there is great plausibility in the interpretation of the scholiast who

suggests that the leaves of the Cumean Sibyl were designed by the

learned poet as an allusion to the form of the old· Roman Sibylline

books. Their nature being such, we catch a glimpse into th.e

manner of consulting them. · To have searched after a passage and

applied it would have been presumptuous: it can hardly be doubted

that they were referred to in the same way as Eastern nations refer

to the Koran and Hafiz; and as many Christians, however strictly

it has been forbidden, ask counsel of the Bible, by opening it, or

employing a verse box. · The form of the Indian palm leaves used

in writing, oblongs cut to the same size, was well suited for their

1118 H. N. lllll. 27.

19 Servius on .lEn. m. 444 1 and v1. 74. In foliis palmre interdum notis,

interdum scribebat sermonibus. They may have been leaves of the finer

sort of palm from Africa, dressed for th(' purpose: at all events in case of

need the dwarf palms which grow so abundantly in Sicily, may have been

used. The petalism of the Syracusans shows that the practice there was to

scratch marks on leaves, as at Athens and in Egypt to write on potsherds:

both were materials that cost nothing.HISTORY OF ROME.

385

being shuffled and drawn: thus the practice at Prreneste was to draw

a tablet.

·

The question however, whether these oracles contained presages

of coming events, ·or merely directions what was to be done for con­

ciliating or for appeasing the gods,-di~ections understood to be

addressed to the particular case which led to the inquiry,-is per­

plexing, owing to the mystery these books were involved in from

the time when Tarquinius condemned a duumvir to ~uffer the pun­

ishment of a parricide (or blabbing*. The command. however to

send for Esculapius from Epidaurust can only have been conveyed

in an oracle ~hich spoke of a pestilence, that is to say, foretold it.

During the period comprehended in the remaining books of Livy

the purpose of consulting these books was never, as it was in resorting

to a Greek oracle, to get light concerning future events ; but to learn

what worship was required by the gods, when they had manifested

their wrath by national calamities or by prodigies. All the instruc­

tion too recorded is in the same spirit ; prescribing what honour is to

be paid to the deities already recognized, or what new ones are to

be imported from abroad. The oracles in the restored collection

are out of the question here: in the earlier ages where we have

annals 1120 there is only a single example of a differe)lt kind: under the

year 566 mention is made of a prohibition by the Sibyl to cross the

Taurus with an armed force 21 • In fact however it is utterly incon­

cei~able that such a secret should have become notorious. Of the

numerous Sibylline oracles that circulated among the Greeks, many

at that 1time related to Rome; the Romans themselves regarded them

with respect as akin to their own: and moiit probably one of these

had been heard of by the legates sent by the senate to the army of

Cn. Manlius. It may notwithstanding have been ancient, suppos­

ing that it did not, speak of any particular state, and was merely

applied at that time to the Romans: possibly the prophet may have

had the Lydian kings in his eye: there had however been abundance

of generals during the two preceding centuries who mignt have fur­

nished occasion for such dissuasives. That the Roman Sibylline

oracles camEl from an Ionian source, although the neighbouring

*

Dionysius 1v. G2. Valerius Maximus 1. 1. 13.

Livy x. 47..

·

'

.

1120 I have not overlooked the passage in Livy m. 10: but what weight

can be attached .to ~tatements out of those times? besides an oracle never

speaks with that downright distinctness. The one which in Cicero's times

forbad an expedition to Egypt, came out of the restored set.

21 Livy xxxvm. 45.

1.-YY38G

HISTORY OF ROME.

town of Cuma likewise boasted of her prophetess, is clearly proved

by their enjoining the worship of the ldffia!l mother 1122 ; as well as

by the mi!'sion to Erythrre for the sake of restoring the books after

their destruction.

'

Had the early Romans been as ignorant of the Greek language

as is usually supposed, their consulting Greek oracles would have

been next to impossible; and yet nobody has ever questioned that

those of the Sibyl were written in Greek. Nor is this merely to

be inferred from passages that unequivocally imply it: the state­

ment that two Greek interpreters were sent for in order to be quite

sure of the meaning 23, amounts to an express testimony. Besides

had not the oracles been composed in Greek hexameters, it would

never have been believed that they might be replaced by those

which were to be found in the Greek cities. But the Romans

were far from being thus unacquainted with Greek: the Greek

books dug up along with those on the pontifical law in the pretended

grave of Numa must at all events have been buried there in very

early times: in the fifth century the Roman envoy at Tarentum

spoke Greek, though but imperfectly: and were the fact otherwise,

how would several eminent Romans have been able to write Greek

all at once in the age· of Hannibal, before the period when Greek

literature was introduced? The Greek origin of the oracles is

likewise plain from what they enjoin. They invariably ordained

the worship of Grecian deities; and hereby they must have exerted

a very great influence on the religion of the Romans, in suppress­

ing what it had derived from the Sabines and Etruscans: to sacri­

fice according to Greek rites was the same thing as sacrificing by

the command of the Sibylline oracles; and every keeper of these

books was as such a priest of Apollo.

It is true, if those books ef fate, by order of which more than

once in seasons of perilous warfare two Greeks arid two Gauls, a

man and woman of each people, were buried alive, were the Sibyl­

line books, as Plutarch conceivesll4, then what went by that name

among the Romans can never have come from a Greek source.

Nor will I deny that Livy, who on a like horrible occasion ex­

pressly mentions the libri fat ales, gives that title in another place

1122 Livy xxix. 10. Varro too held the Erythrrean Sibyl to be the one

that visited Tarquinius: Servius on lEn. v1. 36.

23 Zonaras vu. 11. These are the two servi publici attached to the du­

umvirs in the account of Dionysius: IV. 62.

'

24 Marcell. c. 3.

'HISTORY OF ROME.

387

to the Sibylline books: indeed he is warranted in doing so ; for

they too were books of fate. In fact, along with these Greek books,

there were preserved in the Capitol, under the guard of the same

duumvirs, the Etruscan prophecies of the nymph Bygoe, and the

homesprung ones of the Marcii 11 ~ 5 ; those of Albun a too or Albun ea

of Tibur 26 ; and who knows how many others of the same sort?

These were all books ef /ale; and every Etruscan city seems to

have.been possessed of such: we know of the Veientine ones, from

their having connected the destiny of Rome and Veii with the let­

ting off the .Alban lake. Now if Albunea, who was accounted

among the Sibyls, was the prophetess who advised that fate, if it

had promised the possession of Rome to Gauls or Greeks, should

be tricked as in the. treatment of the envoys from Arpi at Brundu­

sium27, Plutarch's mistake would be excusable.

In primitive times perhaps every Greek city had prophecies of

the same kind with all these, by a Sibyl, or a Bacis, or some other

soothsayer;· which were preserved in its acropolis, in the holiest

of its temples: as was the case under the Pisistratids, and afterward

under the Athe~ian republic. Her~ again we qiscover the original

correspondence between the Roman institutions and the Greek;

which was hidden from sight, when each of the two nations, the

Greeks however long before the Romans, developed the strong pe­

culiarities of their national character. Living oracles like those fo

Greece, where the deity answ~red the inquirer through the mouth

of an inspired minister, did not exist among any Italian people:

hence they sent to Delphi. Among the Apulians on mount Gar­

ganus the kindred Greek custom prevailed of earning a prophetic

vision by sleeping in the temple after offering up a sacrifice; but it

was in a Greek heroum of Calchas*.

·

The Roman oracles were not accessible to private individuals:

he who ~ought for such guidance from the heavenly' powers, went

to Prreneste to the temple of Fortuna; the goddess who dispensed

every thing that was special and providential, who diverted the

chances of an individual's life from the course prescribed and deter­

mined for him by Fate at his birth and by his own character; who

delayed or hastened his journey along it; the doom of the indivi­

1125 Servius on 1En. v1. 72. .Those of the Marcii had not been placed

there when the battle of Cannre was found iri them: Livy xxv. 12.

26 Lactantius Div. lnstit. 1. 6. 12. Sibyllam decimam Tiburtem, no­

mine Albuneam-cujus sortes senatus in Capit.olium transtulerit: where see

the commentators.

* Strabo n. p. 284. b.

27 Justin xu. 2.388

HISTORY OF ROME.

dual beiug a particular sphere of possibility ordained by Fate,

within the far more extensive range of possibility marked out by

Nature. The lots preserved at Prreneste were sticks or slips of

oak board, with ancient characters graven on them: a nobleman of

that city was said to have found them in the inside of a rock, in a

spot where he had cleft it open as he had been commanded in har­

assing dreams. They were shaken up together by a boy, and one of

them was drawn.for the person who consulted the oracle 11 ~. They

remind us of the Runic staves among the northern nations. Simi-.

lar divining-lots were to be found in several 9 9, perhaps in a great

many places: those of Crere are mentioned on occasion of the pro­

digy which befell them, when they shrunk so that an oracle fell

out without the touch of a human hand*. Those of Albunea must

have been written on some material like that of the Prrenestine

ones, since they were found in the bed of a river.

The banishment of the kings was commemorated every year by

the Regifugium or the Fugalia on the 24th of February. . This is

the ground on which Dionysius states 30 ·that four months of the

year were still to come: that is, he reckoned according to the aver­

age o( the Athenian calendar, the first month of which coincided

more or less with July; and assumed that the festival was a day

historically ascertained. But its connexion· with the Terminalia,

which it follows immediately, infers that the day w.as merely chosen

with a symbolical view.

1128 Cicero de Divinat. 11. 41.

* Livy xx1. 62. xxu. 1.

29 The same.

30 v. 1.COMMENTARY ON THE STORY OF THE

LAST

TARQU~NIUS.

I HAVE related the tale of the last king's glory and of his fall no

less nakedly than it must havi:; stood in those bald Annals, the

scantiness of which made Cicero think it his duty, and induced

.Livy,' to throw a rich dress over the story of Rome. That which

is .harmonious in a national and poetical historian, would be out of

tune in a work ~ritten more than eighteen hundred years later by

a foreigner and a critic.· His task is to restore the ancient tradi­

tion, to fill it up by reuniting such scattered features as still rema~,

but have been left out in that clas~ical narrative which has become

the current one, and to free it from the refinements with which

learning has disfigured it: that distinct and lively view, which his

representation also sho~ld aim to give, should be nothing more than

the clear and vivid perception of the outlines of the old lost poem.

Had a perfectly simple narrative by Fabius or Cato been preserved,

I would merely have translated it, have annexed the remnants of

other accounts, and then added a commentary, such as I now have

to write on my own text.

Certain as it is that Rome possessed Sibylline books, and yet

none can tell who wrote them, or say more than that the Sibyl is

a poetical creation; it is no less indubitable that Tarquinius was a

tyrant, and the last king of Rome: and no criticism is able to pierce

further, or to sev~r what is historical from the poem: all it can do

is to show what is the state of the case.

It is true, the most glaring among the chronological impossibili­

ties vanish in some measure, when we look at this story indepen­

dently of the dates' fixed by the pontiffs for Priscus and Servius.

If however it be then no longer inconceivable that Brutus should

have been a grandson of the former, still all else that is told of him

continues nevertheless to be a string of absurdities. · That the se­390

HISTORY OF ROME.

cond Tarquinius should have . reigned for more than the five and

twenty years assigned to him,· can neither be assumed by those

who maintain that this narrative is substantially historical; nor will

a candid inq~irer deem it credible. But how then is it to be re­

conciled, that Brutus should be a child at the beginning of the

reign, and at the end of it the father of young men who join in a

conspiracy with the exiles ? When Dionysius states that they

were scarce grown out of boyhood, he. introduces a fictjon of his

own, but to no. purpose. Besides how could a person who was

thought to be a natural, be the king's lieutenant, with the obliga­

tion of performing priestly ceremonies, and the power of convoking

the citizens? and can we suppose that while he was invested with

such an office, he had not even the management of his own for­

tune?

In contradiction to the two historians, who represent the subju­

gation of Latium as effected by persuasion, Cicero says that it was

subdued by armsti31, Nor is the discrepancy less, where the Vei­

entines are the only Etruscan people nam~d by him as having en­

deavoured to restore the banished family by military forces•: so

that the introduction of the Tarq1.linians into th~ tale of this war, is

a forgery; which was devised, because of course there could be no

place where the exiles would rather have sought for aid, or more

readily have found it, than in their pretended home.

Their migration to Crere, totally unconnecteq as it is with the

subsequent Etruscan wars, is derived from the pontifical law books ;

where it was brought forward as the origin of the right conferred

by the community of franchise to go and settle there as a citizen.

The story of Sextus and the people of Gabii is patched up from

two well-known ones in Herodotus'~, without any novel invention.

Besides it is quite impossible that Gabii should have fallen into the

hands of the Roman king by treachery: had such been the case, no

one-I will not say no tyrant, but no sovereign in antiquity-would

have granted the Roman franchise to the Gabines, and have spared

them all chastisement by the scourge of war; aa Tarquinius is said

to have done by Dionysius himself8 3 • In fact the record of this

favour aceorded to them was contained in , the. treaty with Gabii,

which in his days was still to be read in the temple of Dius Fidius:

it was painted on a shield cased with the skin of the bull slain at

the ratification of the league 84 • The very existence of a treaty,

. 1131 De Re p. n. 54. Omne Latium hello devicit.

32 Tusc. Qureet. m. 12 (27). See note 1202.

* m. 154. v. !>2.

33 1v. 58.~

34 Dionysius 1v. 58.HISTORY OF ROME.

391

though reconcilable with the case of a surrender, puts the forcible

occupation out of the question.

The spoils with the produce of which Tarquinius undertook the

building of the Capitol, the tithe of what was taken at Pometia,

were estimated by Fabius at forty talents 1185• Others, Piso for in­

stance, have stated the whole, of which that sum was the tithe,­

four hundred talents, or forty thousand pounds of silver-to have

been only the tenth part; so that the remaining nine must have

been given Up to the flOldiers, every one of them receiving five

pounds of silver, or five thousand ases. Nay, once on the wing they

do not stop here; these 4000 talents, near a million sterling, were

nothing more than the gold and silver found in Pometia: all the rest

of the property was abandoned to plunder•B, It is worth remarking

that the very author who banished all marvels out of his history,

took no offence at this enormous absurdity. But even the number

given by Fabius, out of which this fiction was spun, betrays its

fictitious origin: for, assuming that the booty, after the principle of

the ancient confederacies, was divided between the Romans, Latins,

and Hernicans, the tithe on the whole, if the Roman share was forty

talents, amounted to thrice as much, that is, to twelve times ten

talents: where accordingly we find the very ~ame numbers on

which these meagre fictions are perpetually ringing the changes 8 7.

Nay, Pometia cannot possibly have been destroyed under Tar­

113.) It is owing to one of the many corruptions in our received editions,

that we now find quadringenta instead of quadraginta in Livy 1. 53, 55, against

the manuscripts. Though, when he wrote, it may no longer have been gene­

rally known, that the Italian talent weighed a hundred pounds, so that 400

talents were equal to 40,(JOO pounds; still he could never have perceived such

an enormous difference between those two sums as his expressions imply.

Pometinre manubire vix in fundamenta suppeditavere. Eo magis Fabio­

crediderim-quam Pisoni, qui XL millia pondo argenti seposita in earn rem

scribit: summam pecuniw neque ex unius tum urbis prreda sperandam, et

nullius, ne horum quidem magnificentire operum, fundamenta non exsupera­

turam. Livy cannot have been thinking of ilmaller talents than the Attic;

and between these and the Italian the difference was only that between

~,400,000 and 4,000,000 drachms.

.

36 Dionysius 1v. 50, compared with Livy 1. 55. This on a calculation

gives us an army of 72,000 men; and the share of every soldier, merely in hard

cash, is equivalent to 50 beeves. See p. 352.

37 With such barrenness of invention did those annalists, to whom Dio­

nysius looked for more copious details, go to work, perpetually repeating

themselves, and transferring incidents from one story to another, that the

spoils won from the Latins, not in alliance with them, at the battle of Regil­

lus, out of which spoils gamra were celebrated, were set down at 40 talents.

Dionpius n. 17.392

HISTORY OF ROME.

quinius; for a few years after. in the first age of the consulate, it is

besieged and taken*: and its greatness no doubt is entirely fabulous •.

It may be true that the Pomptine marshes derive their name from

P~metia, and that a city so called once stood on the hills at the

edge of them: it certainly did not stand within them,-where it

has only been placed, because no trace of it was to be found, and

it might there have been swallowed up in the dreary swamp-for

the air must always have been pestilential. If this morass was ever

cultivated more widely than at present, it can only have been as.

the result of successful drainage ; and after all the extent can never

have been considerable: for it is not a piece of land that has been

inundated; the correct view is, that there was once an arm of the

sea here stretching in behind sand-hills, and that .it has gradually

been converted into a s;wamp: during which process however many

thousand years more have past away, than was supposed by those

who imagined that this was the state of things in the tinics of the

Odyssee. I shall hereafter. give my reasons for conjecturing that

there was no Suessa called Pometia, and that.the only town of that

name was Suessa Auruncat.

.

·

Thus in the story of this king again both the outline and· de­

tails vanish before us when we put them to the test. Even his

abolishing the institution of Servius cannot be admitted without

limitation: for the array of the army in maniples implies the ex­

istence of centuries and· a census; and so do the comitia held im­

mediately after his fall.

As to the particular acts of tyranny told of Tarquinius, they are

the more suspicious, because, when a man is fallen, vulgar party

spirit esteems it allowable, and sometimes even a point of duty, to

indulge in the utmost exaggeration of his guilt, nay often in calum­

nious inventions. There is the air of such an invention in the

story that he introduced human sacrifices 1 ' 38 : and, as even slander

must have a national character, .one Asiatic writer says, that he in­

vented instruments of torture 39 ; another, that he castrated boys and

de floured brides 40 •

That Brutus procured the banishment of the Tarquins in his ca­

pacity of tribune of the Celeres, was demonstrated by the lex tri­

1

* Livy u. 17.

.

t See Vol. 11, note 186.

1138 Macrobius Saturn. I. 7.

39 Eusebius Chron. N. 1469. 'Ete'iipt thl1'µ.<L, f'.<Lll''l"l)l<Lf, ~u1'<L 1 1ipvr<1.r,

<f>UAILX.l'LC 1 x.Ao10U,, 7r£Joc,, ci.Arlfiu,, i;op[et,, µ~'Tl'LJ..Arl. 1 xctl si'Tl ~"'>..Ao x.ctx.61.

So also Isidor. Origin. I. v. c. 27.

40 Theophilus ad Autolic. m. 2G.HISTORY OF ROME.

393

bunicia 1141 • From this source came the information that he held

that office : the lay which spake of his feigned idiocy, cannot have

known any thing about it, and was incompatible with it: the an­

nalists combined the two stories. That poetical· tale was perhaps

oceasioned by hi~ surname; which yet may have had a very dif­

ferent meaning from the one there affixed to it. I. have before ob­

served that Brutus in Oscan meant a run-away slave 49 : now it is

easy enough to understand, that the partisans of the Tarquins may

have applied such a term to him, and that on the other hand he and

the Romans might not be sorry to let the nickname pass into

vogue.

The coming of Sp. Lucretius with P. Valerius, of Collatinus

with Brutus, to the house that had been desecrated, and their joining

in vowing the banishment of the tyrants, has quite the look of a

historical fact : and yet this " oath of the four Romans"* is only

symbolical of the union betwe.en the three patrician tribes and the

plebs : although it is by no means my intention to deny that these

very four men may have represented their orders, each the one he

belonged to, or that perhaps until the consulship was established

they governed the republic. Valerius stood for the Sabines. That

Lucretius belonged to the Ramnes would be clear even from the

legal tradition that the lictors went from Valerius to him owing to

his superior rank 43 , But it follows still more decidedly from his

1141 Pomponius I. 2. D. de origine juris. See note 11G4.

42 See a.bove pp. 48. 74.

* It reminds us of the oa.th of the three Swiss on the Riitli.

43 We must not Jet ourselves be misled by Cicero's saying of them (de

Rep. n. 31), suos ad eum quod erat 'TfW,jor natu lictores transire jussit (Vale­

rius). The story refers to the precedence of the consul 'TfW,jor, with regard to

the meaning of which phrase even L. Cresar felt uncertain: see Festus v.

majorem consulem. The epithets of the patres, majores and minores, were

perpetually, though in a. variety of ways, perplexing the Romans of a la.ter

age, whose errors were repeated by Dionysius a.nd Livy. The Ramnes were

just as much majores in comparison with the Tities, as both of them were in

comparison with the third tribe: Dionysius II. 47. (where instead of v•t»Tipour

oilr '"iA•O"<t.r ""-"P'"iovr we ought to write our rtt»T. ''" 'll'rt.Tp.), and 57. • o 1

µh '" ""'' J.px,r1.l1»v ~OV'AtVTt.ov ~·ono-01 J' ei< TQ>V UO''t'tpov t71't10"rt.X,Bin1., (the

Tities),. our U1»-rtpovr e1'rt.Aovv •. Moreover I suspect that the Roman youths are

wronged when the conspiracy of the Vitellii a.nd Aquillii. is a.scribed to the

facility with which their age may be seduced. The eponym of the former

was no other than Ita.lus himself (see a.hove p. 11); a.nd in the house of the

Aquillii we find the surname Tuscus : hence they were both Tyrrhenians,

and so probably Luceres : a.nd the minores, whose irritation against the Tar·

quins was only transitory, and among whom their ambassadors would natu­

rally look for conspirators, seem to have been mistaken for jut1enes. .

1.-zz394

HISTORY OF ROME.

office as governor of the city, which was attached to the dignity of

the first senator, that is, of the first among the ten first of the Ram­

nes1144: hence Lucretius was interrex; . Collatinus, as a Tarquin,

was one of the Luceres• 5 ; and Ilrutus a plebeian 40 •

The story of Lucretia's misfortune and of the consequent expul­

sion of the Tarquins is inseparably connected with the camp before

Ardea. Now since we find the Homans in the treaty of the first

consuls with Carthage stipulating as protectors for the people of

Ardea as for a subject Latin city 4 7, the statement that at the moment

of the revolution a fifteen-year<" truce was concluded with them,

cannot be maintained: nor can the war itself be saved from falling

along with it; except by such arbitrary proceedings, as the very

persons who assert the historical character of these legends, scruple

not to allow themselves; namely, by assuming that the truce in­

deed is a misrepresentation, but that Home may have reduced Ardea

to subjection in the interval.

Now as in this narrative we find marks of invention and altera­

tion throughout, I will not leave the perplexing part of what· is

related of Collatinus standing in its enigmatical form, but will hazard

an explanation of it. It is revolting beyond belief, that the qeath of

Lucretia should not, at least as a pledge, have redeemed her hus­

band, and her chil<lren, if she left any, from banishment: and the

commonplaces about the unjust jealousy of republics, which were

used to get ov'er this difficulty some nineteen hundred years ago*,

1144 This I shall show in the next volume in the section on that office.

45 See above p. 288:

46 On this point see the next section. The forms of the constitution

are so completely lost sight of in the interest of the poetical story, that not a.

word is said about the senate at the revolution: yet it was absolutely imposs·

ible for the curies to pass any decree without a previous resolution of the

senate ; and the mention of Sp. Lucretius, as holding the double office (see

Vol. n. note 236), shows manifestly that in the law books all the particulars

were fully reported. As first senator he was prefect of the city, and brought

forward the measure before the senate ; not before the curies; that was the

business of the tribune of the Celeres: as interrei he merely presided in

putting to the vote the election of the candidates proposed by the senate.

Even on this point however a. trace of the correct account may be discovered,

strangely enough, in Dionysius, where Brutus tells the citizens they had to

hear and to decide on the measures decreed by the senate: ;,.,, 'T"- Jo;<1.n<t 'T'f

O"uV£Jpi'f ,<u96n1c iir1xupwo-wre 'To J'ox9iv: IV. 84. These measures are no other

than those which according to his account were agreed upon by the four men

in the house of Collatinus.

47 K<tpx~Jouoi µ~ dJ'1ui'Two-<i.v J>iµov 'ApJi<t'Twv-µ~J'' «'A'A•r µNJ'ir11,

ArJ.'Tiv.. v 0.-01 tiv riirn1t.ooi.' Polybius 111. 2'2.

* Cicero de Ollie. lu. 10. de Re p. 11. 30~ 31. Livy 11. 2.HISTORY OF ROME.

3!J5

would nowise lessen the people's guilt. But what if the marriage.

of Collatinus with the daughter ofTricipitinus was merely a fiction,

to account for, or to excuse the appointing a Tarquinius to the con­

sulate?

At Athens the first step was to witlnlraw the splendour of kingly

sovereignty along with its title from the Codrids: next their dimin­

ished power was limited to a term of ten yc~us ; before the archon­

ship was made annual and thrown open to other houses; then to

the rich among the eupatrid~; and finally to every full citizen, being

now no longer any thing but a brilliant phantom. In like manner

the supreme power, or some memorial of it, descended in other

Greek :;tates from the king upon prytancs of the house he had be­

longed to. It might seem as if in an elective monarchy, like Rome,

there would be no overruling necessity for so gradual a ti:ansition:

and yet such a necessity would be felt, ·if we suppose that the

power of the Tarquins was in fact already looked upon as heredi­

tary, and that the lesser houses by their means had acquired such

a preponderance as· may have been the chief reason which induced

the major houses to unite with the commonalty. In such a case it

is even extremely probable that a conciliatory compromise would

be made with the Tarquinian house,· allowing that one of them

elected by the people should partake in the supreme power; more

especially iri a state where the advance of the constitution was·

more gradual than in any other. This is the more credible, as a

like privilege seems to have been afterward granted to the Valerii

and the Fabii. In this way Collatinus may have obtained the con­

sulship: but the change going on in the state would not halt long

at this first step : the Tarquinii furnished grounds for suspicion\'

and the whole house was banished 1148 : a record which is the more

instructive, as it represents them under an entirely different aspect.

from that of a single family, the grandchildren aad great-grandchil­

·

dren of Darnaratus.

1148 Cicero de Re p. n. 23. Civitas exulem et regem ipsum, et liberos

ejus, et gcnJ;cm Tarquiniorum esse jussit.-31. Nostri majores Collatinum

innocentem suspicione cognationis expulerunt, ct rdiquos Tarquinios offen­

sione nominis : which passage also draws a very clear hne of distinction be­

tween the kinsmen and those members of the house who were not connected

by blood. Livy n. 2. Ut omnes Tarquinite gcntis exules essent. He sepa­

rates this from the decrc~, exules esse L. Tarquinium cum coujuge ac liberis.

1. 59. Varro Antiqilit. xx. p. 209, in Nonius m. v. Reditus: Om:ncs Tarqui­

nios ejeeerunt, ne quam reditionis per gcntilitatcm spem haberent: that the

royal family might not cherish any hope of being restored hy the other inem­

bers of their gens.THE BEGINNING OF THE REPUBLIC, AND

THE TREATY WITH CARTHAGE.

THE Tarquinii, frQm what has been said, may have rejoiced,

even more so •than any other citizens, at a change, by which the

power, until then enjoyed by a single individual, was placed annu­

ally within the reach of every noble member of their house, and

was secured to them, without being stripped of any thing but its

priestly dignity. For the kingly power was transferred, with no

abridgement but this, to the annual magistrates, who in those times

still retained the name of prretors. Hence that accurate writer,

Dion Cassiu.s, deviating from all others, does not use the name of

-consuls until after the decemvirate; when, as he conceived, the

title was changed 1149• I shall allow myself however to follow

Livy and Dionysius in giving this glorious name . to the immediate

followers of the kings. For which reason l will here iniroduce the

remark, that this title is neither to be derived from consulting these­

nate, nor from giving counsel 50 : for, especially at the beginning of the

1149 Zonaras vu. 19. Livy too at the same period of his history (m. 55)

mentions that prretOT .had been the earlier name. Zonaras is so punctual a

copier that up to this time he always uses 0"1p<1.1wror.

50 The former explanation was preferred by Varro: the latter by Dio­

nysius (1v. 76); and waa given by L. Attius (Varro de L. L. iv. 14. p. 24.) in

his Brutus. This play was a prmtextata, the noblest among the three kinds of

the Roman national drama; all which assuredly, and not merely the Atellana,

might be represented by well-born Romans without risking their franchise.

The prretextata merely bore resemblance to a tragedy: it represented the

deeds of Roman kings and gennals (Diomede& m. p. 487~ Putsch.); and

hence it is evident, that at least it wanted the unity of time of the Greek tra­

gedy; that it was a histOTy, like Shakspeare's. I have referred above (p. 376)

to a dialogue between the king and his dream interpreters in the Brutus,

which must have taken place before Ardea: the establishment of the new

government, which must have been the occasion of the speech, qui recte con­

sulat consul siet, occurred at Rome: 80 that the !lnity of place was just as lit­HISTORY OF ROME.

397

republic, commanding was far more than either the one or the other

the distinguishing attribute of the consulate. Without doubt the

name means nothing more than simply collegues: the syllable sul

is found in prresul and exsul, where h signifies one who is: thus

consules is tantamount to consentes, the name given to Jupiter's

council of gods.

It assuredly was merely from representations of the legitimate

procedure in consular elections dressed up in a historical form, that

the historians took their positive statement as• to the first consuls

being elected by the centuries 1151 • This certainly is not historical

evidence : yet although the election afterward rested with the cu­

ries, we can discover how it was usurped ; and it is not conceiva­

ble that at the very first, when the plebs was treated with indul­

gence, the laws of Servius should have been violated. Only by a

union with the commonalty could the older tribes drive the third

back within bounds ; and hence they allowed those laws to be exe­

cuted so completely that the plebeian L. Brutus was chosen one of

the first consuls.

For I confidently regard Brutus as belonging to the plebs, which

he represented among the four men. The Junian house looked

upon him with pride as the founder of its nobility 59 : and that they,

especially the Bruti, were plebeians after the time of the Licinian

law, is unquestionable: it is proved by their being tribunes of the

people down to the end of the republic 58 ; and in the fifth century

tle observed. T/ie Destruction of Jrfiletus by Phrynichus and the Persians of

lEschy lus were plays that drew forth all the manly feelings of bleeding or ex­

ulting hearts, and not tragedies : for these the Greeks, before the Alexandrian

age, took their plots solely out of mythical story. It was essential that their

contents should be known beforehand; whereas the stories of Hamlet and

Macbeth were .unknown to the spectators: at present parts of them might be

moulded into trageJies like the Greek; that is, if a Sophocles were to.rise up.

1151 Comitiis centuriatis, says Livy: '"•"'<t. ~•x•u' in the field of Mars,

Dionysius.

52 Cicero Brut. 14. (53.) Philip. 1. 6. (13). It can only have been in

consequenee of their deducing their race like the Sergii and Cluentii from

one of' the companions of 1Eneas, that Dionysius (iv. 68) attributed that de­

scent to the founder of the republic. When the eponyms of the houses were

once supposed to have been their progenitors, such a genealogy was at all

events just as well suited to a plebeian house, that came from some ,Alban or

Latin town, as to one of the Ramnes.

.

53 Dionysius, v. 18, u,.es this very argument to show that the later Ju­

nii Bruti were totally unconnected with the founder of the commonwealth.

He may have been sincere in this belief, and so may Dion, XLIV. 12: but the

former cannot possibly be so in the odious picture; which, when relating the398

IIISTORY OF RO.ME.

more than one Junius Brutus appears in the consular Fasti as the

plebeian colleague. Now it is true that in many cases plebeian

families were in later ages the. only surviving descendants of patri­

cian houses; and it is possible, although an instance in point will

hardly be found, that such a: family may have retained the peculiar

surname of the patricians to.. whom they were allied: but is it not

e~ceedingly strange, when we keep in mind the distinction between

a house and a family, that before the Licinian law not a single Ju­

nius occurs in the Fasti? even admitting that the immediate pos­

terity of Brutus were extinct.. The L. Junius Brutus too, who is

mentioned by Dionysius sixteen years after the. first consulate as

one of the two first tribunes of the people, afterward as mdile, and

of whom he has a great deal to tell us 115 4, but of whom Livy knows

nothing, was probably not a totally fictitious person, but one trans­

ferred by some plebeian annalist to that age from one somewhat

later, for the sake of ascribing the establishment of the freedom of

the plebeians to a kinsman of the founde~. of the commonwealth.

I have already remarked that, unless the consulate was shared be­

tween the two orders, all the liberties of the plebeians were left

without a safeguard: and as the Licinian ·agrarian law in fact only

revived that of Cassius, which ought to havP. been in forf!e during

the foregoing hundred and twenty y,ears, and which it3elf had only

given effect to an ordinance of Servius; in the same way the I,.ici­

nian law on the consulate seems only to have given a tardy effect

to a very ancient principle of the constitution. The legend indeed

calls L. Brutus the son of Tarquinia; but this no way tells against

his being a plebeian; for it belongs to the fable of his assumed

idiocy: and even if we adopt that account, yet, marriages of dis­

paragement were never forbidden, and were even frequent. Though

in fine it seems difficult, as I admit, to reconcile his being tribune

of the Celeres with his being a plebeian, yet the usurper might as­

sume the disposal of a place which legally ought to have been con-

secession of the commonalty, he tries to give of the plebeian orator, L. Brutus,

(supposing him to be the ancestor of M. Brutus),·as cif a mischievous incen­

diary; although all the demands ascribed to him are perfectly rca;;onable and

judicious. The opinions professed after the.battle of. Philippi are worth still

less than those, slight as their grounds may also be, which were held in the

time of Cicero. If Posidonius fancied he discerned a likeness to the features

of the ancient statue (Plutarch Brut. i.), this only proves that he looked with

eyes offondnc5s.

.

,

1154 Throughout the history of the secession in the sixth book, and in the

seventh in the account of the law by which tlic tribunes secured themselves

from interruption when addressing the people.HISTORY OF ROME.

399

ferred by election: this was done by the Greek tyrantS whenever

they pleased. It is clear that in such a state of things the rights of

the orders would not be regarded: Tarquinius having availed him­

self of the jealousy of the patricians would now have to watch them:

Brutus too may have deceived the tyrant by pretended devotedness,

in order to destroy him 11ss. Moreover it is to the point to remark

that the office of the rnagister equitum was universally regarded as

a continuation of that tribunate, and yet a plebeian could hold it at

the time when the consulship was still closed against his fellows*

As soon as the patrician tribes were united among themselves, the

enjoyment of this right might easily be withJrawn from the com·

monalty, by a little boldness, anJ the crafty pretence of giving them

a compensation by other freer privileges.

The elective kings of Rome enjoyed the same honours as the

hereditary kings sprung from heroic houses: but the custom for a

whole people to mourn for such on their decease was mot peculiar

to Lacedemon; and in this way no doubt those of Rome too were

mourned for. I conceive that the testimonies of sorrow which the

matrons were said in the ceremonial books to have given for the

death of Brutus and VaJcrius, must have been acts of homage which,

so long as the consul was held to have, succeeded to the full rights

and privileges of the king, were paiu to every one who died during

his year of office.

But however near the majesty of. the consuls may have ap­

proached to that of the kings, the patrician class at least was far

better secured against a consul abusing his power: first by the inter­

position of his colleague, and next by the annual duration of his au­

thority. To bring a complaint against the kings was impossible,

as it continued to be against every one while in office: a consul, if

not re-elected, sank to the level. of a private citizen; and then the

qumstors might impeach him.

These public accusers, and not the keepers of the public purse,

must have been the qumstors spoken of in the curiate law by which

Brutus had it enacted that their oillce should continue on the same

footing as under the kings: it assuredly was only by inference that

Tacitus, who seems to ha~e k1~ow1~ this law merely at second hand,

1155 I will not lay any stress on the passage where Dionysius expressly

says (iv. 71) that the king bestowed the office on Brutus with a view of un­

derming its authority: although this doubtless was also the case if we sup­

pose that an alien to the order was invested with it.

·

* See note 1259. l'ompimius Dig. Lib. 1. Tit. n. I. Dictatoribus Ma.­

gistri Equitum injungebantur :· sic quomodo Regibus Tribuni Ce!erum.400

HISTORY OF ROME.

and who found a statement of the first time that the centuries ap·

pointed to this place, not perceiving that by the decemviral code the

election was transferred to them from the curies, concluded that the

qurestors had previously been named by the consuls, and before by.

the kings. That they were chosen by the people, that is, by the

curies, under the monarchy, was expressly stated by Junius Grac­

chanus1156. It is immaterial here that Tacitus and Ulpian both con­

found the qwestores classici with the quteslores parricidii: which

same mistake must lie at the bottom of Plutarch's account; although

he explicitly states that the establishment of a public treasury, and

the right of electing two treasurers conferred on the people, were

among the enlargements of liberty for which the republic had to

thank the consul Publicola5 7. He appears' to have heard some

report of the same. law .of the curies, differently modified, and re­

ferred to Publicola instead of Bru,tus.

There is the same fluctuation between Brutus and Publicola in

the account of the filling up the number of the senate: Livy ascribes

it to the former; Festus and Plutarch to the latter; Dionysius, com­

bining the two accounts, to both. Tacitus, who tells us that Brutus

rait'ed the minor houses to the patriciate58 , i_s on the side of Livy:

for he, like Dionysius, is misled by the notion that the patricians

were noble families, the posterity of such individual sen,ators as

were appointed at the foundation of the state, or on some later occa­

sion with regard to which opinions differed. In this way he over­

looks the change made by Tarquinius Priscus; from fixing his eye

on the other great augmentation, when, after the establishment of

the consulate, plebeian knights were admitted into the senate; when

therefore it first began to be composed of patres and conscripti 59,

patricians and such as were called up by the consul. T.he account

placing the latter at 164 must certainly be a fabrication of Valerius

Antias 60 : these totally arbitraty numbers were a trick by which he

1156 ·Tacitus Annal. xi. 22. Ulpian Dig. 1. 13. Quos (reges) non sua

voce se'd populi suffragio crearent. Compare Lydus de Magistr. 1. 24.

.

57 Publicol. c. 12. ""-f·"'ior .<7riJ'ei~._,,."-~[«r J'I '<If' J'n~'f No ""'' vlctv

u • .,.., 0.7roJ1l~ru.. Plutarch drew much of his early Roman history from Vale­

rius Antias; and we can easily conceive that th.is writer, vain of the house to

which he in some measure belonged, would 8fcribe all he could to Publicola.

The word 1io1 seems to be taken from the usage of later times: in this place

w~ can hardly suspect that there was any corusion between the 1101 and the

~~

.

58 Annal. xr. 25.

l

59 Livy u. I. Festus v. Qui patres, qui conscripti.

60 Festus as before .. Plutarch Publicol. c. 11.

,HISTORY OF ROME.

401

tried to give his fictions a delusive resemblance to genuine ac­

counts.

Livy says, the tyrant had emptied the senate-house by his exe­

cutions1161: this too must be an exaggeration: and whatever quantity

of blood may have flowed, 'there was no want of patricians to make

up the complement; inasmuch as thirty years afterward the Fabii,

even if they did not amount to three hundred, were yet so nume­

rous that they formed a settlement. ' It is more likely that very many

seats were vacated by the banishment or emigration of the adherents

of the Tarquins. Ir we look at the matter historically, it was the

necessity of quieting the second estate, that· moved the patricians

to agree for the time to admitting these senators : and if the per­

sonifying principle be consistently applied, we shall assign this

equalizing measure to Brutus, considered as a plebeian.

.

To frame. a conception of the state of things which led at that

time to a new system of filling up the senate, it is in the first place

requisite that we should entirely dismiss the illusions of the facti··

tious chronology, and not let O\lrselves be disturbed at the too great

length or shortness of the interval by which certain points seem to

be separated.

.

Though the forming the three new equestrian centuries restored

the possibility of calling up one out of every house to the senate of

three hundred, still the houses thenceforward began anew to suffer

the lot of all exclusive bodies: they died off, and the more rapidly

1

as marriages of· disp aragement must have been frequent, in which

case the issue followed the baser blood 62 ; and thus the number of

the senate would again fall off further and further from the full com­

plement. For this there was a remedy, in case the deputies were

summoned and the vacancies fiHed up no longer by.houses; but by

curies: and this step 011 tbe road from the point where a summons.

was claimed as a right, toward a perfectly free choice, was a great

advance made by the eiective power : it was brought about by that

Ovinian tribunician law, of which we read in Festus 63• Judging

1161 1. 49. u. 1. Cwdibus ~egis in this passage jg the old spelling for regiis,

which has been left in the text from heedlessness.

62 It may be questioned however whether the son ofa plebeian woman

so married was always admitted into the commonalty; and we may suspect

that in early times this body also was much more exclusive, so that his birth

would only place him among the rerarians.' .

'

'

·

63 Ovinia tribunicia sanctum est ut censores ex omni orcline optimum

quemque curiatim in Senatum legerent. Festus v. Prreteriti Senatores: Ex

omni ordinc, which Festus copied litera.lly from Verrius, is perfectly cotrect:

J.-3

A402

HISTORY OF ROME.

from our.knowledge of, the ancient phra~eology, such a law must

have been one passed by the curies, on being proposed to them by a.

tribune of the Celeres 1164 : Festus however did not ui1derstand it in

this way, since he foists in the censors : and as he surely cannot

have looked upon it as a decree of the plebs, he must have conceived.

that it was a law brought forward by a military tribune. We do

not indeed read any where of such a tribune as Ovinius; the name

however may have been miswcitten. Gradual as w·as the march of

change in the constitutions of antiquity, this innovation must have

preceded ~he reception of the conscripti: that is, it must either have

been enacted by a law of the curies under the kings ; or on the other

hand it is false that plebeians were admitted into the senate so early

as under the first consuls.

Supposing however that they were so, the practice cannot have

continued during those years wpen the patricians took back all they

had conceded as having been extorted from them. Even after the

Licinian law the plebeians still seem for a long time to be the smaller

number in the senate : yet they were already sitting there before

they attained to the quiet enjoyment of the right to be chosen mili­

tary tribunes 65 • Accordingly, the senate having thus become a

mixed assembly, a new system mµst have been adopted in filling

up the interregal office, which was and continued to be confined to

the patricians. The distinction between the patrician tribes could

no longer be attended to on such occasions ; there were no. longer

ten decuries of the greater hou~es: therefor13 either the patrician

s.enators formed a committee to appoint the interrexes, or they were

.

chosen by the curies6 6 ,

Among the republican institutions the origin of which wa~ car­

ried back to the first consulship, is the assignment of farms to the

plebeians in lots containing seven jugers of arable land: this mea­

sure is said to have been taken on the banishment of the kings 67,

Nothing but the royal demesnes can have been large enough for

out of the whole order (without regard to any particular gens); not, out of all

the orders. Indeed th.ere were but two of them.

1164 Exactis regibus Zege tribunicia; thiLt is, by .the lex curiata of Brutus.

Pomponius I. 2. D. de origine juris.

,

65 Livy, v.12, says of P. Licinius Calvus, whom he calls the first ple-.

beian military tribune, vir nullis ante honoribus usus, vetus tamen senator.

· · 66 See above p. 260. Livy IV. 7. 43. VI. 41. xxn. 34. The expressio~,

patricii coibant ad prodendum interregem, ma.)l be interpreted ju e~ther way.

Coire ~ontains a reference to the comitium.

,

.

. - 6~ Pliny xvm. 4. Columella.De .Re RUBt. I. m, 10.HISTORY OF ROME.

403

such a distribution; whereby all who received an allotment were

united against the restoration of the old order of things. The tra­

dition that the field of Mars either formed a part of these demesnes,

or was the property of the Tarquins, would be contradicted by a

Horatian law 1169 conferring honours on the Vestal Tarratia in reward

for her gift of it to the Roman people; if it were not inconc~ivable

that this large p1ain belonged to a single proprietor, and far more

likely that she merely gave a field in the neighbourhood 69 •

' The stories that recorded the various changes in the common­

wealth, went back to this period for the origin of the right of pri­

vate citizens to speak in the great council of the curies: some of

them tracing it up to Brutus, who conferred it on Sp. Lucretius7°;

the Valerian narratives to Publicola. There is the same disagree~

ment between these accounts as to the emancipation of Vindicius,

which however in consistency should be ascribed to Brutus: that

act was the model according to which every day the court sat a

slave might be raised to the full enjoyment of freedom by the vin~

dicta: which formality supplied the fabulous J'indiciua with his

name ; although an Italian, on becoming a slave, lost his gentile

rights with his freedom, and so could no longer bear a gentile name;

such as this would have been, but was called Lucipor or Marcipor.

After the death of Brutus, Publicola granted a general permission

for any one ta be a candidate for the consulship7 1 : this was doing

away with the rule that none should be put to the vote but such as

the senate proposed; and looks like a specious compensation to the

plebeians, giving them a freer choice, instead of the share in the

supreme office which had been withdrawn from them. Moreover

he is called the author of the custom that the consul out of the su­

perior tribe should first have the fasces carried before him ; and

finally of the practice to pronounce funeral orations upon distin·

guished citizens; himself paying that honour to Brutus.

The right understanding of the word populua dissipates the fancy

that Poplicola, the surname of Valerius, was the designation of

demagogue like Pericles, who courted the favour of the multitude.

The assembly before which P. Valerius ordered his lictors to lower

their bundles of rods disarmed of their axes, in acknowledgement

a

1:

1168 Gellius vi.

69 Perhaps the law mentioned only the campus Ti~eTinu1; and sitie

Martius may have been an explanation added by Gellius.

70 Dionysius v. 11.

71 Plutarch Publicol. c. n. U1"tt.'f•'"-' u..... /-llTJtJIU ul """-P"')'rfl\1\llr

-roir (6ou1>.0t-cir•1r.

'404

HISTORY OF ROME.

that all authorit; emanated from it, was.'a concilium populi 1119 , the

great council of the patricians. Besides the consul had no business

to transact with an assembly of plebeians; still less was it a source

of his power: and the words cannot mean that of the centuries;

because this was a comitiatus, not a concilium; and did not meet

in the city, but in the field of Mars, from whence the Velia is not

in sight. ·To the curies then did he propose that law, by which

whoever should aim at usurping kingly power, or, according to other

reports, should exercise authority without being invested with it by

the people, was together with his substance devoted to the gods' 8 •

This was a declaration of outlawry, and gave the consul the right of

putting the criminal to death without being amenable·for doing so,

and every individual that of killing him. The ceremony of devoting

a guilty head was without doubt a relic from the times of human

sacrifices; for criminals, if possible, were every where s,elected for

the victims. In this manner patrons or. clien,.ts who violated their

reciprocal duties, and a husband who sold his wife after she had

placed herself in the relation of his child, were. devoted to Dis; he

who pu(a magistrate of the commonalty in peril, to Jupiter; he

who thievishly cut, or fed his. cattle on, a field of corn, to Ceres 74 •

The purpose of this law was to insure tyrannicide ; its effect, to

give impunity to murder. A better foundation for Publicola's fame

is afforded by another, whi~h is said to have been the first enacted

by the, centuries.7 5 • The curies in granting the imperium conferred

the power of punishing disobedience to the supreme authority,

capitally, corporally, by imprisonment, and by mulcts; even in the

meJllbers of their own body: but these had the right of appealing

r.

1172 Vocato ad concilium populo, submissis fascibus in concionem escen­

dit :-confessionem factam,populi quam consulis majestatem vimque majorem

esse. Livy II. 7. Our historian indeed was somewhat in the dark about the

meaning of the old constitutional terms, and therefore mixes up the multitudo

with his narrative: for it certainly never entered his thoughts, that this ex·

pression might be correctly applied to the patricians of the early ages. To

the annalist from whom he copied 'the' decisive words, the matter must have

been perfectly clear . .' See above note 987.

73 De aacrando cum bonis capite ejus qui regni occupandi consilia in­

isset. Livy II. 8. Herc 'the genuine formulary is discernible. Dionysius

gives an explanatory paraphrase of it: v. 19. Plutarch divides it into two

laws: Publicol. c. 11, 12.

·

'

74 Dionysius 11. 10.-Plutarch Romul. c. 22. See above p. 176, note

635.-Livy m. 55.-Pliny H. N. xv111. 3.

75 Cicero de Re p. rr. 31. Only it must not be forgotten that the cu­

'

·

ries at all events had to give their assent.HISTORY OF ROME.

405

from the sentence to their great council 11 7 8 • This same right of ap­

pealing to the. commona~ty, of trial by their peers, was given by the

Valerian law to the plebeians77. I say, to the. commonalty: for the

appeal lay to the plebeian tribes7 8., not to the centuries : hence the

maintenance of this right was placed immediately under the guar­

dianship of the officers who presided over the tribes.

This right of appeal did not extend beyond a mile from the

city7 9 : here began the unlimited imperium• 0 , to which the patri­

cians were no less subject than every Quirite: on the strength of

this L. Papirius had the right of exacting the blood of Q. Fabius*.

The Valerian law was not enforced by any thing more than a

declaration that whoever violated it acted wrongly: and Livy is

touched by this, as a proof of the virtue of the olden times ; yet

there is nv point on which they are less deserving of such admira­

ti<;>n. If no determinate punishment was affixed, it ·was because it

is' indispensable th~t the right of self-preservation residing _in the

supreme power should be undisputed, and not nullified by any un­

alterable limitatioJ:ls. Thus the transgressor might be condemned

by the people to a heavy punishment proportionate to his guilt;

but at the same time the extreme of violence done· to the letter of

the law might be pron'ounced innocent: only it was requisite that

to arraign the criminal there should be certain inviolable represent­

atives of the commonalty; who m1ght also interpose and give pro­

tection in the moment of need •.

These laws :i,re said to have been passed in the first year after

the banishment of the Tarquins : and in the same year the earliest

treaty between Rome and Carthage was concluded; which Poly·

117G It is of the patricians that we must understand, pro'!locationem etiam

a 9·egiJJus fuisse. Cicero de Re p. m 31. See above p. 262, note 862.

77 Livy m. 55. Cum plebem, hinc provocatione, hinc tribunicio auxilio,

satis firmassent (the consuls, L. Valerius and M. Horatius). 56. Fundata

plebis libertate. x. 9. M. Valerius consul de provocatione le gem tulit. Ter­

tio tum lata est, sempor a familia eadem.-plus paucorum opes quam libertas

plebis poterant.

78 When Volero Publilius was opposing an act of outrageous injustice,

the consuls ordered the lictors to seize him, to strip him, and to strike : but he

-ro6, -r1 J'nµ..i.px_ou, inn«>-,ho ""' 11'" tl.J'11<1i 1<pitT1P, &,,.l 7t»v J'np.o-rl1<DIV .;,,.9_

;t11v i.'iou. Dionysius 1x. 39.,

79 Neque enim provocationem esse longius ab urbe mille passuum.

Livy III. 20..

,

.

·

·'

80 . Here accordingly began the judicia quo; imperio contincntur, the ap­

pointment of which courts was conferred by the imperittm.. Gaius IV. 105.

* Livy vm. 32.406

HISTORY OF ROME.

bius translated from the original brazen tables then existing in the

Capitol in the archive of the rediles, the language being so obsolete

that in some parts even the more learned among the Romans could

only guess at the meaning 1181 • Livy perhaps made no inquiries at

all for what was authentic and historical in these ancient times:

perhaps Macer-among the annalists out of whose labours Livy

constructed his work, the one who seems to have spent the· great·

est care upon original documents-had never read the books of

Polybius ; and it is not unlikely that the tables had perished in the

flames of the Capitol, before Macer began his researches; thus

much may be considered as certain, that Livy, whose practice

throughout was only to collect the materials of his work during its

progress, did not make use of Polybius, whose value was by no

means generally recognized in those days 89 , till he reached the

Punic wars. When he wrote his second book, he probably had

never heard of this treaty. Though had it been otherwise, he tad

would not have been beyond the reach of a motive, which was

strong enough to induce many a Roman to suppress his knowledge

of that document: inasmuch as, being utterly irreconcilable with

that poetical tale which had been transformed into a history, it

divulged the secret of the early greatness of Rome and of her fall

after the .banishment of the Tarquins; a secret which her children'

in later times were foolishly anxious to kellp concealed, as if it

were an indelible blot on the honour of their ancestors.

At the time when the republic concluded this treaty, she still

possessed the whole inheritance of the monarchy. Ardea, Antium,

Aricia 88, Circeii,' and Terracina, are enumerated as i::ubject cities,

and Rome stipulates for them as well as for herself. The whole

coast is here called Latin, the country L_atium: and its range is even

more extensive than from Ostia to Terracina: perhaps it stretched

as far as Cuma, for Camp ania did not yet exist; perhaps down to

the borders of ltalia 84• Even in these regions which were still free,

0

1181 Ill. 22, 26.

82 This gives us a better explanation ef Livy 1 11 words, ltaudquaquam

spernendus a,udM" (xxx. 45), than to take them as a rhetorical figure •.. Cicero

judged differently from the fine writers of the Augustan age.

83 The manuscripts have 'Apwriv"''• which is just as likely to be a mis­

take for' Ap111.~'°''• as for A«upln""''· · Arician merchant ships, in considera­

ble numbers, are mentioned by Dionysius vu. 6. Laurentum was a small

place: rather would Laviniuni have been named: from the order followed in

the list either of them would have come before Ardea.

84 Si>e p. 68.HISTORY OF ROME.

407

the Carthaginians bind themselves neither to make conquests nor

to build forts. The Romans and their confederates are inhibited

from sailing into any of the harbours to the south of the l3eautiful

or Hermrean Cape, which forms the eastern boundary of the Gulf

.of Carthage: and this no doubt was not merely with the view, as

Polybius conceives, of excluding them from .the rich country on

the lesser Syrtis. It was indeed more lucrative to make Carthage

the staple. for the produce of those regions, and thus secure the

commercial profit on its exchange: but it was of still greater import­

ance by this strict exclusion to cut off the possibility of any ven­

turous Tyrrhenian mariners attempting to open an- immediate trade

with Egypt. Thi~ restriction must have been imposed in the same

way upon the Etruscans, whose commercial treaties with Carthage

were mentioned. above on the authority of Aristotle*: and so must

the following regulations. In Sicily-where in those times Car­

thage was not yet mistress of any province, but where on the north­

ern coast of the Sicanians Motye, Soloeis, and Panormus, ac­

knowledged her protecting authority; free Phenician towns, like,

Utica, Leptis, and Gades, and the remains of a multitude 'o( settle­

ments, which, before the Greeks entered th'e island, the Tyrians

ha4 possessed on every harbour and islet along the coast all around

it 1185 ;-the Carthaginians secured the same privileges to the Roman

merchants as to their own. At Carthage itself, on the Libyan

coast to the west of the Hermrean Cape, and in Sardinia, the Ro­

mans might land and traffick: but the sale of their cargoes was to

be by public auction; and in that case the state was pledged to the

foreign merchant for his payment. This obligation was without

doubt reciprocal·, and was a twofold advantage to. the stranger. For

without it he would either have been in the hands of a few mono­

polizing houses ; or have run the risk, if he sold his goods for a

higher price to an fosecure purchaser, of losing them entirely:

besides public auction insured him against the exactions of the cus­

tom-house. For all duties were levied according to percentages of

the value, and not by any fixed table : their produce moreover was

farmed out, and so there was still more danger of an exorbitant

valuation. ·

Down to the latest times all Roman public documents were at­

tested by the mention of the consuls under whom they were drawn

up: in a treaty more especially such a statement cannot have been

omitted.. Thu's it might be read in the treaty with. the Latins,. that.

•

Note 402, p. 97.

1185 Thucydides v1. 2.408

HISTORY OF ROME.

it was concluded by Sp. Cassius 1186 : and as Polybius had no par­

ticular reason for introducing the names of the consuls of his own

accord, it certainly cannot be questioned that the tables contained

those of Brutus and Horatius as colleagues. This however over­

throws the whole story, that after the death of Brutus P. Valerius

remained sole consul, and at that time enacted those laws: as well

as the other, that Sp. Lucretius was the successor of Brutus. Pro­

bably there were Fasti in which the four men were designated as

the first rulers of the republic ; and thus the name of Lucretius may

have got into the list of consuls. · Or this account might be invented

in the following way: there were two statements in different Fasti

as to the consuls of the year 247: the one, which Dionysius adopts,

makes them Valerius and) Horatius; the other, Valerius and Sp.

Lucretius ; and this was followed by Livy 6 7 : both however allowed

themselves to be misled by ;n annalist, who had devised a way of

reconciling the diife;ence. What, thought he, if Lucretius was

appointed after the death cif Brutus! surely Lucretia's father had a

claim before all others to this honour. But he must have been very

old ; and if he died while still in office, Horatius might then suc­

ceed him 88. So that here again Dionysius is consistent after his

own way; having a sec'ond consulship of Horatius in 247, in which

he places the dedication of the. Capitol: Livy heedlessly adopted

the factitious statement, and yet has Lucretius as consul in the

third year of. the republic.

. .

There is another difference between the Fasti of the two histo­

rians for the year 248, where Dionysius names Sp. Larcius and T.

Herminius,- of whose ·consulship l.ivy says nothing. · Both of them

were celebrated in the heroic lays, as the companions of l\'.I. Cocles

on the bridge : hence the .annalists bring them into the action in the

war with Porsenna, for the sake of peopling the void of the old

narratives with names. And since Dionysius himself says~ nothing

1186 Livy 11. 33.

,

.

87 The editions read P. Lucretius, (u. 15.).: but the Florentine manu­

script has the double name .Spurius Publius, which has also past into other

manuscripts belonging to the same family: Spurius is more commonly deno­

ted by S. P. than by SP. To explain this, Spurius was written over it; and

was afterward referred to the S alone.

. . ,

88 Apud quosdam veteres auctores non invenio Lucretium, consulem,

says Livy himselfu. 8. Servius, on lEn. VI. 819, says that, after the i.:xpulsion

ofTarquinius, duo creati sunt consules, Brutus et Tricipitinus, pater Lucretire,

qui et Tarquinius· dicebatur: ob quod solum est urbe depulsus: et in ejus

locum subrogatus est Valerius Publicola; quo mortuo item alter est factus:

et alter similiter.

'HISTORY OF ROME.

409

was recorded of their consulship 1189, Livy assuredly here again gives

us the old account with the. least adulteration. In truth this pair is

stuck in to fill up the gap of a year, as are several others: perhaps

also to break the series of the Valerian consulships. If they are

erased, then during the first five years of the Fasti one of the con·

suls is always a Valerius; once Marcus, the other times Publicola.

That there was some other cause for this than personal admiration~

may be inferred from the extraordinary honours which that house

inherited f1:om these primitive times. Every one of them has a story

connected with it: in this manner they stood in the books of the

ceremonial law: I will confine myself to the facts.

The Valerii had a house at the bottom of the Velia, the only one

in Rome of which the doors opened back into the street; this privi­

1ege having been accorded to them ever since the. time when Publi­

cola, or Marc.us surnamed l\laximus, received a grant of ground

there to build on 9 ''. They enjoyed the 7rpot!pia, a Greek honour; of

which there was no other example among the Romans: in the cir­

cus, the Roman theatre, a conspicuous place belonged to them,

where a curule throne was erected. 91 • They were allowed to bury

their dead within the walls 9 ~: and .when they too had exchanged

the older custom of interment for that of burning the corpse, although

they did not light the funeral pile on their burial ground, the bier

. was set down there, as a symbolical way of preserving the ri·ght 98 •

These distinctions, if meant as rewards for services, would also

have been bestowed on others who performed much greater actions:

but neith"er Camillus nor the Decii bequeathed any such honours to

their posterity. They cease however to surprise us, if there be

good ground for the conjecture, that, among the gradual changes

of the constitution 9\ the Valerian house for a time possessed the right

that one of its m,embers should exercise the kingly power for the

Tities. As soon as we take this point of view, the measures for

tern pering the consular power begin to look as if they had a his tor~

ical foundation : nay even the story that Valerius pulled down his

house at the top of the Velia and received a spot at the foot of it,

..

1189 v. 36.

90 Dionysius v. 39. Plutarch Publicol. c. 20. Compare the Declama­

tion de Harusp. Respons. 8. [16].

91 Livy n. 31. Locus in circo ipsi posterisque ad spectaculum datus:

11ella in eo loco curulis posita.

·

92 Cicero de Legib. n. 23.

93 Plutarch Publicol. c. 23.

94 From the ~"""Mitt. through atuvrt.v'l'a[, to an aristocracy.

I.-3 B.410

HISTORY OF ROME.

becomes then intelligible enough, if that act be regarded as a pledge

of his intention to exercise his royal authority a3 beseemed a citi­

zentt9s,

That the Tities are the tribe they would have represented, fol­

lows from the acknowledged Sabine descent of their house. Their.

eponym, Volesus, is mentioned as a Sabine, a companion of Ta­

tius : and the V olesus who is made the father of Publicola and Max­

im us, nay also of a l\lanius and Lucius 96 , is no other tha1' this very

person; with whom the great men of the ancie!lt tradition were

connected, in. order that their father's name might not be wanting

in the Fasti. Dion Cassius alone with his usual circumspection

merely says that Marcus Valerius belonged to the same gens as

Publicola 97 • But how could the author of .the Capitoline Fasti be

satisfied, though his readers overlooked his inconsistencies, when

following the annals in vogue he made the sons of this fabulous pro­

genitor fill curule offices from 245 to 260, and then placed his

grandson as military tribune under the year 338 ?

The fallacious assumption of a historical. semblance spreads yet

further. The poem made Marcus Valerius Maximus fall at the

lake Regillus: and the whole tale of that battle being scrupulously

retained as historical, ·a Manius was invented, and that too in late

times, to whom whatever was recorded of Marcus,-the only one

known in the days of Cicero- and Livy 98 1 -in the.Annals for the

years after the battle might be transferred ; even his surname of

Maximus. The forger, supposing himself bound to re.concile the

several stories, which one and all were to be received without a

question, may have been perfectly honest, and have satisfied his

conscience about the man whom he had made. How often have

Manius and Marcus been. confournled 99 ? But honest as he may

have been, this itself is a fresh reason for rejoicing at our freedom

from his prejudices, and for not allowing ourselves to be clogged·

by his perversity and narrowmindedness.

I

1195 Dionysius 11. 46. Plutarch Numa c. 5. Publicol. c. 1. Another

story, how a Valesius settled at Rome, is found in Valerius Maximus n. 4. 5,

and Zosimus n. 2. 3; he too is a Sabine, and likewise the progenitor of the

Valerian house; for which reason Publicola sacrifices at his altar at Terentum.

96 See the pedigree in Drakenborch's note on Livy, m. 25. ,

97 'E,. 'T;;, 'Tov Ilo?r/\l&O.~tt o-u-r-rmitt' ')'IVOf<11"· Zonaras vu. 14. A

page before this the slovenly Byzantine, in transcribing' from Plutarch's

Publicola, calls Marcus his brother.

98 That is to say, in the manuscripts.

99 The abbreviation for Maniua in the square character is the Etruscan

M turned over to the right.HISTORY OF ROME.

411

How long did the V alerii ·continue to hold the consulship for

their tribe? ·when did the privilege come to an end ? these are ques­

tions on which the Fasti can give us no information. The untena­

ble character of the early :Roman history does not spring from the

nature of the constitution, so that certainty should begin with the

consular government, because there is a register of the consuls for

every year: its contents even on this side of the revolution are

poetry and fiction : the Fasti, which are supposed to substantiate it,

were framed with a view of filling up the ·given space of time.

That the war with Porsenna should be placed by one set in these­

cond, by others in the third year of the commonwealth, is far from

an immaterial difference, with regard to the greatest event of the

period: but it is of much higher impm:tance to observe that this

war probably belongs to a Considerably later time, and that in

the whole· account of it there is nothing able to stand the.test of

the slightest criticism, as histodcal truth.

. !'

. , ,tTHE WAR WITH PORSENNA.

THE narn1tivet which since the loss of the ancient Annals has

chancer! to acquire the character of a traditional history, relates that,

after the b:ittle by the forest of Arsia, the Tarquins, to obtain more

powerful succour, repaired to the court of Lar Porsenna 1900 , king of

Clusium; and that he, when his intercession had been rejected,·

led his army against Rome in their behalf. But this cannot possi­

bly have gained universal currency. Cicero, though he was very

well acquainted with the celebrated legend of Porsenna and Scre­

volat, says, neither the Veientines nor the Latins were able to re­

place Tarquinius on the Roman throne 9 • So that he tiither held

the Veientine war in which Brutus falls, to be the same' with Por·

senna's: or he discriminated between the latter, as a war of con·

quest, and the attempts of the neighbouring states to place the

government of Rome in the hands of the man who· had thrown

himself on their protection, and who was to pay them dear for it.

And such no doubt was the older and genuine representation.

In this narrative then the Etruscans under Porsenna march singly

against Rome: and so the story runs in Livy : it is a palpable for­

gery in Dionpius to make Octavius Mamilius and the Latins take

part with him: the son-in-law of Tarquinius forsooth could not

possibly remain inactive. In the poetical aecount the Etruscan

army appears at once and with an overwhelmi11g force before the

Jariiculum ; and the Romar.s in the fort upon it are overpowered

and fly to the river. As the enemy was purs~ing them, he was

met by Horatius Cocles, to whom the duty of guarding the b~idge

had been entrusted, and by his comrades, Sp. Larcius and T. Her­

1200 The name is spelled both Porsena and Porsenna: it is a decided

blunder however in Martial.to shorten the penultimate.

1 Pro Seat. 21. (48). Paradox. 1. 2.

2 Tusc. Qumst: 111. 12. (ZT). Tarquinius cum restitui in regnum nu

Yeientium nee LatiMrUm. armis potuisset.HISTORY OF ROME. ,

413

mmmi;. Three men saved Rome, as three had won for her the

dominion over Alba; and in this case no doubt there was one from

each tribe 1 ~ 03 • While they kept off the assailing host, the crowd

behind them by their ordel' fore down the bridge : immovably they

bore up against the thousands of the enemy. 1\1. Horatius bade his

companions also go back, and withstood the shock of the foe alone,

like Ajax, until the crash of the falling timbers and the shout of the

workmen announced that the work was accomplished. Then he

prayed to father Tiberinus, that he would receive him and his arms

into his sacred stream, and would save him; and he plunged into

the waters, and swam across to the city, amid all the arrows of the

enemy". As a mark of gratitude every inhabitant, when the famine

was raging, brought him all the provisions he could stiu't himself

of: afterward the republie raised a statue to him, and gave him as

much land as he could plough round in a day.

The statue stood in the Comitium 5 : once on a time it was

struck by lightning, and by the advice of perfidious aruspexes was

removed to another spot where the sun never shone upon it. Their

fraud however was detected: the statue was placed on the Vulcanal

above the Comitium, and the Etruscans were put to death: this

brought good fortune to the republic. In those days the boys sang

in the streets :

1

•

'Who ill aredeth shall his own areding rue:

and the saying continued from that time forth in the mouth of the

·

people 8 •

That the meaning of the expression circumarare in the grant to

Cocles should be,' that he was to have as much land as was inclosed

1203 The Horatii were one of the minor houses: iic, .,.,.; ,... .,.~P'"'· Dio­

nysius v. 23. The tradition too was uncertain whether. they or \he Curiatii

fought for Alba: Livy I. 24 : a~ove p. 266. Hence it was deemed an act of

presumption toward his colleague of the higher tribe, for the consul Horatius

to dedicate the Capi,tol.

,

4 One i:annot but be. annoyed at the stupidity which thought Horatius

had purchased his glory too cheaply if he came off without a wound, and BG

made a javelin pierce him through the thigh and Jame him for life. Diony·

siua I. 24. Livy keeps clear of such wretched absurdities. It is another

thing, when Polybius, whether after different accounts, or to get rid of every

thing fabulous on so very momentous an occasion, writes that Cocles perished

in the tiver. VI. 53.

5 What Livy calls the Comitium, Dionysius calls av .,.,, .. p~-rlll'-rtf 'l''ii'

a.,..o,;, .,.4,,,.,, which should be carefully noticed with a vie'\}' tC> other topo­

gra.phical statements.

6 Gellius IV. 5. Malum consilium consultori peseimum est.414

. HISTORY. OF ROME.

. ,

within a furrow which at sunset again reached the point it had

started from at sunrise-as Sultan Mohammed endows the hero of

the Turkish ballads whh as much ·of the plain of Macedonia as he

can ride round in day-would be inconceivable, if we had any

right to look here for historical tradition. For such a line would

comprehend pretty· nearly a square league: and more than' two

hundred years after, when Italy had been subdued, but fifty jugers

were bestowed on the conqueror of Pyrrhus; which he himself

reproved as an act of extravagant prodigality*. The republic had

neither means nor will to make such large grants: but the poet

might overlook both these objections. The narrow limits within

which the ~ld Roman manners and laws aimed to confine landed

property, salutary as· they were to the state, did not on that account

act the more as a check on the desires of individuals : wealth has

in all ages been deemed the pleasantest meed of virtue : and as the

poets in Epirus and on Olympus sing of the golden trappi~gs on

the horses of the klepts, and of the golden raiment the damsels;

so the vales likewise fabled of such splendid rewards for Cocles

and Screvola, as Ennius would never have dreamed of as attainable

by Scipio Africanus. ·

Just as little did they trouble themselves about the difficulty how

Rome could be starved by an enemy who was only encamped on

the Janiculum, even supposing him to have commanded the river.

To account for this, the annalists devised certain ptedatory expe­

ditions on the left bank; and then, to supply the dearth of action'

and do honour to their ancestors, they further invented a stratagem

of the consuls, by·~hich the Etruscans are drawn into a snare and,

suffer considerable loss~ · '

;

For the poem it was enough that R~me was reduced to desperate

straits ·by famine. Hereupon; a young . man, Caius, undertook,

with the approbation of the senate, to kill the invading king. He

was acquainted· with the Tuscan language, and making his way up

to the prretorium, slew one of the king's attendants, instead of Por­

senna. · Being overpowered and disarmed, in scorn of the rack

which awaited him he thrust his right hand into the flame of ·the

fire on the altar: the king bade him depart in peace : and Screvola','

as from that day forth he was called, because be now had only hi'~,

a

of

! ., · i i ! ' '

* Pliny xvm. 4. Valerius Maximus

3. 5. Columella 1. 3. Curius ·

Dentatus, prospero ductu parta victoria, ob eximiam 1'irtutem deferente po·

pulo prmmii nomine quinquaginta soli jugera, supra consularem triumphalem"

que fortunam putavit ease: repudiatoque publico· munere, plebeia. mensura.

(septenum jugerum) contentus est.

,,,·; .... ' ;,

IV.HISTORY OF ROME.

415

left hand,' warned him as a token of gratitude, if he prized his life,

to make peace; for three hundred1• 0 7 young patricians had conspired

to rid their c~untry of him; and he himself had only been chosen

'

•

by lot to be the first.

He was rewarded by the senate no less splendidly than Cocles 8 :

but another tradition modestly named the Prata Mucia in the Tras­

tevere, a field, it would seem, of a few jugers, as the grant bestowed

upon him. Now in reply to the question how he came not to be

remunerated by consulships, I will myself suggest the solution, that

at Rome as elsewhere the ceremonial law required a priest to be

without blemish in any of his limbs; and, because the higher ma­

gistrates continued to exercise certain priestly functions, the same

was exacted for them 9• And if Screvola's name was C. Mucius, he

must have been a plebeian; like the family of that name which ap·

pears in the Fasti; though not until three hundred years after, and

whose plebeian character is most decided; like a P. Mucius with­

out a surname,, who w:as tribune as early as in the fourth century:

so that the consulate would have lain out of his reach, even if Por­

senna had fallen by his hand. But the claim to him set by the

Mucii is .doubtless among the most glaring instances of the family

vanity censured by Cicero and Livy. The peculiar Roman name

for persons, or, as it was afterward termed, the prrenornen, was of

old no less predominant in general use th;n christian .names are

nowadays in ·Italy: eve11 in Polybius we still find Publius and

Titus usually put for Scipio and Flamininus 10 : and as the practice

from that time forward decreases, it must have been the more pre­

valent the further we go back. Thus the hero of the old lays

would probably be lIJerely called Caius: that he was originally re­

garded as a. patrician, as Dionysius terms him-which indeed, if he

were a Mucius, could only be excusable from the ignorance of a

.foreigner,-is the more probable. on account of the three hundr~d

1207 Here again we have this number, which is for ever recurring as far

as the old poems extend.

8 · Dionysius v. 35.

•

9 M. Sergius, who was excluded from offering up sacrifices by his col­

leagues, on the ground of his being a cripple (Pliny H. N. vn. 29) 1 had indeed

been prmtor ,: but the inflicting such a mortification on that hero infers that.

three centuries earlier he would not have been eligible. Dionysius too ac­

counts for Cocles not.being rewarded with the consulship by his being crip­

,

:

pled: l1oi .,.,;, ,.,.,;f"'D"" .,lie ,S:i'.D"t"'n v. 25.

10 Gaudent prmnomine molles Auriculre: simple times love to speak

familiarly. Under the emperors this forename wassupplanted by the eurna.me,

first neglected, then entirely forgotten.

I416

HISTORY OF ROME.

young men of whom he speaks as his associates in the enterprise,

the flower of the Roman youth; that is to say, one from every

house: he himself is called noble by Livy. · The surname of the

Mucii according to Varro had a totally different sense, and signified

a~ amulet 1 m: it was not peculiar to them;· Screva too was a surname

in several families: but as s_c::evus means left, the hero of the story

might also be called Screvula, long before the Mucii were of any

note.

As the price of peace the conqueror enjoined that the Veientines

should have their seven pagi restored to them•~: and the fort· on

the Janicuhun was only evacuated on the delivery of hostages.

Thus far did the foelings of a more sensitive age, wounded by the

disgrace of their ancestors, soften down the cruel hardness of the

truth. 'facitus alone pronounces the. terrible ·word undisguisedly :

the city was forced to surrender to the conqueror 13 : that is to say,

submitted to him. as her lord ; in such a way that the republic n:ade

over the sovereignty to him, as did every individual a discretionary

power over his property, freedom and life, without any restriction.

A vanquished state after this ~tood in a relation to a ruling one, like

that of an individual who had forfeited his independence by an

adoption according to the process o.f arrogation, or by having pledged

his person for debi 14• He who ceased to be his own master, only

retained what he had hitherto po'ssessed as property, under the form

of a peculium: the case was the same with the state that had given

up its res publica to a lord, so that he might take every thing from

it at will; and not only the public property, but that of every indi·

vidual. This disability did not terminate until the capacity of per·

sonal rights had been re-established by a process answering to that

of emancipation. It was a partial exercise of thi's plenary power,

1211 De L. L. v1. 5. p. 99. Quod puerulis re~ turpicula. in collo suspen­

ditur,-screvo!a appel!a.ta.: thus the Florentine MS.

· 12, De agro Veientibus restituendo impetratum, says Livy; one· cannot

read such arrogant language without indignation.

13 Sedem Jovis Opt. Max. quam non Porsenna deditaurbe, neque Galli

capt.a, teroerare potuissent. Hist. m. 72. Taken strictly, the meaning of

T~itus would be, that Porsenna had been unable to violate it, and conse­

quently that he was not roaster of the Capitol: it is likely however that potu­

is3ent refers only to the Gauls.

14 In the forroulary for surrendering a city in Livy 1. 38, the king asks

the envoys: Estne populus Collatinus in sua potestate ?-Est.-Deditisne vos,

populumque Collatinum, urbem., agros, aquam, terminos, delubra, utensilia,

divina humanaque omnia, in meam populique Romani ditionem ?-Dedimus.

-At ego recipio.HISTORY OF ROME.

417

when a town thus reduced to dependence was amerced of a certain

portion of its territory; and this was very frequently a third: after·

ward, unless the remainder was expressly given back free, a tax on

the produce of all the cultivated land was to be paid; which the

Romans usually assessed at a tenth. I have before called the reader's

attention to the fact that a third of the plebeian districts which

Rome possessed under Servius Tullius, was lost; and I observed

that this loss must have been incurred in the war which we call

the war of Porsenna* ~ the mention of the i;even pagi in the Annals

does not prove that nothing more was taken away. But a tradition

had also been preserved that the Romans at one time paid a tenth

to the Etruscans 1015 : and this too can only be referred to the present

period: it was raised on the districts left to them, and on the pub­

lic domain.

Until the town which had surrendered its independence to another,

recovered it, no treaty with it could have place; just as an indi·

vidual could not enter ir.to any contract with. those who were sub­

ject to his paternal authority, or with his slaves and bondmen.

Pliny therefore either uses a very inappropriate expression : or the

laws imposed by Porsenna on the Romans belong to the time when

at least the form of independence, though defenceless indeed and

pull, was given back to them. This document, which from his

manner of citing it would seem to have been still in existence, shows

how low they had fallen. They were expressly prohibited from

employing iron for any other purpose than agriculturc 16 : a people

on whom a command of this kind was laid, must have been com­

pelled beforehand to deliver up all their arms 17 •

* Above p. 319, n. 976.

1215 From which Hercules delivered them; that is to say, their own

prowess. Plutarch Qurest. Rom. xvm. p. 267. c.

16 Pliny H. N. xxx1v. 39. Infoedere quod expulsis regibus populo Ro­

mano dedit Porsenna, nominatim comprelwnsum invenimus, ne ferro nisi in agri

culturam uterentur. This and the equally important passage ofTacitus (note

1213) were first noticed by Beaufort: and they are perfectly sufficient for his

purpose, which was merely .negative. The critical examination of this war is

the most successful part of that remarkable little work.

17 Arma adem.ta, obsidcsque irnperati, would be the way of telling the

11tory, ifthe historian were speaking of a town which had submitted in the

same manner to the Romans. Dionysius docs not fall far short of this con·

fession in a harangue put into the mouth of M. Valerius: J'uf'6rT9' ul ct')'•ptt.r,

x.'11 0?T>..-:i, x.d.l rrriA'J..&L Ocrttv £1£ovTo T~Pfn1ol 'lrt1.pd.rrx,e"iv i7rl 'T~ •~ttrd.i\Uo-u 'l'oU

,,.H,l~ou. v. 65. This is not indeed 1r"-ptt.l1J'on1~ 'T<t ;;,,.Att. and sounds rather

as if all was done in compliance with a milita.ry requisition : but that is the

very point where the disguise lies.

J.-3 c418

HISTORY OF ROME.

A confession that Rome did homage to Porsenna as its sovereign

lord, is involved in the story that the senate !jent him an ivory

throne and the other badges of royalty 121 s : for in this very manner

are the Etruscan cities represented to have acknowledged L. Tar­

quinius Priscus as their prince.

What Livy says concerning the evacuating the citadel on the

Janiculum, seems connected with the restoration of independence

to the city after it had been disarmed. The twenty patrician hos­

tages, boys and damsels, refer, as is clear from their number, to· the

curies of the first two tribes ; whose precedence extended, as was

reasonable, to whatever sacrifices were to be made. 'Vith regard

to these hostages there is again a twofold story : the more celebrated

one, that Clcelia effected her escape out of Etruria at the head of

the maidens, and swam across the Tiber ; that she was sent back,

was restored to liberty by Porsenna, and allowed to deliver the

boys out of their captivity; and that she was rewarded by him

with a horse, trappings, and arms 19, and by the republic with a

statue in the Via Sacra of a damsel on horseback :-the more ob­

scure one, that Tarquinius fell upon the hostages as they were con­

ducted into the Etruscan camp; and, with the exception of Valeria

who fled back to the city, massacred them all 20 •

Porsenna meanwhile had returned to Clusium: he had sent hi§

son Aruns with a part of his army against Aricia, in those days the

principal city of Latium 2 1. The Aricines received succour both

from other cities and from Cuma : and the Cumans, led by the in­

sulted hero of the Tyrrhenian war, decided the defeat of the Etrus­

cans, whose general fell. The fugitives met with hospitable enter­

tainment at Rome, and their wounds were taken care of: many of

them were loath to leave the city again, and built the Vicus Tuscus:

Porsenna, not to be outdone in magnanimity, gave back the· hos­

tages and the seven pagi2 2.

1218 Dionysius v. 35. See above p. 274.

19 Dionysius v. 34. and the fragment from the fourth book of Dion

Cassius in Bekker's Anecd. 1. p. 133. 8. Kctl .. ~ i'' 11.op~ xctl 0"1'/l.ct-1<<tl

'/,,,.,,,.01 iloopilo-ct'l"o. These words- evidently refer to the king : in Livy these

presents also are bestowed on Clcelia by the Romans.

20 Pliny xxxxv. 13. The two stories are clumsily mixed up together by

Dionysius v. 33, and by Plutarch Publicol. c. 19.

·

21 For this reason it had the temple of Diana: the opposition to Tar­

quinius made by Turnus Herdonius contains· a reference to the pretensions

and the circumstances of this city: so does the account in Dionysius (v. 61)

of the Aricines exciting Latium to war against Rome.

22 No doubt the traditions were still richer in individual instance• of aHISTORY OF ROME.

The Roman annalists make the Etruscan hero display his libe­

rality at the expense of his dependents or allies; for these pagi had

been restored to V eii : nor, if this had occurred to them, would

they have been slow in devising some act of perfidy or other, by

which the Veientines should have exasperated the noble spirit of

their protector to punish them ; just as a like inducement was

contrived, to make him abandon the Tarquins. But even in the

time of the decemvirs so far were the Romans from having regained

their Etruscan territory, that the Tiber then forll!ed their boundary;

with the insignificant exception of the J aniculum and the Ager Va­

tican us.

Were the Romans incapable of feeling that chains which we

burst by our own might are an ornament? The defeat of the

Etruscans before Aricia is unquestionably historical: the victory of

the Cumans, which led Aristodemus to the sovereignty, was related

in Grecian annals : had not those of the Romans through false shame

concealed their previous humiliation, they might have told with

triumph how their ancestors had courageously seized that moment,

although deprived of arms and perilling the objects of their dearest

affections, to break the yoke of the tyrant. At such a time the

flight of the hostages might do some good, and the heroine who

led them might deserve to be rewarded.

- This insurrection must have placed sundry things that belonged

to the foreign ruler within the city, at the disposal of the emancipated

Romans; and thus no doubt gave rise to the symbolical custom at

auctions of selling the goods of king Porsenna. Livy, who found

it still in existence, felt that it did not sort well with the story about

the friendship that followed the war: only he ought likewise to

have rejected the shallow explanation of it.

·

That Porsenna was a hero in the Etruscan legends, and that

they must have placed him in very remote ages beyond the reach

of history, seems implied in the fabulous account of his monument:

a building totally inconceivable, except as the work of magic, and

which must have vanished like Aladdin's palace*. Possibly the

Roman tradition may without any ground have connected him with

that Etruscan war which cast Rome down from her height: thus

chivalrous intercourse during the war with Porsenna. The following is as·

suredly an ancient one: a truce had been concluded, and it happened that

some games were celebrated just at the same time: hereupon the Tuscan

generals came into the city, won the crown, and received it. Serviu1 on

./En. XI. 134.

* See note 405.420 .

HISTORY OF ROME.

much we. may assert, that of this war down to its end not a single

incident can pass for historical.

It is a peculiarity of the Roman annals, owing to the barren in­

vention of their authors, to repeat the same incidents on different

occasions, .and that too more than once. Thus the story of Por­

senna's war reflects the image of that with Veii in the year 277,

which after the disaster on the Cremera brought Rome to the brink

of destruction. In this again the Veientines made themselves

masters of the Janiculum; and in a more intelligible manner, after

a victory in the field: here again the city was saved by a Horatius;

the consul who arrived with his army at the critical moment by forced

marches from the land of the V olscians : the victors, encamping on

the Janiculum, sent out foraging parties across the river and wasted

the country ; until their depredations were checked by some skir­

mishes, which again took place by the temple of Hope and at the

Colline gate: yet a severe famine arose within the city. At the

same time, though all this has only been transplanted into the war

of Porsenna to fill up the vacant space, the latter is not therefore to

be regarded as a mere shadow and echo of the other, as is the case

with one of the Auruncian wars. It was that Etruscan war by

which Rome, though it lifted itself up again and regained its inde­

p~ndence, lost ten regions; and it must be placed before the yeai

259, when the tribes were raised to the number of one and twenty.

I think however it was at no great distance from that ~eriod.

I hold the returns of the census, incredible as they sound in the

times anterior to the conquests by the Gauls, to be as genuine as

the Romans considered them: and till I have justified this confi­

dence in the proper place*, they will at all events be admitted to

represent a view that was taken of the growth or decline of the Ro­

man state •. Had an annalist invented them, he would have framed

them to fit his stories: if then they are utterly irreconcilable with

the Annals, they must have been handed down from a time consi­

derably earlier, and so are important. Now Dionysius gives the

returns of the years 246;256, and 261, by the numbers 130,000,

150,700, and 110,000: in our annals~the war with Porsenna falls be­

tween the first and second date: between 256 and 261 there is

neither a pestilence nor a loss of territory; but on the contrary the

victory over the Latins. Nothing can be more incongruous : if

however we do not let ourselves be dazzled by the Annals holding

up dates to our view, we may still make an attempt to explain

" See Vol. n, note 141 1 and the following pages,HISTORY OF ROME.

421

this. I will suggest it at least as a hypothesis, that the former

increase was owing to the extension of the isopolite franchise:

the decrease of 40,700 on the other hand may have arisen mainly

from the separation of tribes enjoying isopolity, but also no doubt

from the loss of the regions wrested from Rome. It is true, all

the landholders in those regions assuredly <lid not cleave to the soil;

and even if they had, their number would have been far from

amounting to so many thousands. Still that of the Romans was

very much diminished by the loss; and our finding in those years

only names without any events in Livy warrants the conjecture

that there were great misfortunes to be concealed. The servitude

of Latium under Mezentius is nothing but the recollection of this

age thrown back into an earlier one: an<l perhaps Virgil's antiqua­

rian learning may have actually discovered traditions representing

the same Etruscan, whose yoke I,atium afterward cast off again,

as the taker of Agylla*: which in the time of Cyrus, when it sent

to consult the oracle of Delphi, was st~U perhaps a purely Tyrrhe­

nian city.

It is true, if the date of the Etruscan war against Cuma were

historically certain, internal reasons would forbid our placing the

expedition of Aristo<lemus to Aricia so late as the en<l of the 70th

"Olympiad: for it is incredible that the oligarchs, whose motive for

seeking his destruction was their animosity conceived <luring that

war, should have delayed doing so until twenty years after it 1299 •

The feuds in the states of antiquity did not creep on thus smoulder­

ingly. But it was solely from his own calculations that Dionysius

determined this period: for the date of the Cuman war he derived

from Greek writers 24 , that of the Aricine from Romans. To

my mind chronological statements' concerning a war in which

rivers run backward, ate of just as much value as those in the fable

of the Pelopids where the sun does the same: and if any one be­

lieves that the Cuman history of this period rests on surer founda­

tions than the Roman, let him compare the story of Aristodemus

in Dionysius with that in Plutarch 85 ,

* .iEn. vm. 479. ff. See above p. 28.

1223 Dionysius vn. 5.

24 Perhaps by Timreus: but more probably by the chronicles of Naples,

where the fugitives from Cuma were taken in: and th9.t they brought legen­

dary tale~ along with them is no less certain than it is unlikely that they pre­

served any authentic documents. When Herodotus (1. 29) makes a mistake

of ten Olympiads with regard to the legislation of Solon, what credit is due to

a date of this kind? The mention of the Campanians is a sign that the source

was recent.

25 Mulier. Virtut. xxv1. p. 261. According to this version AriRtodemus

brings aid to the Romans.THE PERIOD DOWN TO THE DEATH . OF

TARQUINIUS.

WHEN we reach the borders of mythical story, which without a

miracle could not be immediately followed by regular annals, a

division of time by epochs is a necessary shift, which ought not

therefore to subject me to the charge of inconsistency. The opinion

we are to form on the pretended histories of the period just marked

out, is evident from comparing the two historians. Livy under 251

and 252 narrates a war against Pometia and the Auruncians, and

repeats the same afterward, under the year 259, as a war against

the Volscians 1220 : Dionysius was too careful to commit an oversight

like this, and relates it only in the latter year. On the other hand·

Livy, who on this point is the more inconsiderate of the two,

displays much greater judgment '"'ith regard to the Sabine wars;

mentioning nothing about them except two triumphs out of the Fasti;

without a syllable on the military, occurrences of the five campaigns

circumstantially recounted by Dionysius.

Nor does the latter go less into detail in describing the events of

the Latin war; of which nothing but the battle of Regillus is nar­

rated by Hvy; except under 255, where he says, as briefly as pos­

siblr., that Fidenre was besieged, Crustumeri,il taken, Prreneste

came over to the Romans. As to the celebrated battle itself he tells

us candidly, that while some, whom he followed, placed it in the

year 255, others put it off till 258 under the consulship of Postu­

mius-the date given by Dionysius: from which variation it is clear

that the oldest triumphal Fasti did not mention it. 'Without doubt

too it was only the later annalists who spoke of Postumius as the

commander; having already forgotten that the Africanus whose

renown was sung by the Calabrian bard, was the first Roman who

1226 The three hundred hostages who are put to death in u. 16, are the

same who in n. 22 are given up in 25!1.llISTORY OF ROME.

423

gained a surname from his conquests 122 7; while they did not observe

how frequently surnames from a place of residence occur in the

Fasti of the earliest times. As the Claudii took that of Regillensis,

so did the Postumii. This battle as thrust into history stands

without the slightest result or~ connexion: the victory is complete;

and, after several years of inaction, a federal treaty sets its seal to

the perfect independence and equality of the Latins, the very point

which the battle was fought to decide.

So that here again we have merely a heroic lay; another fragment

of which has been preserved by Dionysius. Before the melancholy

contest between the two kindred nations broke out, they engaged to

keep peace for a year, that the numberless ties amongst their

citizens might be amicably dissolved. Leave was also granted to

such women of each nation as had married in the other, to return to

their friends, taking their daughters along with them. All the

Roman women 28 left their J,atin husbands: all the Latin women,

except two, staid at Rome. The proud virtue of the matrons was

still blooming in full purity when these lays were composed.

The battle of the lake Regillus, as described by Livy, is not an

engagement between two armies; it is a conflict of heroes like those

/

in the Iliad. All the leaders encounter hand to hand, and by them

the victory is thrown now into one scale, now into the other; while

the ·troops fight without any effect. The dictator Postumius

wounds king Tarquinius, who at the first onset advances to meet

him•s: T • .lEbutius, the master of the horse, wounds the Latin

dictator: but he himself too is disabled, and forced to quit the field.

Mamilius, only aroused by his hurt, leads the cohort of the Roman

emigrants to the charge, and breaks the front lines of the enemy:

this glory the Roman lays could not allow to any but fellow·citizens,

under whatever banner they might be fighting. · M. Valerius, sur­

named Maximus, falls as he is checking their progress: Publius and

Marcus, the sons of Publicola, meet their death, in rescuing the

1227 Primus certe hie imperator nomine victm ab se gentis est nobilitatus:

exemplo deinde hujus, etc. Livy xxx. 45.

28 Away with the insipid refinement fl.l"po'iJ Ja"ir !ll"t:tll'<tl, in Dionysius

VI. 1.

29 Dionysius is angry with Macer and Gellius, for not calculating that

Tarquinius, even supposing him the grandson of Priscus, must have been

ninety years old. Is it purposely that he suppresses their both calling him

the son of Priscus ? so that according to the tables his age must have been 120.

He himself substitutes Titus Tarquinius for his father, to save the battle for

history.424

HISTORY OF ROME.

body of their uncleusa: but the dictator with his cohort avenges them

all, repulses the emigrants and puts them to flight. In vain does

· Mamilius strive to restore the day; he is slain by T. Herminius, the

comrade of Cocles: Herminius again is pierced through with a jave­

lin, while stripping the Latin general of his arms. At length the

Roman knights, fighting on foot before the standards, decided the

victory: then they mounted their horses, and routed the yielding

foe. During the battle the dictator had vowed a temple to the Dios·

curi: two gigantic youths on w bite horses were seen fighting in the

van; and from its being said, immediately after the mention of the

vow, that the dictator promised rewards to the first two who should

scale the wall of the enemy's camp, I surmise that the poem related,

nobody challenged these prizes, because the way for the legions had

been opened by the Tyndarids 31 • The pursuit was not yet over,

when the two deities appeared at Rome, covered with dust and

blood: they washed themselves and their arms in the fountain of

Juturna beside the temple of Vesta, and announced the events of the

day to the people assembled in the Comitium: on the other side of

the fountain the promised temple was built. The print of a horse's

hoof in the basalt on the field of battle remained to attest the pre·

sence of the heavenly combatants 3 ll,

This~ it must be owned, is a rich and beautiful epical story; and

yet assuredly our historians were not acquainted with its genuine

old form. This battle of giants, h, which the gods openly take part

and determine the result, closes the Lay of the Tarquins; and I am

convinced I am not mistaken in conjecturing that in the old poem

the whole generation who had been warring with one another ever

since the crime of Sextus, were swept away in this .llJort of Heroes:

he himself according to Dionysius fell here. In our accounts indeed

king Tarquinius is only wounded and escapes; but this is to make

the story· tally with the historical record of his dying at Cuma.

Mamilius is slain: Marcus Valerius Maxim us is slain, in spite of

the historical traditions that he was dictator some years after: and

Publius Valerius, who also finds his death, is assuredly not Pub·

licola's son, but Publicola himself •. Herminius too falls: so most

unquestionably does Larcius, the second companion of Cocles, and

1230 This is mentioned by Dionysius alone: that it is drawn from an an­

cient source is the more certain, since they come forward as actors in a. later

part of his history. See Glareanus and SyIburg on Dionysius n. 12.

31 · As was the case in the battle of Fabricius a.gainst the Luca.nian1.

Valerius Max. 1. 8. 6.

32 Cicero de Nat. Deor. m. 5 (11).HISTORY OF ROME.

425

doubtless no other than the first dictator: only he is kept in the

back ground, because a different one is put at the head of the army.

Thus the manes of Lucretia are appeased : and the men of the heroic

age depart out of the world before injustice begins to domineer, and

.gives birth to insurrection, in the state which they had delivered.

The account in the annals, which places the death of Publicola

in the year 251, is not more authentic than the poetical story: as­

suredly it had no other foundation than that his name is not met

with further on in the Fasti. The funeral orations of his family have

supplied us with the information that the matrons mourned for him

ten months, as they did for Brutus; and that he was buried at the

public expense. According to one story the cost was defrayed from

the common chest of the burghers••••; which agrees with his name

Poplicqla: according to the other a quadrant a head 34 was contri­

buted by the people, that is, by the commonalty: for this was a

plebeian mark of respect. Probably in conformity with the ancient

practice neither of the two estates was behind hand with the other,

as the fact is represented on the decease of Menenius Agrippa 35,

The paying them such a last honour is no ground for supposing

that either of the two died in want.

The death of Tarquinius at Cum a is certainly historical: but the

only reason.for placing it in the year .259 was no doubt because the

ferment among the commonalty broke out in that year; and the tradi­

tion ran, that, so long as he lived, the patricians kept within bounds.

Aristodemus, whose name is infamous among those o( the earlier

Greek tyrants for his atrocities, became the heir of his illustrious

client; and some years after detained the property of the republic,

in lieu of his claims to that of the Tarquins. Of the sons and grand­

sons of th:e Roman exiles, some may perhaps have been among the

followers of Appius Ilerdonius when he seized the Capitol, and

may thus have breathed their last in the home of their fathers.

Among the events 'placed in the last portion of the mythical age

is the reception of the Claudian gens: in the year 250 Attus Clausus,

a powerful Sabine, migrated to Rome with the members and clients

1233 De publico est elatus. Livy n. 16.

34 Plutarch Publicol. c. 23. The Greek language, less rich in political

terms than the Latin, has only the single word J'iiµo' to express the whole

people and the commonalty: this has given rise to a number of misapprehen

sions.

35 The passage on this subject in Dionysius (v1. 96) desocves attention,

from the manner in which the estates are distinguished; but it is .,ftoo great

length to be inserted here.

1.-3 D426

HISTORY OF ROME.

of his house. Clausus is in Virgil the eponym of the house and of

the tribe, belonging to an age anterior to the Romans*: which indis­

putably agrees with the spirit of the early ages: Claudius is derived

from Clausus, as Julius is from Iulus, and is no,t a dialectic variety

of the name. I here repeal my conjecture that the Claudii replaced

· the Tarquinian house and tribe. So that the statement that two

jugers of public land were assigned to every client may perhaps be

utterly groundless; and the plebeians 1n this tribe may have been as

independent as in every other: else this would look like an attempt

to intermix tribes of clients with those composed of the free pro­

prietors1238. The one and twentieth tribe of. the year 259 must be

the Crustumine 37: this was the first that was substituted for one of

the lost ten; as also the first that was named after a place, instead

of an lndiges or Semo.

Crnstumeria is said to have been taken in the Latin wars : but

:the receiving its citizens into the Roman plebs was probably the

consequence of a treaty with the Latins. In explaining the league

with them I shall show that on that occasion their thirty towns

were newly arranged, and their number completed: for which pur­

pose Rome gave up at least one place, and the Latins in return

seem to have resigned their claim to Crustumeria. In like manner

at the end of the fourth century, when Latium after a thirty years

quarrel again entered into alliance with the Romans, and enlarged

its territories, the Roman commonalty was increased by the cession

of some places, the citizens of which formed two new tribes.

This leads me to suspect that those Sabines, who with the rem­

nant of the dissolved Tarquinian tribe made up the Claudian, came

to Rome fn like manner on the conclusion of peace with their na­

tion, and that the Claudii then for the first time became Romans

* Above note 980.

1236 Above p. 321. Livy n. lCi. His civitas data, agerque trans Anienem.

Vetus Claudia tribus-appellata. This epithet occurs nowhere else, any more

than a Claudia nova does; and it is so singular, that I should be disposed to

.read: trana Anienem veterem. Claudia tribus etc. For some of my readers

it may not be superfluous to remark that the Anio vetus was the aqueduct

from the Teverone to Rome, begun by Curius. Frontinus de Aqumd. I •

.Now ifthe region of the Claudian iribe lay between Fidenm and Ficulea, ac·

cording to the reading of Lapus and Gelenius in Dionysius (v. 40), half of it

would be on the Roman side of the river Anio; but the whole was beyond

that aqueduct. Suetonius indeed (Tiber. c. 1) says merely trans Anienem;

but this does not refute my conjecture.

37 Thi.a'' has already been conjectured by Panvinius: who however had

no ether notion on the subject, than that there had been only twenty plebeian

tribes ever since the time of Servi us.HISTORY OF ROME.

427

and patricians. · The author of this peace was Sp. Cassiusrns,

whose two subsequent consulships are memor;i.ble for the leagues

establishing a community of franchise with the Latins and Herni­

cans. This accordingly was that great man's plan to support the

tottering dominion of Rome, and to pave the way for her recover­

ing what she had lost; and the before mentioned increase in the

numbers of the census after 246 is accounted for, if a similar rela­

tion was entered into with the Sabines in 252 ; not indeed with the

whole nation, but with the nearest cantons: that such a compact

however cannot have been durable, is . clear from the subsequent

diminution 89•

1238 Dionysius v. 4!J. In proportion as the terms of the peace here stated,

the giving up for instance 10,000 jugers of olive plantations, have an apocry­

phal look, does his silence lose its weight as an objection to my hypothesis, the

terms were invented just like the battles, because nothing was preserved ex­

cept the bare record that a treaty was concluded.

39 See above p. 420. Re gill um lay to the south of the Anio, in the midst

of Roman towns, and so did the Claudian region.THE DICTATORSHIP.

THE appointment of the first dictator is placed in the tenth year

after the first consuls; and the oldest annalists say it was T. Lar­

cius. But there were divers contradictory statements, and the

vanity of the Valerian house assigned this honour to a nephew of

Publicola. According to the date just mentioned, Larr.ius was con­

sul at the time, and so only received an enlargement of his power:

another account related as the occasion of the appointment, what

sounds probable enough, that by an unfortunate choice the republic

had been placed in the hands of two consuls of the Tarquinian fac­

tion, whose names were subsequently rendered dubious by indul­

gence or by calumny.

That the name of dictator was of Latin origin, is acknowledged;

and assuredly the character of his office, invested with regal power

for a limited period, was no less so. The existence of a dictator at

Tusculum in early, at Lanuvium in very late times*, is matter of

history; and Latin ritual books, which referred to Alban tradi­

tionsI>40, enabled Macer to assert that this magistracy had subsisted

at Alba4 1 ; though it is true that the preservation of any historical

record concerning Alba is still more out of the question than con­

cerning Rome before Tullus Hostilius. The' Latins however did

not merely elect dictators in their several cities, but also over the

whole nation: from a fragment of Cato we learn that the Tusculan

Egerius was dictator over the collective body of the Latins•~.

!Jere we catch a glimmering of light; but we must follow it with

caution. If Rome and Latium were confederate states on a footing

of equality, in the room of that supremacy which lasted but for a

1240

lllbana;

41

42

Cicero pro Milone IO (27).

The J ulii had their altar in the theatre at Bovillre consecrated lege

which would infer that there was something more thau oral tradition.

Dionysius v. 74.

Origin. u. in Priscian 1v. 4.HISTORY OF ROME.

429

short time after the revolution, they must have possessed the chief

command alternately : and this would explain why the Roman

dictators were appointed for only six months; and how they came

to have twenty-four lictors : namely, as a symbol that the govern­

ments of the two states were united under the same head: the con­

suls had only twelve between them, which went by turns from one

to the other. And so the dictatorship at the beginning would be

directed solely toward foreign affairs ; and the continuance of the

consuls along with the dictator would be accounted for: nay, the

dictatorship, being distinct from the office of the magister populi,

might sometimes be conferred on him, sometimes on one of the

con:mls.

The object aimed at in instituting the dictatorship,-as I will

call it from t\{e first, by the name which in course of time sup·

planted the earlier one,-was incontestably, to evade the Valerian

laws, and to re-establish an unlimited authority over the plebeians

even within the barriers and the mile of their liberties 1243 : for the

legal appeal to the commonalty was from the sentence of the con·

suls, not from that of this new magistrate. Nor does such an ap·

peal seem ever to have been introduced, not even after the power

. of the tribunes had grown to an inordinate excess: the Romans ra­

ther chose to let the dictatorship drop. The tradition accordingly

is perfectly correct in recording how the appointment of a dictator

alarmed the commonalty 44 •

That even the members of the houses at the first had no right of

appealing against the dictator to their comitia, though they had pos­

sessed such a right even under the kings, is expressly asserted by

Festus 45 : at the same time he adds that they obtained it. This is

confirmed by the example of M. Fabius; who, when his son was

persecuted by the ferocity of a dictator, appealed in his behalf to

the populus 46 ; to his peers, the patricians in the curies.

1243 6.1x.~~t'1 11.!tl d.71'011.T1lv1JP Jt!tl olH.ol x.ctl iY trtf'pa.rrala.1' itl:lv:t'To, xct.l" oil

'f'oVc 'TOO lfJµov µ6vov, ii>..t..et. x.e1,l 'Ttc1P i1:'7riwr, xe.ti i~ ttU'Tiic 'i'ifc ,Bou>iilc.

Zonaras v11. 13.

44 Creato dictatore-magnus plebem metus incessit.

45 V. Optima lex. Postquam provocatio ab eo magistratu ad populU;m

data est, qure antea non erat.

46 Pro'/Joco ad populum, aceording to the law under Tullus Hostilius,

pro'/Jocatione, cui Tullus IIostiliuscessit. Livy vm. 33. The senators repaired

from the Curia to the concio, that is, to the Comitium, hard by the Curia.

Fabius was not displeased to be sent down from the rostra to the Comitium,

where he might speak freely, as a member of the great council of the popu­

lus. The n.id of the tribunes might be serviceable in case of extremity, be­430

IIISTORY OF ROME.

The later Romans had only an indistinct knowledge of the dic­

tatorship, drawn from their earlier history. Excepting Q. Fabius

l\faximus in the second campaign of the second Punic war, whose

election and situation moreover were completely at variance with

ancient custom, no dictator to command an army had been appoint­

ed since 503 ; and even the comitia for elections had never been

held by one since the beginning of the Macedonian war. As ap­

plied to the tyranny of Sylla and the monarchy of Cresar, the title

was a mere name, without any ground for such a use in the ancient

constitution. Hence we can account for the error of Dion Cassius,

when, overlooking the privilege of the patricians, he expressly as­

serts that in no instance was there a right of appealing against the

dictator, and that he might condemn kriights and senators to death

without a trial 124 7: as well as for that of Dionysius, who fancies he

decided on every measure at will, even about peace and war 48 ,

Such notions, out of which the moderns have drawn their phrase

dictatorial power, are suitable indeed to Sylla and Cresar: with re­

ference to the genuine dictatorship they are utterly mistaken 49,

Like ignorance as to the ancient state of things is involved in

the notion of Dionysius, that, after the senate had merely resolved

that a dictator was to be appointed, and which consul was to name

him, the consul exercised an uncontrolled discretion in the choice 50 :

which opinion, being delivered with such positiv~ness, has become

the prevalent one in treatises on Roman antiquities. Such might

possibly be the case, if the dictator was restricted to the charge of

presiding over the elections, for which purpose it mattered not

who he was: in the second Punic war, in 542, the consul M. Va­

lerius Lrevinus asserted this as his right 51 ; and in the first the prac­

cau~e their persons were inviolable : but in no way could the affair be brought

before the concilium of the pie bs.

1247 Zonaras quoted above, note 1243.

48 v. 70. 73. IloAiµou xctl •ip>ivn' x<t.l 71"<1.P'l"i, a."1>.Mu 7Tf«'J.'f'«'TO' xupia.

(<i.p;(,i1) ctu'To1<p<1.'TQJf xe1.l dvu7T•uBuvo,.

49 Of the latter on the contrary are we to understand the statement in

the same passage of Zonaras, that the dictator (like the consuls) could not

'draw upon the treasury beyond the credit upon it granted to him by the senate.

50 v. 73. o.J 7Tctf« ,,..;; tnµou ,,.,,, «p;x,nr 1up6µ00,_AA' ri'll'' avtpo,

..:7ToJ'e;x,B•l, iv6,, Compare the whole account just before this of the appoint­

ment ofT. Larcius.

51 The senate decreed that the consul should inquire the will of the

people M to the person to be appointed, and should proclaim him whom they

chose: the consul negabat se populum rogaturum quod sua potestatis esset.

Livy nvu. 5.HISTORY OF ROME.

431

tice must already have been the same; for else P. Claudius Pulcher

coul<l not have insulte<l the republic by nominating 1\1. Glycia*.

Ilut never can the disposal of kingly power have been entrusted to

the discretion of a single elector.

The pontifical lawbooks, clothing the principles of the consti­

tution after their manner in a historical form, preserved the true

account. For what other source can have supplied Dionysius with

the resolution of the senate, as it professes to be, that a citizen,

w horn the senate should nominate, and the people approve of,

should govern for six months1 252 ? The people here is the populus:

it was a revival of the ancient custom for the king to be elected by

the patricians : and that such was the form is established by posi­

tive testimony 08 •

Still oftener, indeed throughout the whole first decad of Livy,

do we read of a decree of the senate whereby ~ dictator was ap­

pointed, without any notice of the great council of the patricians 54 •

* Livy Epit. xrx. Seutonius Tiber. c. 2.

i'7f1{n<J>l<rn<ttt1. Dionysius

1252 "Ov ,;, ii <te ~ou"A~ .,,poi"Awr<1.1, '"" o

v.70.

53 M. Valerius-qui primus magister a populo creatus est. Festus v.

Optima lex. Accepto senatus dccreto ut comitiis curiatis revocatus de exilio

jussu populi Camillus dictator extemplo crearetur: Livy v. 46. Ap. Claudium

dictatorem consensu patriciorum Servilius consul dixit: vu. 6. Before the

secession of the plebs Appius was on the point of being created dictator;

but the consuls and the scniores patrmn contrived to prevent it (n. 30): so

that the annalist had in his eye an election by the juniores, that is, in this

place, the curies. The viator who carries the dictatorship to Cincinnatus

says to him: vela corpus ut proferam senatus populique Romani mandata.

Pliny xvm. 4.

54 1v. 17: Senatus dictatorem dici Mam . ../Emilium jussit.-23: Scnatus

Mam. ../Emilium dictatorcm iterum dici jussit.-46: Dictater ex S. C. dictus

Q. Servilius Priscus. vm. 17: Dictator ex auctoritate senatus dictus P. Cor­

nelius Rufinus. 1x. 20: Auctore senatu dictatorem C. Junium Bubulcum

dixit. x. 11: M. Valerium consulem omnes centuriw dixere, quern senatus

dictatorem dici jussurus erat. The whole story of Q. Fabius constraining

himself to declare his mortal enemy dictator (ix. 38) implies that L. Papirius

was already nominated, but could not enter upon his office, unless the consul

proclaimed him. Even Dionysius in one instance recognizes the nomination

or proposal by the senate. vu. 56; ll.11<Tt<TOJP v<j>' .;,.,.,,,, .,_;p,e.t,. The following

passages also apply to the election by the senate. 11. 30: Manium Valerium

creant (consules senioresque patrum).'lv. 21: Dictatorem clici A. Servilium

placet. vi. 2: Placuit dictatorem dici M. Furium Cami!lum. vn. 12: Dictato­

rem dici C. Sulpicium placuit. The following have a wider sense. m. 26:

L. Quinctius Cincinnatus consensu omnium dicitur. v1. 28: Dictatorem T.

Quinctium Cincinnatum creavere: creavere is used in reference to the comi­

tia : see for instance 1v. 11.

1;;,.,..,432

HISTORY OF ROME.

The old mode of electing the kings was restored in all its parts :

the dictator after his appointment had to obtain the imperium from

the curies 1255 , And thus, from possessing this right of conferring

the i111perium, the patricians might dispense with voting on the

·preliminary nomination of the senate. Appointing a dictator was

an affair of urgency: some augury or other might interrupt the

curies: it was unfortunate enough that there were but too many

chances of this at the time when he was to be proclaimed by the

consul, and when the law on his impcrium was to be passed. And

after the plebeians obtained a share in the, c?nsulate, as the senate

was continually approximating to a fair mixture of the two estates,

it was a gain for the freedom of the nation, provided the election

could not be transferred to the centuries, to strengthen the senate's

power of nominating. U ndcr the old system a plebeian could not

possibly be dictator. Now as C. l\1arcius in 398 opened this office

to his own order, whereas in 393 it is expressly stated that the

appointment was approved by the patricians, it is almost certain

that the change took place within this interval. Even in 444 the

bestowal of the imperimn was assuredly more than an empty form:

but it became such by the l\Ircnian law: thenceforward it was only

requisite that the consul should consent to proclaim the person

named by the senate. Thus after that time, in the advanced state

of popular freedom, the dictatorship could occur but seldom except

for trivial purposes: and if on such occasions the appointment was

left to the consuls, they would naturally lay claim to it likewise in

those solitary instances where the office still had real importance 56 •

However, when P. Claudius insultingly misused his privilege,

the remembrance of the ancient procedure was still fresh enough

for the senate to have the po'wer of annulling the scandalous ap­

pointment. To do so, they would not even need the legal limita­

tion mentioned by Livy, that none but consulars .were eligible. A

law of those early times can only have spoken of prretors and prre­

torians: for which reason, the pr:rtor continuing to be deemed a

collegue of the consuls, it was not violated when L. Papirius Cras­

1255 Livy 1x. 38, under the year 444: (L. Papirio Cursori) lcgem curiatam

<le imperio ferenti triste omen diem diffi.dit.

56 These transitions are exhibited in the account given by Dionysius,

how at the very first establishment of the dictatorship the people committed

the choice to the senate, the senate to the consuls: as to the imperium he

knows nothing of it. All this, if he had invented it, would 'be absurd: but

he met with it in his books; and we are already acquainted with many sym­

J>olical representations of the same kind.HISTORY OF ROME.

433

sus was made dictator in 415: and the other cases which would

be against the rule, if interpreted strictly of such men as had ac­

tually been consuls, might probably be explained in the same way,

if we had prcetorian Fasti 195 7,

In a number of passages it is distinctly stated that the master of

the knights was chosen by the dictator at pleasure. But this again

must have been the more recent practice: at all events his appoint­

ment in one instance is attributed to the senate no less clearly than

that of the dictator ; as at the origin of the office it is at least in

general terms io eleciors 58 : and the decree of the plebs, which in

542 raised Q. Fulvius Flaccus to the dictatorship, enjoined him to

appoint P. Licinius Cra.ssus magister equitum*. The civil char­

acter of this officer is enveloped in total obscurity: but that he was

not merely the master of the horse and the dictator's lieutenant in

the field, is certain. I conjecture, that he was elected by the cen­

turies of plebeian knights,-as the magister populi was by the

populus, the six suffragia,-and that he was their protector 5B,

The dictator may have presided at the election, letting the twelve

centuries vote on the person whom he proposed: this might after•

· ward fall into disuse, and he would then name his brother magis.:­

trate himself.

1257 Did Rome excite the attention of Aristotle ? As he never in the

Politics quotes its constitution, which in his days was just in its prime, he

must in fact have been unacquainted with it. But the remark (Polit. iv.10),

iv fl-"ffl>ri.p"'v '?"1crlv 11ipouv"?"111 11u'l"oxpri.'l"opri.' p.~vri.px•v,, probably refers to the

Romans, as well as the Samnites and Lucanians. He refers to the analogous

example of the <£Symnetes; and Dionysius does exactly the same when speak­

ing of the dictatorship. '

58 .Livy vm. 17 :·Dictator ab consulibus ex auctoritate senatus dictus

P. Cornelius Rufinus, magister equitum M. Antonius. n. 18: of Larcius and

Sp. Cassiu~-creatos invenio. Consvlares legere.

* Livy xxvn. 5. '.

.

59 Hence a plebeian would be eligible to this office even before the Li­

cinian law. See above, p. 397. There seems to be a reference to the ple­

beian knights, where C. Servilius Aha.la is sent by the dictator to Sp. Mrelius.

· Livy xv. 14.

I.-3ETHE COMMONALTY BEFORE THE SECES­

SION, AND THE NEXI.

THE appointment of the dictator by the curies was a step back­

ward from, the constitution of Servius, evincing a settled plan to

rob the plebeians of its advantages and honours, while its burthens

were still to remain with them : and it was the prelude to a far .

worse usurpation, by which the plebs was deprived of its right of

electing the consuls in the centuries, as it had already been deprived

of its share in the consulship. Possessing the dictatorial power,

which they might either exercise or hold out in terror, the patri·

cians were strong enough to engage in a plan for stripping their

free countrymen of all their rights, and reducing them individually

to slavery. Had it been executed with caution, the atrocious de­

sign might have succeeded: its failure, as is often the case, was

owing to their mad impatience and precipitance, and to that cupidity

which cannot wait until usurpation in its strnggle against the feel­

ings of freedom has cleared the course for it.

After the banishment of the Tarquins the government behaved

kindly to the commonalty. It is related that all duties were then

done away with; and that the city took the salt trade into its own

hands, to stop the extortion of the retail dealers 1260 • As to the

statement that the plebs was exempted from tribute, it must either

mean; that the whole charge of paying the troops was thrown upon

the rerarians*, or that the arbitrary taxation introduced under the

last Tarquinius was abolished. The Valerian laws restored the

good laws of king Servius with regard to life, personal security, and

honour. In like manner the first consuls are said to have renewed

the laws which prohibited pledging the person 61 : that the guilds

and their motes were re-established, follows of course.

1260 Livy n. 9.

* See above, p. 361.

61 Dionyeius v. 2. K<ti 'toil, pop.OU' 'tOU' 11'1pl 'l"lllV a-uµ~o>..itlaiv 'tOU', HISTORY OF ROME.

435

But it was only while Tarquinius excited alarm, and till the hard

war with Etruria was ended, that the government, as Sallust says,

ruled with justice and moderation. When this was over, the pa•

tricians dealt with the plebeians as with l!laves, tyrannically mal·

treated them and even sported with their lives, turned them out of

the public domain, and wielded the government alone, to the ex­

clusion of their fellow-citizens: by which outrages, and above all

by the pressure, of usury, the commonalty, being forced at once to

pay tribute and to serve in never ceasing wars, was at last driven

into insurrection. This representation has been adopted by the

greatest father of the western church as evidently true 1262• To the

same elfect Livy relates that, so long as Tarquinius was living in

exile, the favour of the plebs was courted: but that after his death

the nobles began to maltreat it 03 • I repeat, that chronological

statements with regard to this period are totally idle; only it is too

gross a violation of all probability in Livy, to place .the king's

death, the change in the conduct of the patricians, and the beginning

of its fruits, the first disturbance, all within the same year. Some

annalist must have mentioned the evil, which ·without doubt had

been waxing worse and worse during several years, for the first

time retrospectively at the epoch when it reached its full growth.

That the oligarchy should have been strong enough, when aided

by the terrors of the dictatorship, openly to revive the ancient

laws of debt, is no way incredible: but when we find these laws

not only remaining unaltered at the peace between the two estates,

but for half a century after those of Licinius, great doubts are cast

on the 1Story that they had already been abolished twice in the very

early ages. Be this as it may, that difference between the rights

of the. two orders, which afterward caused the need for the legisla·

tion of the decemvirs, was here so deeply rooted, that it lasted for

four generations after the laws of the twelve tables: and hence.

Livy, when he is about to relate the abolition of bondage for debt,

says, this was the commencement of a new freedom for the plebs 0•.

This remark clearly belongs to an old annalist, not to Livy: and it

may therefore be regarded as a dis~inct assertion on what otherwise

.;,,.. 'Tu».~t.u i'P"-'i>lV'T"'• <;>1A ..FBpa0'1'0U' '"''

,;,''11'«'1Td.C x.a.'TeAuo-t T~px.Uv1oc:, dvnt&icret.vrro.

JH(A•'<'lltOUC

.1,..,

J.,..;;,.,.,,,,

olir

12G2 Augustin de Civitate Dei 11. 18. ·

63 n. 21. Plebi, cui ad eam diem summa ope inservitum erat, injurire

a primoribus fieri cwpere.

.

64 vin. 28. Eo anno plebi Romanre velut aliud initium libertatis fac­

tum est, quod nccti dcsierunt .. See above p. 323.436

HISTORY OF ROME~

could only be inferred, though with perfect certainty; namely, that

the pressure of this system fell on the plebeian debtor alone. As

to the patrician, he can never have either pledged his person by

covenant, or been sentenced to servitude by the law.

Now if the only difference had been, that the original citizens

enjoyed a better state of law within their own body, this would

have bred no feud between the two estates: the plebs might have

passed' a resolution to adopt the same system, and would have had

no trouble in obtaining the sanction of the ruling cl~ss for it, if re­

quisite. But unfortunately it was the interest of the patricians to

stand up for the cruel practice of personal pledges, as much as for

any privilege of their order. Livy himself in spite of his preju­

dices does not suppress what was to be read in the Annals; that

every patrician house was a gaol for debtors, and that in seasons

· of great distress, after every sitting of the courts, herd3 of sentenced

slaves were led away in chains to the houses of the noblesse 1 ~ 65 • Dio­

nysius too represents king Servius as saying, that the cruel usury

of the patricians, who by its means were reducing the free citizens

to servitude, and .their pretensions to the exclusive occupation of the

public domain, were the motives which urged them to plot his

death 66 : and in the decisive case where the abominable conse­

quences of this system led to its abolition, the usurer, L. Papirius,

was a patrician; his. victim a plebeian, C. Publilius~.

Nay they appear in these cases not like persons who from their

superior power come for~ard in behalf of others as well as of

themselves, but as if they alone were concerned; and this too so

late as in the year 397, when a reasonable limitation to the rate of

interest is e!lgerly determined upon by the plebs, but gives offence

to the patricians 67. Not that we can suppose the plebeians to have

been without the power of proceeding after the same sys.tern: only

if they wished to abuse it by stretching it to the utmost, they

might be restrained, as they were subsequently by the tribunes of

the people, so even in those days by the magistrates whose office

1265 v1. 36. Gregatim quotidie de foro addictos duci, et repleri vinctis

nobiles domos: et ubicunque patricius habitet, ibi carcerem privatum esse.

66 1v. 11. Mt,unrun<1.I ,uo1 'Tlrtc ix '1'"'' '1f'<1.'1'pud,.., d.'1t'01t'T•iv"1 ,u• O"uvo ­

p.ru,uiro1,-,;, 'TO• IM,uor .• ~ 1rt'1f'olu.<1.-ti.;t.B6,utvo1-oi d<1.H1<1''1'<1.l µIr, O'TI '1'orJc

w,r,,'f'ctr Uµ.;c oUx. tittcrrL tr>lr iA1vB1plcu ti.q>tt1ptBii1tt.1 Vw· ttUrrt11r '!Tpdr .'f'tt. XJfrt.

&;i:.SirT~ (read "'"'"';t.9lv'1'<1.c), oi J'f 1t<t'1'<1.vo<1'qi1t6,utro1 '1'<1. J'n,u6"''"' 1<. '1'. >..

* Livy vm. 28.

67 Haud reque lreta patribus-de unciario fcenore-rogatio est perlata:

et plebs a1iquanto eam cupidius scivit. Livy vu. 16. Manlius too (v1. 14)

vociferatus de superbia patrum, ae crudelitate fceneratorum, et miseriis plebis:HISTORY OF ROME.

437

gave rise to that of these tribunes: and the free possessor of heredi­

taTy property might screen himself against the persecution of a

brother plebeian, by becoming the client of a patrician •. Probably

however the main part of the loans were merely negotiated in the

name of patricians on account of their clients, who were forced to

appear in the person of their patrons, and who also reaped the

greatest advantage from doing so. If a· foreigner practised such

usury, he had without doubt, beside the ordinary burthens of client­

ship, to pay, like the freedmen, a particular sum to his lord.

Now that in these early times not the slightest trace should be

found of usury ·carried on by the plebeians, is the more remarkable,

because in the latter ages of the republic the plebeian knights were

the very class among whom it struck root; although Cato had pro­

nounced it to be no better than highway-robbery; while on the

other hand ariong the members of the few remaining patrician

houses hardly a single one has been charged with this disgraceful

trade: a memorable· instance, that virtues and vices are· not heir­

looms in particular families or classes of society; but that the power

of doing what they list misleads such as are not restrained by re­

spect for the opinion of the better disposed among their fellow­

countrymen and equals, while on the other hand the necessity of

keeping watch over our honour preserves us from depravity; that

a aominant faction is ever ~ure to transgress, aud thereby to set its

adversaries in a favourable light.

In all countries men in need have had the wretched right of sell­

ing themselves and their families: it obtained among the northern

nations as well as among the Greeks and in Asia. The right of

the creditor to seize his insolvent debfor as a servant, and by his

labour or by the sale. of his person to repay himself so far as this

went, was scarcely le~s widely spread. · Akin in their origin and

in their results, these rights are yet substantially different; and if

we draw a proper distinction between them, the ancient Roman

law of debt becomes perfectly clear and simple.

Debts may be incurred either by a direct loan, or by breach of

an obligation to some payment: besides, according to the Roman

.Jaw, certain offences created such an obligation, as larceny and the

like. Now whether the debt arose from such offences or other­

wise, whoever, after the prretor had given sentence, failed to dis­

charge it within the legal term, was consigned by the law to the

creditor as his bondman: but he was addictus, and not nexus 196".

1268 So was the person who had pledged himself and did not redeem him­438

HISTORY OF ROME.

A person became nexus, when by a regular Quiritary bargain be­

fore witnesses, for money weighed out to him, he disposed of

himself, and consequently of all that belonged to him; whereby

under the form of a sale he in reality pledged himself: into this

state none could come except by his own act and deed.

For, as we learn from the well known testimony of JElius

Gallus 1 ~ 69 , every transaction according to Quiritary law and with

these forms was a nexum: and it is an utter mistake, which more­

over occurs only among the moderns, to derive the name of the

nexi from their fetters, and to suppose that they were slaves in

fetters for debt. At the first every such transaction, as is too plain

to need proof, was an actual sale. But the ingenuity of the Roman

jurists contrived by means of these forms to establish a system of

pledging, whereby the seller was to keep possession of what he

had sold, and to redeem his pledge on repaying the money he had

received as an earnest: while on the other hand, if the money was

not repaid, the creditor laid claim to his property befoi:e the prretor.

The same form was given to a number of other transactions and

proceedings, such as marriage by co-emption, the fictitious sale of

children for their emancipation, wills, and so on. All these, to­

gether with the actual transfer of property, are comprehended in

the definition given by Varro from Manilius 70 : and in this wider

sense Sylla allowed all ·th~ nexa of the new citizens, whom he de­

prived of their franchise, to stand, as well as their rights of inherit­

ancen. But the fictitious sales were so frequent, the transactions

carried on under the form of such sales were so important, that it

became necessary to have a peculiar name for them. Hence usage

restricted the general term to these, excluding the mancipia, the

self within the term fixed: he then ceased to be nexus. Hence Dionysius, in

the classical passage on the subject (vi. 83), only discriminates between the

addiction incurred by debt and from offences. Menenius offers to cancel all

the nexa of the insolvent (-rov' i<Pel>.ov-r<1.,. ;ve<1. ul ,..~ Ju,«µhou' l1<1.xur1UB<1.1,

<1.<P•'irB«1 'Tt»t O<fX•µ«-r1»v); to set at liberty all such as wer~ addicti from

having failed in their payments (ei -rlY"'' -r« rr~µ«Ta. ~?rtpnµlp1»1 on1»• <r«ir

•oµiµo1, ?rpoBea-µi"" x«-r<1;:,1-r«1); and in like manner all those who were so

on account of a delictum privatum punishable with a fine (d'ix"'" «Xo•nr ili<LW

not state criminals).

126!) In Festus. Nexum est, ait Gallus lElius, quodcumque per res et li­

bram geritur, idque necti dicitur, quo in gener!J sunt hrec: testamenti factio 1

nexi datio, nexi liberatio.

.

70 De L. L. v1. 5. p. 100. Nexum Manilius scribit omne quod per li­

bram et res gcritur, in quo eint mancipia. So the Florentine MS.

"71 Cicero pro Crecina 35{102). lta tulit de civitate, ut non sustulerit

horum nexa atquc hrereditates.HISTORY OF ROME.

439

actual transfers of property: and so Varro after S.crevola defined a

nexum. to be the form where a thing is pledged, but not alie­

nated•979,

As the meaning of this word changed in process of time, so

Varro's definition of a nexus does not apply quite correctly except

to a single case. No doubt when a freeman had contracted by

servile labour to work off the debt for which he had pledged his

person in a Quiritary sale, he was a nexus7 8 :·only one must not

restrict the meaning of the term to this. Whosoever had pledged

his person in this way was nexus or nexu vinctus' 4; even if he

could not possibly become liable to discharge his debt by service.

Such as had no property must always have concluded their loans

under this form: those who had would be able even in those days

to give their land as security: in most cases however a person

threatened with a sentence of addiction would probably enter into

a nexum, that he might escape for the time fro1• that misfortune.

If any one whose creditor laid claim to him before the prretor7 5 ,

did not redeem himself, his lot was chains and corporal punish­

ment, and all the hardships of slavery76,

1272 In the same place. Mucius (Screvola is an interpolation) qure per

res et libram fiant ut obligentur, prroter quro (1mlg. prreter quam qure. Flor.

prreter quam) mancipio dentur,-id est ('Dulg. idem) quod obligatur per li­

bram, neque suum fit ('mug. sit). The p~rson whose nexum was released by

payment, was tETe ct libra liberatus: Livy v1. 14. Hence nexa liberatur, Cicero

'

de Re p. II. 34.

73 In the same place. Liber qui ~uas operas in servitutem (so Flor.­

'l!ulg. servitute) pro pecunia quam debebat, dabat dum solveret (Flor. debebat

dum s . .,,ulg. debeat dum s.), nexus vocatur.

74 The two terms are without doubt equivalent: the former is opposed

to solutus in the Twelve Tables, the latter in Livy n. 23: Nexu 'l!incti solutique

11e undique in publicum proripiunt: where Doujat's explanation, which has

unaccountably been neglected, is no less certain than obvious. . See Draken­

borch's note. Sigonius had a glimmering of the truth: but his change­

nexi, 'l!incti, solutique-corrupts the text.

75 This addiction is referred to in the passages of Livy quoted in note

1265, and in the words u7rtpn~tfflJV d.11'"-f'"'I',; in Dionysius Vl. 23.

76 On servitude for debts not incurred by borrowing I shall speak in the

second volume, after the laws of the Twelve Tables, in which it is so memo­

rable a feature; although these laws must by no means be considered as its

primary source. I shall also recur to it when I come to the Poetelian law.

But as opinions delivered by word of mouth are apt to get abroad in a mis­

taken shape, I will here lay down the following propositions beforehand.

The Poetelian law merely did away with the nexumofthe person, in room of

which the jiducia of property became universal: but it made no·change in the

li.ddictiori for debttl or offences; and the latter certainly lasted even beyond

the end efthe second Punic war. This however was likewise abolished; and440

HJSTORY OF ROME.

So long as-a nexus was not addiclus, he enjoyed the same rights

as every other full citizen: this was expressly secured to him by

the laws 1277, But on the other hand he who was adjudged as a

slave, lost his civic rights 78 : thus he underwent that demin~tio

capitis 79 , of which it is true that our civil lawbouks make no men­

tion, because we have nothing of Manilius or Sca!vola, and those

who wrote under the emperors lived long after it had been forgotten;

of which however we have. indisputable evidence in the circum­

stance that an action which endangered.a person's civic character

-a judicium turpe-was a causa capitis, though no way affecting

his life. In the same manner a cause where the question was,

whether the possession of a person's goods had, been adjudged

(addicta) by the sentence of the pra!tor, was a causa capitis 80 :

because this addiction had been substituted for that of the person.

When a debtor was delivered up to his creditor, such of his chil­

dren and grandch¥dren as were subject to his authority went into

slavery with him: as was the case when state-criminals were sold

along with their family 81 • This state of the law was known. to

those annalists who made the old soldier tell_ the people, that the

usurer had carried him and his two sons into 'slavery*; and who

represented the edict of the consul Servilius as ordaining that,

if a debtor-slave 92 were willing to serve, his creditor should not

in its stead came the possessio bonorum debitoris: the very expression sectio

·

bonorum reminds us of the sectio corporis debitoris.

1277 Nexo solutoque idem jus esto.

78 The consul Servilius promises the plebeians that during the cam­

paign 'fr/l.a"d. ,«er ova-ftt., ?rotV J'j a-Clµ.«, 'frd.a"tt. J'' l'1"1Tlf<ld. '1"0'MTOIJ 'POiiµ.tt.IOIJ

shall continue a.ppua-1d.a-'l'oc tt.?ro "' J'<1.ruou &otl ,;>-.Mu ?ran~t a-uµ.~011.<1.1ou.

Dionysius v1. 41. And Appius says (v1. 5D) that he had lost money by !everal

of his debtors, but had never made any ?rp6a-Ge-ror oiJJ'' a."-r1µ.or.

7D Deminutus capite appellatur-qui liber alteri mancipio datus est.

Festus.

80 Hence the affair of P. Quinctius was so (Cicero pro Quinct. 9. (32)):

and the question was, whether his bun.a in reality possessa fuerint nee ne.

Caput was the title in the censorian register, comprising every thing set down

under it with regard to a person's condition: every change made therein on

his becoming deterio-ris juris was -a deminutio capitis. They who are familia,r

with the Roman notions will not need many words to understand, that, for

instance, the degrading a plebeian to be an rerarian, or his removal into a tri­

bus minus honesta on being found guilty of ambitus or the like, were each a

capitis deminutio.

-

·

81 lpse familiaque ad redem Cereris veneat.

* Dionysius v1. 26.

82 An addictus, not a nexus: the former class was again called out. in

the second Punic war.llISTORY OF ROME.

441

keep his children or grandchildren in confinemcnti~ss. This circum­

stance was the main reason for the emancipation of children, a mea­

sure which according to the Roman law on domestic rights could

otherwise scarcely have occurred.

If we once gain a clear insight into this law of debt, we have

solved the perplexity which led Dionysius to take such strange

views, and which thereby has introduced such momentous errors

into Roman history.

The Annals related that the persons who seceded on account of

their debts were in the legions: but how was it consistent with the

Servian constitution, for men to serve therein, who had forfeited

their freedom to their creditors, and so were poorer than a prole­

tarian if he was clear from debts? Dionysius he.re again takes the

perverse -course of reconciling these contradictory statements by the

groundless assertion that they served JS slingerss 4 : according to

which men with less than nothing would have stood in the fifth

class. And what would the Servian constitution have been worth,

if the hoplites and knights had been unable to make head against

the Ull'armed populace?

The plebeians however who left the camp, were nexi, whose

freedom and property were merely pledgedss: and many others,

who were not suffering under the same pressure, may have joined

them from sympathy, and with a view to avail themselves of cir­

cumstances for the furtherance of political freedom. The army

might be levied according to the classes; and yet the majority of

the hoplites might consist of persons who, when their debts became

payable, would not even be secure of personal liberty. There are

but too many countries where a like state of things is to be found;

where most of the landl1-0lders, though ostensibly they continue to

be so, were they to discharge their debts, would have nothing left;

and till that time comes farm their estates for their creditors, as the

Roman debtor farmed his for the usurer 86 • Now if, where a nation

1283 Livy u. 24. Ne quis militis-liberos nepotesve moraretur. Diony­

sius v1. 29. M>l'Tt )'tt•' rJ.V'T,;, ,.,..,,:,_m. This foreigner misapprehended his

authorities and the nature of the law in VI. 37. For there can never have

been any need of releasing the relations of the nexi in an ascending line.

84 v. 67. npo.-9n""' µolp"-• h17xor 'Toi, h <1>dMt-l' 'TnrJ.-rµlrm-µnJlr

<1>ipon" ;;,..M,, 071 µ~ .-c;>nJarctr.

85 If there is any ground for the story of the calling out the addicti, they

can only have entered into the irregular bodies, the civic legions. Probably

however it is wholly apocryphal.

· 86 Dionysius vi. 79. Tolr J<t.YftO"'TrJ.ir-~•"-)'"rJ.taµ•9"- 'Toti, i.,u.,..;,

x>..npour t-•»n•iv.

J,-3

F442

HISTORY OF ROME.

is thus ciroumstauced, the distribution of political rights be propor·

tionecl to the land tax paid, it would be so far from agreeing with

the relative state of property, that the main part of. the citizens

electing and eligible to offices might be in a destitute, or even des­

·

perate condition.

Here is the proof I promised above, that the tribute was not paid

out of the net income: for it corresponded to the census; and if•

debts had been deducted i:i assessing this, the nexi could not have

stood in the classes, or served in the legions. To have explained

the nexum in the passage where this was before asserted 1267 , would

have grafted one episode upon another. As a further confirmation

I will here add, that the liquidation of debts in the year 403 ren·

dered a census necessary : because, in adjusting the state of pro·

perty with the demands of creditors upon it, a number of things

changed their owners 88 • Under an income-tax the only difference

would have been, that a person who till then had paid for ten thou·

sand ases of outstanding money would now have paid for the same

sum vested in land: while the previous possessor, even before he

parted with his estate, would not have been taxed for it. Owing

to this the patricians, though they appear as the capitalists, are no

way affected by the tribute 89 , which is represented as a tax peculiar

to the plebs 90•

In the Roman contracts for the use of money the regular condi·

tion was that the sum should be repaid after a stated term: which

in those times, as the arguments to be brought forward in another

part of this history will prove, must certainly have been the year

of ten months. The rate of interest was unrestricted, and therefore

exorbitant : the first legal limitation of it to ten per cent'was a

great relief to the plebs: no wonder then that it is spoken of as

having been an ordinary case, for the accumulated interest to raise

1287 Above p. 356. ·

88 Livy vu. 22. Quia solutio roris alieni multarum rerum mutaverat

dominos.

89 The patricians have been making a present out of their neighbours'

purses, say the tribunes, when it is determined to give the troops pay; inas­

much as it can only be raised tributo indicto. Livy 1v. 60. Such touches

come from the annalists.

90 The tribunes deplore the fate of the plebs, ~ nunc etiam vectig<ilis

facta sit, ut, cum incuUa omnia invenerint, tributum ex affecta re familiari pend­

am. Livy v. 10. They bring forward the agrarian law and forbid the col­

lecting the tribute. v. 12. On another occasion however plebes coacta huic

oneri succumbere, because the government did not want any levies: quem de­

lectum impedirem, 1Wn habe.bant tribuni. v1. 32.HISTORY OF ROME.

443

the principal to many times its original amount 1ll9 1 • It was the

custom to convert the principal when <lue, together with the inter­

est, into a new debt (versura): the discharge of which must soon

have become utterly impossible. To understand the condition of

the plebeian debtors, let the reader, if he is a man of business, ima­

gine that the whole of ihe private debts in a given country were

turned into bills at a year, bearing interest at twenty per .cent or

more; and that the non-payment of them were followed on sum­

mary process by imprisonment, and by the transfer of the debtor's

whole property to his creditor, even though it exceeded what he

owed. \Ve do not need those further circumstances which are

incompatible with our manners, the personal slavery of the debtor

and of his children, to form an estimate of the fearful condition of

the unfortunate plebeiansn 2 ,

Their wretchedness was consummated by a ~ystem of base in­

justice. · The plebeians formed the whole infantry of the line : and

yet not only was all share in the conquered lands refused to them;

even the plunder, which a Roman soldier, unless it was given up

to him, had to deliver in upon oath, was often kept back from them:

not that it was employed for national purposes ; it went into the

common che3t of the patricians9 3 •

This picture of distress-not unlike the one placed before our

eyes by the misery of hundreds of thousands, who are now going

to \vreck and ruin in seaport towns where every fortune is broken

and all commerce is lost, and in manufacturing districts where work

is at a stand-deluded Dionysius; so that when the whole com­

monalty was driven into insurrection, he looked upon them as no­

thing else than a similar low starving multitude, to which idlers,

libertines, vagabonds, such as harboured ill will against their neigh­

bours, and such as were malcontents from temper or interest, at­

tached themselves 9 ~. The positiveness of this statement has had

1291 Livy v1. 14. Multiplici jam sorte exsoluta, mergentibus semper·

sortem usuris.

!J2 The practice of mortgaging landed property prevailed at Athens

even before the time of Solon, and subsisted along with that of pledging the

person, which was afterwards abolished. At Rome the state of things would

not admit of it : for it was equally inconsistent with the nature of the plebeian

property, and with the usufructuary possession of the patricians.

93 For p1wlicmn is poplicum, what belongs to the populiis. See above

note 1106. Hence the commonalty is incensed malignitate patrum pti mili­

tem prll!dafraudavere.-Qiticquid captum est vcndidit consul, ac redcgu in J11Lb­

licu1n. Livy 1i. .42. There are many other like passages.

!J4 Dionysius VI. 46.444

HISTORY OF ROME.

an imposing effect; and it has been entirely overlooked that Livy,

though no way partial to the plebs, and though he certainly had not

a clear insight into the nature of the several orders in early times,

still has not a word which, if rightly understood, can give even a

shadow of support to such an opinion.

A Greek writer indeed could hardly escape being deceived: in

the first place because his language, poorer and less exact in its

political terms than the Roman, had only the one word demus to

render both populus and plebs 1295 • Even in Aristotle's time· this

word had a variety of senses, and in democracies denoted the na·

tion and assembly of the people as opposed to the magistrates, in

oligarchies the commonalty; while popular usage employed it for

the needy and common folk. In the days of Augustus, many as

were the Greek cities and those that pretended to be so, there per·

haps was not one in which an oligarchy had kept its ground; and

democracies were rare: the Romans had every where introduced

timocracies : and under these, tl1ough the general assembly of the

citizens also bore the name of demus, yet at the same time it was

applied, and that too in a stricter sense, to those inhabitants who,

from not possessing the requisites for civic honours, were expressly

excluded by the law, or at all events in fact, from the senate and

from offices a~ common people. The civic plebs too, which-Dio­

nysius found at Rome in the eighth century, was undeniably a

demus of this sort; formed by the body of those who partook of

the largesses destined for the capital 90 ; and consisting mainly of

freedmen and semi-citizens. The respectable countrypeople and

municipals 97 were completely separate from it: still higher stood the

knights, many thousands in number ::at top of all the noblesse which

had coalesced with the remains of the patricians.

That all these nevertheless were plebeians in a constitutional point

of view,-that the whole.Roman nation was so, except the fifty pa­

trician houses which were ·still preserved 98 , and the patrician fami­

lies newly incorporated by Julius Cresar and Augustus,-this was

certainly known to Dionysius. In his later books too he cannot

1295 TI6>-i~ and n-oAi1a.1 may in earlier times have been equivalent to popu­

lus, nay the former may perhaps be the same word: this definite meaning

however it did not retain.

·

96 As the plebs urbana is opposed to the thirty-five tribes.

97 The Romani rustici.

98 See p. 251, note 833. I remind the reader of Capito's definition

quoted above in note 821. Gaius 1. 3. Piebis appellatione sine patriciis ceteri

cives &ignificantur.HISTORY OF ROME.

445

possibly have ranked the leading plebeians, after the consulate was

placed within their reach, among the common people: how could

he forget however his having related but a couple of pages before

the description just referred to, that Valerius had enrolled four

hundred plebeians among the knights on account of theirwealth12001

One might indeed imagine that the idea of that equestrian middle

class, which occupied the interval between the senate and the people,

was floating before his mind: but such an idea in this place must

have vanished again the moment he tried to fix it.

If a fore.igner, having heard of the misery of the Irish peasant,

that he farms the land, which was the freehold of his ancestors, at

a. rack-rent, the unprotected and forsaken client of greedy or neg­

ligent patrons, should be led by this to look upon all the Irish

Catholics as paupers and beggars, he could not but be exceedingly

surprised if told, that they claim a share .in the highest honours of

the state, and to be eligible into the lower house, when such eligi­

. bility both legally and in fact implies the possessjon of considerable

landed property. Unless he were informed that the wretched

peasantry are but a part of the whole class, which also comprises

members of the nobility and of the middle ranks, he would be just

as little able, as Dionysius was, to extricate himself from similar

confusion. But when we take a correct view of them, this very

body of the Irish Catholics may furnish our age with a perfect

parallel to the state of the plebs: they too, like the plebs, are a

commonalty ; the despair of the poor amongst them is the strongest

weapon of the upper ranks; and the indignities these arc exposed

to would be matter of indifference to their inferiors, unless they

were all forced into one body by the pressure of the laws. In one

point however there is an enormous difference·: the millions in

Ireland who are ready to stake their lives for the pretensions of

their superiors, would not, though the latter should gain their ends,

see a single one among their vague hopes of better times accom­

plished; whereas the lower plebeians were seeking for determinate

relief to their own actual wants. If England three generations ago

hacl granted .the full enjoyment of her civic rights in individual

cases, this would have disarmed the Catholics, and separated the

higher orders from the populace and the priests who agitate it: at

Rome similar measures would not have been availing to hinder

distress f10m breaking out in violence, which the poor man pro­

mised himself would release him from his debts and give him a

field of his own.

·

1299 Dionysius v1. 44.446

HISTORY OF ROME.

When an error has been firmly rooted for centuries, it can hardly

be superfluous to bring forward a variety of definite instances in

illustration of the truth. The Roman plebs, formed as it was by

the incorporating whole bodies of citizens and countrypeople,

might be compared to the Vaudese dependent on the city of Bern,

among whom the old Burgundian 11obles stood on the same footing

with the townsmen and the peasantry, as contrasted with the sove­

reign canton. Or if the reader be familiar with the history of Flo­

rence, let him imagine that the republic had united the inhabitants

of the whole distretto into a commonalty: in this the counts Guidi

and the castellans 1800 of Mugello, as opposed to the ruling estate,

would not by the principles of the law stand above the ,houses of

of Pistoja or Prato, nay, above the common citizen or yeoman from

the Val d' Arno: at the same time the former might notwithstand­

ing be equal, perhaps more than equal, to the Uberti and the other

proudest houses in the ruling city, even according to their own no­

tions of nobility. As in a later age the Mamilii, who traced their

pedigree from Ulysses and Circe, were admitted among the plebe­

ian citizens ; so there can be no question that the families of plebe­

ian knights in the earliest times were the nobility of the distretto;

that the first leaders of the plebs, the Licinii and Icilii, were no·way

inferior even in birth to the Quinctii and Postumii.

Hut it was not the splendour flowing from a few families of this

sort, that gave such respectability to the Roman plebs: it w~s their

essential character as a body of landholders, such as it is denoted

by their Quiritary property. The ancients universally esteemed

agriculture to be the proper business of the freeman, as w.ell as the

proper school of the soldier. The countryman, says Cato, has

the fewest evil thoughts. In him the old stock of the nation is pre­

served: while it changes in cities, where foreign merchants and

tradesmen Bettle, and the natives remove whithersoever gain lures

1

them. In every country where slavery prevails, freedmen seek

their maintenance by occupations of this kind, in which they not

unfrequently grow wealthy: thus among the ancients, as in after­

times, such trades were mostly in the hands of this class, and were

therefore thought disreputable to a citizen: hence the opinion that

admitting the artisans to full civic rights was a hazardous mea­

sure1, and would transform a nation's character. The ancients

1300 Cattane.i.

1 As a general principle they were excluded among the early Greeks.

Corinth forms an exception, which we know of; there may have been others

unknown to us; but at all events they were only exceptions.HISTORY OF ROME.

447

had no notion of a government carried on with dignity by guilds,

such as we see it in the history of the towns during the middle

ages : and yet even in them it is undeniable that the military spirit

sank, as the guilds gained the upper hand of the houses, and that

at last it became wholly extinct ; and with it fell the character and

the freedom of the towns. Even at this day the Italian peasants,

if proprietors, are an extremely honest and worthy race, and

infinitely preferable to the townspeople: agriculture is their nation's

true calling, as a sea life is that of the Greeks, and even of the

Neapolitans.

The Roman plebs in early ages consisted exclusively of land­

holders and field-labourers; and even if many of its members were

reduced to poverty and thus stripped of their estates, at least it con­

tained no one who earned his livelihood by any other employment;

by commerce any more than by handicrafts 130 ~. It was a duty of the

censorian office, and that too we may be assured even before it

was entrusted to a particular magistracy, to see that none but an

industrious husbandman kept his place in the tribe of his fathers: a

bad farme~ was erased from it; much more so then was he who

entirely deserted. his vocation 3 • Even the plebeians of the four

civic tribes must be deemed to have been landholders at the first:

on the one hand within the vast compass of the walls there was

room left at least for gardens and vineyards ; on the other hand the

country-citizens had houses and barns in the city.

It is true, Dionysius, who thus distinctly asserts that the plebe­

ians were prohibited from every employment unconnected with

husbandry, says in another place that Romulus assigned agricul­

ture, pasturage, and the various money-making trades to them as

their calling 4 • This however occurs in his description of the man­

ner in which the Roman people was pretended to have been origi­

ginally arranged by Uomulus as their founder; a description trans­

ferred from that of a Roman antiquarian :who understood his sub­

ject, and had represented the circumstances of those times when as

u,..,,..,

1302 OuJnl 6~iir 'P.,µ.e1.{.,, •.;,,.,

oun it"P'"'x.nv JZlor. ~X"' · Di­

onysius u. 25. The punishment can have consisted only in the censorian

brand, the striking out a person's name from his tribe, as was the case with

those who practised stage-playing: not that any peculiar disgrace was at­

tached to doing so, but because it was a civic trade. •

,

·

3 Gellius 1v. 12. Si quis agrum suum-indiligenter curabat-censores

rerarium faciebant.

4 ftl»f'J'lir, 1<or.l 1<'1"~Vo'l"pO~JlV, 1<1tl 'l"<t' XJHfUL'T07f0lOU' •rr<tS•irBit• 'l"t:t,Vor.~.

II. 9.448

HISTORY OF ROME.

yet the state consisted of none but patricians and clients : only the

Greek writer was led astray by the delusion that the clients and the

plebeians were the same body1ao 5 •

The source of this error was evidently, that even in the eighth

century a clientsl1ip was still subsisting, not only connecting the

freedmen among the above mentioned city plebs with their patrons,

but also many persons of good birth, who wanted wealth or favour­

able circumstances to aid them in their efforts to advance them­

selves, with a patron of their own choosing; and generally the citi­

zens of the municipal towns with the house to the protection of

which their native places had anciently entrusted themselves .. Now

this relation was no more like the ancient respectable clientship,

than the city plebs of those times was like the ancient respectable

commonalty: yet the same confusion, along with the subsequent

reception of the clients into the tribes by the decemvirs*, has in

one instance beguiled Livy into the notion that the individual ple­

beians were clients of the individual patricians 6 ; alt~ough else­

where he abounds in passages which place the difference of the two

classes, nay their counterposition, in the clearest light. And Dio­

nysius himself, deliberately as he entertained that fundamental

error, constantly makes the same distinction between them in his

running narrative, because the genuine expressions of the Annals

were there lying before him.

Similar accounts are followed by I~ivy, when he relates that on

occasion of a violent dispute between the two orders the common­

a1ty withdrew entirely from the election of consuls, and that it was

held by tne patricians and their clients alone7: · It is possible that

this may be a misrepresentation of an ~lection taken entirely away

from the centuries : if so, it arose from a recollection how the affair

was managed on a more recent occasion, when the plebs in despair

retired from the comitia•. Ile further relates, that before the trial

1305 II. 8. 'E1<«Afl Tou~

"E.AAHrtc ,;.,..,., J'Hf<OT11t0'5c.

T~ 1<«T<1.J'U1rTEf~ TU;\'..~ DAH,g1iou~, me I' i{,

n. 9. Detp«1<«T«e,;""'

<roic 1r«<rp1,./01c

'TOUC .!Hf<O'TIJ<ouc, t7l"17po{«c t1<<1.rr1'!' or <1.U'TO~ !,goUAl'TO r£µm 1rporr/«1HY•

* See the text to note 728, Vol. n.

6 VI. 18. Q.uot clientes circa singulos fuistis patronos.

7 II. 64. lrata plebs interesse consularibus comitiis noluit. Pe-r patres

clientesque patrum COf!sules creati : that is, by the curies, and by the centu­

ries without the plebs.

8 Because the Licinian law was about to be violated-plebis eo dolor

erupit ut tribunos-vociferantes relinquendum campum-mresta plebs seque­

retur. Consules, rel'icti a parte populi, per infrequentiam comitia nihilo seg­

nius perficiunt. Livy v11. 18.

'

·

i1

u,.,..IlISTORY OF ROJ'IE.

449 •

Qf Coriolanus the patricians, seeing that the whole plebs was infu­

riated, sent their clients round to dissuade the individual plebeian~,

Qr to intimid:ite them 1309 : that after the banishment of Creso Quine,

tius they appeared in the forum with a great b~n<l of clients, at open

war with the plebs 1 ~: that, when Ap. Her<lonius hall seized the

Capitol, the tribunes wanted to hold a council of the plebs, telling

them that the occupiers of the citadel were not strangers, but allies

and. clie~ts of the patricians, let in to terrify the commonalty into

taking the oath of military allegiancett: and he explains the pur­

port of the Publilian law to have been, that, the tribunes being

appointed by the tribes, the patricians should altogether lose the

power of getting their partisans elected by the votes of the clients 19 •

To the same effect Dionysius tells us that., when the plebs had

deserted the city, the patricians and their clients took up arms 13 :

he says it was proposed to the senate during the secession of the

plebs, and again when the plebeians refused to serve, and again

was decreed on a like occasion, that the patricians, should march

out along with their clients, and with such plebeians as would join

them 14 : he extols the plebeians, because during the famine and

the dissensioi1s instead of plundering the granaries and the market

1309 11. 35. Infensa erat coorta plebs-Tentata res est, ~i, dispositis cli­

entibus, absterrendo singulos-disjicere rem possent. Universi deinde pro•

cessere-precibus plebem exposcentes.

10 m. 14. Instructi paratique (juniores patrum) cum ingenti clientium

exercitu sic tribunos, ubi primum ~ubmoventes causam prrebuere, adorti aunt,

etc.

11 m.16. Tantus tribunos furor tenuit, ut-contenderent patriciorum

hospites clientesque-(Capitolium insedisse) :-concilium inde legi perferen·

dre habere.

12 n. 56. Rogationem tulit-ut plebeii magistratus. tributis comitiis

'fierent-res-qure patriciis omnem potestatem per clientium suffragia creandi

quos vellent tribunos auferret.

oi,.tloi; ti<:t.<T'1'0l 7l't>.:t.'1':t.1;­

13 vr. 47: 'Ap7l':t.11':t.V'1't; '1':t. 071'>.:t., ,,.;,,

,,..7,

7l':t.p•~on 8011'.

, ·

·

14 v1. G3: Aunl "'' X"'P"'f.<•V-i<:t.l T•u> 71'•>.:t.T:t.;;7l':t.n«c i7l':t.)'"'f"'Bot, ,..u

'1'0U JnµOTll<OU 'tO 7l'tpi6v. VII. 19: 'Ei< "'"'' 7l'<t'tp11<{1l!V ;e,>.onrtl 'tlVf> l<d.'tl•

0

i'P"~".,."'' a. µ11. Toi"; 71'•>-•mxic ""' ctu'tolc-0.,{)'oV "' d.71'0 ,,..11 Jnµou µipo> ,,..,.

t(T'Tpet7tuev.

x. 15: AiFroVc icp11 rroU, 7l'd!Tp1x.fovr; · id.U'T(AJV tT<»µt1.rr1 x.ttl 'J"QIF

uu1611'Tt.tn 1 ct.VTo'ir: 9TtAct'T(J)., 07r>..ltr!.Lµ~vour;, xa.l t;T, '4AAo ?rAM9oc iBsi>i.or./0"101 «ii·

'1'o1, <T11r«pwr11.1. x. 27: 'E"v µn .,,.,f9n't:t.I o Jiiµoc 'tov> '11'a.'l'p1 ..{ou; :,µ,,,<Tole

9Tthce.Tcur; x.~6o'7TAJ~ctµiyour;, T"'v T' a."'A'A{A}• ~ot..1rrwv 7r!.Lfd..A.ct~6vTr.1.r: o1r; M"v ix.oU­

.,.,., <T1JVt1,pa.<T8:t.1 'toli-a.j-QJVOC, x. 43. 'H ~011>.n ')-Vlllf.<HV a.?ttJtfZ:t.'1'0, 'tOu> 'lf':t.'I'•

put.lour:--fg1ll'tJ.l trUv rro"ir: E1utr(t)Y we>..et.TctJC', 'ta>Y ,r a."'AJ..(A)J sroJ..t'TCl>V trr/ic ~ou­

>-0µ,voic f""'xuv

<T'tf:t.Tei:t.e--00"111. 1Tv:t.1 '1':t. 1rp_o, 6106,,

.,)j,

I.-3

G

.450

IIISTORY OF ROME.

they ate grass and roots: and the patricians, because they did not

fall with their own forces and the great body of their clients on the

strengthless starving multitude, and slay them or drive them out of

the city 1815 ; and he relates, just as Livy does in one of the passages

quoted above, that the patricians appeared in the forum with their

clients, in order to prevent the cpuncil of the plebs from assembling,

or to disperse it by force 1 fl.

These express and numerous testimonies have been overlooked

on account cf a statement which is palpably erroneous. Yet surely

many must have been struck by them as perplexing; and without

doubt so were the historians themselves. But when they wrote

the only real division of the citizens was into the rich and the poor:

the needy, however noble their lineage might be, had to court a

protector ; and he that had his million, even though he were a

freedman, was courted as a protector. As to a ~elation of heredi­

tary dependence, they could hardly find any traces of such: their

readers, since the revival of philology, have known of nothing of·

the kind; and thus it was impossible for them to form any other

conception of tlie plebs, thnn that, as opposed to the nobility, it

was a body of town-citizens, among whom the nobles had adherents

and de];!endents under the name of clients,' a relation however

merely springing out of personal wants and terminating with them.

Nevertheless, though there was no contemporary example to

throw light on the obscurity of the ancient term, the descriptions of

the nature of the clientship might still have been sufficient to show

that the plebs, such as it appears in history, must essentially and

necessarily have been far removed from any relation of the kind.

'Vould not the maltreatment and oppression endured by the com­

monalty have been incredible in a state of clientship? when the

patrc~ was directed to protect his clients, and to promote their wel­

. 1315 vu. 18: T~ '1"' .ix.al~ tuv11.µu x.11.l it~ 71'11.p<L '1""'' ?ril..et'l""'V 71'0;>,.;>,.~ oiio-~.

In this story the estates appear mostly as the rich and poor, 71';>,.ouo-101 and

71'tYnTW owing to the historian's perverted notion of the demus: still he often

expressly mentions the patricians and the tnµo71x.01, witli tile tribunes at their

head.

16 IX. 41: Ka.S' h11.1pel11.c-,,."µ<1. '?"Ole i11.u'?"Q>Y 71'IAIJ.'1"<tlc, OVI< o;>,.l,,oic oio-1,

,,-o;>,.;>,.<t µipn 'l"'iic «/'•p11.c x.«'1"•7;tov. x. 40: A decree of the plebs is to be stopped

by force, o«r µti ,,-;16000-1 '?"OV ,J'Y,µov. The patricians are to come betimes into

the forum, d.'µ<1. '1"•7c h11.lposc '1"1 x.11.I 71't1'.1J.'1"11.1C, and to scatter themselves about

Ho as to separate. the tnµo'1"1x.6v.

Now when o t'iiµoc <t71'il'1"11 1o~c -.}il<Pour­

t1lo-711.11S11.1 ~•uMµivoic u7<t <PU~<tC 7o'ic tnµ6711.1c <µ71'ot"'' t/'ivov7o. 41. To the

same effect is the proposition of M. Valerius in vu. 54.HISTORY OF ROME.

451

fare, even against his own nearest kin. Could the clients ever

have been in want of any other protection than that of their patrons?

could they have needed that of the tribunes against any· one what­

ever? And how could decrees have been passed in the assemblies,

as they were afterward, adverse to the interests of the patricians,

when these were the concern of every individual patron? Their

clients, if they had thus injured them, would have become outlaws.

The surprising thing is, not that the clients were a totally differ­

ent body from the plebeians; not that, as follows from what Livy

says about the consequences of the Publilian law, they were not

included in the tribes ; but rather his express testimony that they

had votes in the comitia of the centuries, even before the decem­

virate1317. But for this, we should look upon them as sojourners,

like those in Greece, destitute of all political rights; and who could

not even maintain their civil rights, except in the person of their

patron and sponsor: but there is no force in analogy, when opposed

to such a direct assertion. Only this certainly docs not compel us

to assume that all the clients were rerarian citizens, and that no

part of them were metics in the Greek sense; although I apprehend

that no mention of any such is to be found. · It is surely incredible

that Rome threw open even her lowest franchise so wide, that every

foreigner on attaching himself to a patron might acquire it: what

then would have been the advantage of the isopolites? and just as

little can we suppose that foreigners, before a prretor for them was

established 18 , could come into court in their own persons 10 • Such

foreigners settled at Rome were complete mctics; and I conjecture

that a part of the freedmen were in a similar condition. It looks

so very unlike the early ages, that there should have been two

forms for the selfsame purpose, and the distinction between them

might so easily be lost, that I cannot persuade ,myself that a slave

1317 Because the transfer of the election to the tribes was to destroy the

influence which the patricians exercised through the suffragia clicntium: see

note i312.

18 This measure was a political change of the highest importance.

What led to it was not the too great pressure of the prrntor's business,-to

which for example the institution of the vice-chancellor's office in England

has been owing,-but the alarm excited by the clients of the gTandees, with

whose patronage the members of the Italian confedG!acy might now dispense.

The patron who came forward was the mask without which the client was

not allowed to appear.

,

19 Hence, long aft.er the clientship in its genuine form had ceased to

exist, the person who came before the court in any particular case was called

patroruu.452

IIISTORY OF ROME.

who was set free by the vindicta, gained the same degrne of free­

dom as one by the census 1320 • By being registered in the census the

Italians might a?:quire the franchise of citizens: but a person who

was to have the same power as they had of exercising this great

privilege, must surely have been free already: this, and no more,

I conceive, did the slave become by the vindicta: and even by the

census, before the censorship of Appius the Blind, he merely ob­

tained the rights of an rerarian 21 • In. both stages, as merely free

and as a Roman citizen, he was still a client of the master who had

released him : in the former he would only have the rights of a

me tic.

Freedmen and their posterity probably made up the largest part

of the clients; and among these the race of' the original ones, such

as they were in the time of Romulus, would in great part be merged.

Among the metics and rerarians were the artisans; and if a plebeian

gave up husbandry, he sank .to the franchise to which these were

confined. They too were not without the honour of having cor­

porations sanctioned by law; and their guilds were in such high

estimation that Numa was said to haYe been their founder. There

were nine of them; pipers, goldsmiths, carpenters, dyers, curriers,

tanners, coppersmiths, potters, and a ninth guild common to the

other trades 2 ~. This part of the state never received that full devel­

opment, which as the guilds were connected with the centuries by

means of the carpenters, the trumpeters, and the hornblowers, in the

same way as the patricians were by the six suJTragia, was no doubt

designed for it.

Those among them who were independent pale-burghers,-iso­

polites who had not bound themselves to any patron (if such a class

existed), and the descendants of clients whose ties had dropt off on

the house of their patrons becoming extinct-were unquestionably

as entire strangers to the ~issensions between the ancient burghers

and the commonalty, as the members of the Florentine guilds were

to the feuds among the houses of Guelphs and Ghibellines. As to

the clients, it is likely that the whole body were still subject to the

orders of the patricians.

1320 Both these rights are traced back to the oldest times, only it is by

personifications : the former to the release of the slave who disclosed the

conspiracy of the Tarquins; the latter to Servi us Tullius. This doubtless

was the sole reason why his memory was. especially venerated by slaves:

though that circumstance was made use of to confirm tlie fable of his birth,

and was referred to his name.

·

21 Plutarch Publicol. c. 7.

22 Plutarch Numa. c. 17. Again three times three.-How remarkable

is the co_ntrast with the ancient and great guilds at Florence!THE SECESSION OF THE

CO~IMONALTY,

AND THE TRIBUNES OF THE PEOPLE.

IN this divided state of the nation the preponderance of numbers

may not have been so entirely on the side of the plebeians, as will

probably be supposed by every one) even by such as have thoroughly

got rid of the delusive notion that the patricians of those ages are ta

be regarded as a noblesse; a class which in fact was to be found

within both the estates. Had the superiority of the plebeians been

so great as to leave no doubt that the issue of a contest with arms,

since matters had unhappily gone so far, would be in their favour,

they would never have contented themselves with a compact merely

giving them back a part of the rights they had been robbed of. And

yet the commonalty, if it stood together as one man, was evidently

so strong, that their opponents betrayed the uttermost infatuation,

when, instead of endeavouring to separate the various classes which

composed it, they on the contrary wronged and outraged them all

nt once; the noble and rich, by withholding public offices from them;

such of the gentry as without personal ambition were attached as

honest men to the well being of their class, by destroying its com­

mon rights and privileges; the personal honour of both, by the in­

dignities to which· such as stood nearest. to the ruling party were the

most frequently exposed, and by which men of good birth are the

most keenly wounded; every one who wanted to borrow money,

and all the indigent, by the abominable system of pledging the

person and of slavery .for debt; in fine high and low, by excluding

them from the public domains, where many, who had been stripped

of their property by the loss of the territory beyond the Tiber, might

have found a home. The Valerian laws may not have been re­

pealed; .the twenty tribunes, such as they then were, may have

had the right, when a person was condemned to servile corporal

punishments, of snatching him from. the gaoler, and bringing him454

HISTORY OF ROME.

before the court of the commonalty, which, as it surely could not

assemble pellmell, they themselves were to summon: but woe to

him who durst do so against Appius Claudius !

When he and P. Servilius were consuls, in the year 259, a spark

set fire to the inflammable matter which had thus been accumulated.

An old man, who had escaped from his creditor's prison, in squalid

rags, pale and famishing, with haggard beard and hair, implored in

agony the help of the Quirites. A crowd gathered round him: he

showed them the bloody marks of his inhuman treatment: he told

them that, after he had fought in eight and twenty battles 1323 , his

house and farm-yard had been plundered and burned by the enemy;

the famine during the Etruscan war had compelled him to sell his

all 24 ; he had been forced to borrow ;· his debt through usury ha<l

run up to many times its original amount: whereupon his creditor

had obtained judgment against him and his two sons, and had laid

them in chains. Disfigured as his features were, many recognized

him to be a brave captain; compassion, indignation, spread an

uproar through the whole city: all who were pledged, and all who

had redeemed their pledges, flocked together; and all were clamor-.

ous for relief of the general distress.

The senate knew not how to act. · The people spurned at the

summons to enlist in the legions, which, with a view of diverting

the storm, were to be levied against the Volscians : these and the

Sabines are mentioned as the nations Rome was then at war with ;

for with the Eutruscans and Latins she was at peace. Compulsion

was impossible : but when P. Servilius issued a proclamation, that

none who was in slavery for debt, should be hindered if he were

willing to serve ; and that, so long as a soldier was under arms, his

children should remain at liberty untouched and in possession of

their father's property 25 ; then all who were pledged took the mili­

tary oath. After a few days the consul, at the head of a victorious

army; rich in glory and booty, the conqueror of the Volscians or

Auruncians and of the Sabines, marched back. to Rome. But the

1323 Dionysius vi. 26. This looks very like history; and yet is nothing

more than another way of dressing up what Dionysius says in the preceding

clause, that he had served all his campaigns. .See above p. 341.

24 I suspect that in the original representation he belonged to one of the

ten lost tribes. The whole story reminds us and is a mere repetition of the

one about the old soldier whom M. Manlius releases. Livy VI. 14.

25 This again seems to be nothing more or less than an adcount in a

historical form of the origin of the justitium, which most probably produced

this very effect.. IIISTORY OF ROME.

455

commonalty was bitterly deceived in its hopes that its oppression

might be alleviated.

A great deal was said in the Annals of the way in which Appius

Claudius from the beginning of the disturbances opposed every

measure of humane and wise forbearance, an<l throughout their

whole continuance persisted in the same obstinacy: probably this

came from the family commentaries of the Claudii, who, priding

themselves on their hatred of the people as the Valerii did on their

hereditary love of the people, pourtrayed their ancestor with the

characteristic features of their house; not that any historical accounts

of him ha<l been preserved. That house <luring the course of cen­

turies produced several very considerable, few great men; hardly,

clown to the time when it became extinct, a single noble minded

one : in all ages it distinguished itself alike by a spirit of haughty

defiance, by disdain for the laws, and by iron hardness of heart:

they were tyrants .. by nature, and now and then dangerous dema­

11:ogues : Tiberius was not more odious than the earlier Claudii.

Their character is visible in the story that such as had been .slaves

for debt were sent back to their prisons by Appius Claudius on their

return from the field, and that such as were pledged were consigned

by him without mercy to their creditors. But these sentences

could not be executed; for the pleb~ians were in open insurrection;

they protected all who wer~ condemned: and the usurers who had

obtained those detested judgments, the young patricians who in

their zeal were lending a helping hand to the officers of the court,

could hardly save themselves from their fury. Thus the year

passed away 18" 6•

The next year, when the military season arrived, the consuls,

A. Virginius and T. Vetusius, found it impossible to raise legions.

The commonalty, assembling by night and secretly in the quarters

inhabited exclusively by the plebeians, on the Aventine and the Es­

quiline, was immovable in its determination not to supply any soldiers;

and the intreaties for lenity which they had begun with, now grew

i.nto a demand that all debts should be cancelled. The ferment was

1326 During this consulship it is said that the temple of Mercury was

dedicated, an event connected with the institution of a guild of merchants;

and that on this occasion an inspector of the corn trade was first appointed by

the people: this magistracy was probably renewed every year, until the busi­

ness was transferred to the rediles, who at first had nothing to do with it. If

the election rested with the populus, as Livy tells us (n. 27), it is hard to

understand how n centurion, M. Lretorius, that is, a plebeian, should be the

first person who hel.d this office.456

IIISTORY OF ROME.

so violent, that the more mildly disposed among the patricians

recommended the purchase of peace, even at this price : others

trusted it would subside on the restoration of their liberty and pro­

perty to those who in the hope of regaining them had marched the

year before against the enemy. Appius insisted on severity: the

beggars, he said, are still too well off; their insolence ought to be

quelled: a dictator will soon do it. His friends would have placed

him in this office: but the milder 132 7 party prevailed in the election:

and the measure by which i.ts proposer intended to dare every thing

and risk every thing, became the means of a reconciliation by the

appointment of Marcus Valerius 28 • Dy a proclamation like the

one Servilius had issued he engaged the plebeians to enlist: for

they trusted in the power of the dictatorship, and in the word of a

Valerius. Ten legions were raised 29 , and three armies sent, against

the Sabines, the ~quians, and the Volscians: every where the

Romans were favoured by victory, more rapid and more brilliant

than the senate ;vished it 30 • The dictator was rewarded with dis­

tinguished honoui·s, but not with the release of the debtors from

slavery, which, true to his word, he demanded. Thereupon he

laid down his office, the power of which would have been a dan­

gerous temptation to put down. the scandalous abuse of a formal

right with a strong hand: the plebeians themselves owned that he

could not do more to keep his faith, and full of gratitude conducted

him from the Forum to his house.

The dictator's army, of four legions, had been disbanded after his·

1327 The Harten and the Linden were the names of the parties in Appen­

zell during the last century.

28 Marcus he is called by Cicero, Zonaras, Livy; that is, by his manu­

scripts, in unison with Orosius: Manius by Dionysius and the Triumphal Fasti.

Yet even in Dionysius, who places the beginning of the dissensions some

years further back, tile Valerius who at that time is well affected toward the

poor, and who assuredly was meant for, the dictator, is named Marcus. v. 64.

1 have already explained the corruption, above p. 410, n. 1198, 1199. Sigo­

nius altered the text in Livy, supporting himself by the authority of those

who in earlier times had 'allowed themselves to garble the truth for the sake

of getting rid of contradictions: in this way Livy has been disfigured. Who­

ever does not distrust the completeness of the Fasti, must prefer Marcus,

were it oniy becl),use he had been consul: which no Manius had.

29 Here there is the most glaring exaggeration : at the Allia the Ro­

mans had only four regular legions.

·

30 In speaking of this war the two historians invert the usual proportion

between their narratives : the copious one in Livy infers that in the old rep­

resentations the exploits of the plebs, and consequently the unworthy conduct

Qf their rulers, were set in a prominent lightHISTORY OF ROME.

457

triumph: but those of the consuls were still in the field 1381 : under

the pretext that a renewal of hostilities was impending, they were

commanded to remain under arms. Hereupon the insurrection

broke out. The army appointed L. Sicinius Bellutus its leader,

crossed the Anio, and occupied a strong camp on the Sacred Mount,

in the Crustumine district 39 • The consuls and the patricians re­

turned to Rome without injury or insult.

Many of the narratives in the earliest history· of Rome betray

their fabulous nature by the contradictions and impossibilities they

involve: there are none such in the account of the first secession,

as given by Livy, and much more fully by Dionysius: nor can we

pronounce it to be quite impossible that a recollection of the various

parties which divided the senate, and of their spokesmen, should

be preserved; although unquestionably there were no traces of it

· in the oldest Annals. And yet the internal connexion here merely

proves the intelligence of the annalist who drew up the story now

adopted : as is clear from the irreconcilable contradictions between

it and other stories, which at one time were no less in vogue.

Cicero, who every where follows totally different Annals from

1331 Although the words of Dionysius--roic inra1roic t7TiTtt~• ,,..,;,,.,. i..6t1r

rrTpttTtiff<<LT<t: v1, 45-ileem distinctly to express as much, yet elsewhere

he follows an account by which the insurgents were only one of the con­

sular armies. Thi11 in those days is said to have contained three legions:

and when the tribune Brutus asserts that the emigrants were more than

thrice as numerous as the Alban colony of Romulus (vi. 80), this is be­

cause every legion at the time, the tribes being twenty, had five cohorts and

3000 men, which is the number assigned to the Romulean colony: and Dio­

nysius fancied that the seceders had been strengthened by new-corners from

the .city. So that in the pa~sage-'T<»V i'"P i1p01r TIJ.)'f'"T<»V h1 '"'P"' ~. (n

fowi..•) VI. 45-which is certainly corrupt, we ought probably to substitute

'l'p1<»•· Livy's account too, that the dictator brought forward his proposition in

the senate after the return of the consul Vetusius, implies that only the three

legions of the other consul were still in the field. It is true that on another

occasion Dionysius imagined there were six legions: for this is all he means,

when he makes Appius say that the emigrants were not so much as a seventh

part of the 130,000 Romans in the census (v1. 63); in other words, did not

amount to 18,600. That is to say, six legions on the above mentioned scale

consist of 18,000 foot-soldiers: the cavalry, according to the views taken by

Dionysius, are entirely left out of the account. This statement for a long

time rather dazzled than deceived me by its delusive historical look: it is

worth while to observe how this too, when critically examined, disappears .

.32 Hence this secession was also called the Crustwnerine. Varro de

L. L. 1v. 14. p. 24. The Sacred Mount had its name from being consecrated

to Jupiter by the plebeians when they were leaving their camp. Festus v.

Sacer Mons. Cicero Fragm. pro Corn.

·

'l'tt.

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11458

HISTORY OF ROME.

Livy, speaks of the negotiation of the dictator M. Valerius with

the seceders, as of an undoubted fact; and attributes the glory of

having effected the peace to him: for which reason, and not for

any victories, the surname of Maximus and the most splendid hon­

ours had been bestowed on him 1333 • A fragment of the same story

is discernible in what Livy himself mentions in a passage far re­

moved from the history of these times; namely, that the nail was

once driven in by a dictator during the secession of the commonal­

ty34: for at the second secession no dictator could be appointed. The

variations as· to the number and names of the first tribunes of the

people will be noticed further down. Lastly all the Annals were

not agreed even on the point that the army took its station quietly

on the Sacred Mount, and obtained its end without violence. Piso,

as Livy tells us, wrote that the plebs occupied the Aventine: Cicero

says, first the Sacred Mount, then the Aventine 35 : so does Sal­

lust38: and when Cicero makes the enemy of the tribunate assert

that it originated during a civil war, while the strong posts of the

city were seized and held by armed men 8 7, he refers to the same

story. Piso himself perhaps did not deny the encampment on the

Sacred Mount. Indeed it is utterly inconceivable that the com­

monalty should not have placed some troops to maintain its strong

quarters· in the city; as else the women and the helpless must have

fled, or would have been seized as hostages: nor is it improbable

that their doing so gave rise to the story of the meetings on the

Aventine and the Esquiline before the insurrection. To these hills

then such plebeian3 as dwelt scattered about the city retreated:· on

the Sacred :Mount the legions encamped, and may have been joined

by volunteers from the country round : here were the leaders, and

here the treaty was negotiated.

Nor would the patricians have been able to keep this army out

of the city, where the gates of the plebeian hills stood open to it:

1333 Brutus. 14 (54). Videmus-cum plebes-montem, qui Sacer appel­

latus est, occupavisset, M. Valerium dictatorem dicendo sedavisse discordias

etc.

34 vm. 18. Memoria-repetita, in secessionibus quondam plebis cla­

vum ab dictatore fix um. This seems to be founded on the historical fact that

the consular year expired before the election of the new magistrates, and that

Valerius was dictator in the middle of Septemher.

35 De Re p. 11. 33 .

. 36 Fragm. Hist. 1. p. !)35. Plebes-armata montem Sacrum atque

Aventinum insedit.

37 De Legib. 111. 8 (lD.) In~r arma civium, et oecupatis et obsessis

urbis locis procreatum.HISTORY OF ROME.

459

but every one of the seven was a for.t 1338 ; an<l thus the Palatine,

Quirinal, and Crelian were no less <lefcnsible than the Capitol.

These then were occupied by arme<l men, just as the Aventine was

by the opposite party· an<l matters might have come, even•without

reaching the same pitch of violence .as at Florence, to battles in the

heart of the city; in the Forum, the Ve!abrum, the Subura. As

the plebeians were far from being that common populace which

makes up much the largest part of the inhabitants of most towns,

so Rome too was far from empty: on the contrary thousands beyond

doubt had come in from the country, where we cannot suppose

that the patricians and their clients would be able to maintain their

ground.,

That the patrician houses coul<l muster ·thousands capable of

bearing arms, may be inferred from the example of the great Ger­

man and Italian cities, out of which the burghers could send fifteen

hundred cavaliers, and m~re, completely arme<l into the fiel<l. The

descendants of those who· at one time formed the whole Roman

nation, must still have been a larg-e body: and the general fact that

the members of the houses were very numerous, is one on which

such tradit~ons as give any statements bearing upon it speak Clearly

enough. Not that I would consider it as a historical assertion, that

the Potitii about the year 440 counted twelve families and thirty

grown up men'*; numbers of this sort occ11rring in the narratives

from the priestly books are just as much matter of form as the

well-known names in the law books: and as to the three hundred

Fabii, they stand on no surer ground than the three hundred thou­

sand barbarians under l\lardonius: or their wives and children are

included. Still less will the story of their four thousand clients,

and the five .thousand of the Claudian house, authorise us to draw

any histori~al conclusion as to the number of dependents the patri­

cians had under their or<lers. Yet a general acquaintance with the

state of things might enable the annalists to relate without danger

of error, though without any definite traditions, that the patricians

and their clients took up arms immediately after the secession, and

that the headstrong adversaries of peace were so utterly infatuated

as to dream that they were powerful enough to conten<l at once

with. the commonalty and with foreign enemies 39 • But with the

1338 Septemque una sibi muro circumdedit arces. Dionysius often speaks

of the strong posts in the city, '1'11. apuf<V<L .,.;;, 9J"DM.,r.

* Livy xx. 2lJ. ·

39 Two of the leading passages from Diony•ius-vJ. 47 and 63-ha.ve

been inserted above in notes 1313, 1314.460

HISTORY OF ROME.

same correctness they added, that the clients were artisans and

tradesmen 1340 ; a multitude which sent no soldiers to the legions, and

which, being unused to arms, could not make head in the field

against a peasantry inured to war.

This partition of its forces saved Rome. There was no ground

for dreading a massacre like that at Corcyra ; for the nation was

not split into a few hundred rich men of rank on the one side, and

thousands of proletarians standing in direct opposition to them,

whose victory could not have been doubtful for an instant when

once they should rebel. If hunger did not reduce the patricians,

the attempt to force their quarters would have cost torrents of

blood, and the result must at least have been uncertain: the victors

too, standing amid the ruins, between two conquering nations, the

Etruscans and the Volscians, would not long have had to exult in their

unblest triumph. If the quarrel however had been prolonged

after the appeal to arms, the patricians, po>:sessing the incalculable

advantage of being the government, would perhaps have had time

and means to sow divisionamong their opponents, and certainly

to strengthen themselves by alliances. The annalist, from wl10m

Dionysius took the advice he put into the speech of Appius, that

instead of the insurgents the citizens of the colonies should be in·

vited to receive the rights of the plebeians 41 , and that the isopolite

franchise should be conferred on the Latins, had formed an admi·

rable conception of the ancient state of things, or had weighed the

laws and documents preserved from that time with a perfect know­

ledge of their spirit. The explanation of the Latin confederacy

must be postponed to the next volume, in order that the bulk of

the present may not swell out of all proportion: however, this be·

ing necessary, I will here introduce the remark, that the treaty with

the Latins, which recognised their equality as a state, was made in

the year of the secession: and if an inference from the end to the

means be any where allowable, there cannot be a question that it

was aimed against the plebs, and that the conclusion of peace was

decided by it*.

Livy's good sense taught him that this distracte~ state of the na·

1340 eii.,.ac, ,.,.) 'lrt>.c0T<t1, ,.,.) ;tupJv«xTte. Dionysius VI. 51. The vul­

gus forense-opificum-sellulariorum.

41 VI. 63. Toil, ix 71111 <ppoupl1111 µtT«'lrtp.,,.,;,µ19«, ,.,.) 7otl, ir 7«i,

.;.,,..,,.;,," iv«x«hfYJµo. These ii.re the Romulean colonies which had the Cre­

rite franchise : the colonists, that is, those of the .ruling tribe, he calls <1>poup:&:

u. 53. See also vn. 53.

* See the text to note 20, Vol. n.HISTORY OF ROME.

461

tion cannot have lasted many days: the Volscians and .£quians

would not have been motionless spectators, waiting to take up arms

or to sustain an attack until the Romans were reconciled and ready

for war. The notion of Dionysius that four months passed in this

way, may be easily shown to rest on a deduction which is good for

nothing1 340 • I do not indeed set much value on the story that the

seceders neither destroyed nor ravaged any thing on the estates of

their enemies, and merely took the bread necessary for their susle•

nance : it belongs to the legends of the marvels wrought of yore by

virtues no longer to be found: but when extended to such a period

it becomes a monstrous exaggeration. If howevE>r the open war

belween the two estates was but short, it is conceivable that the

commanders had wisdom and influence enough to restrain their fol­

lowers from acts of violence, which would have obstructed a recon­

ciliation;

The election of the new consuls was carried on by the populus:

because the centuries, in the absence of the commonalty, could not

be assembled. , The right of a free choice among the candidates

for the office had only been secured by the Valerian law to the

regular comitia ; the curies were restricted to voting on resolutions

of the ~enate: and from the same reasons for which none but con-

sulars were to be eligible to the dictatorship, those who were pro­

posed on this occa<:ion were men who having before been freely

elected had borne the consulate with honour 1843 • But though the

design even then without doubt was to maintain this advantage, the

. legal mode of election must have been re-established after the peace;

and it was not till several years after that under more favourable

circumstances a more decided attempt at this usurpation could be

hazarded, when for a time it was successful.

1342 It was assumed that the first tribunes were clwsen on the twelfth of

December (Dionysius VI. 80), which however can only have been the day of

election at the restoration of the office ailer the decemvirate, and thencefor­

ward. This was combined with the breaking out of the insurrection under

the consulship of Virginius and Vetusius, and also, it may be conjectured,

with the dictatorship of M. Valerius on the ides of September.

43 Dionysius VI._ 49. 'o ,, ,.,...,, '7r11J'il 11'apli1 0 xpor•• •., ,; "'"'

rif X"' i:>r1.,upoiir (auctores ficri) Utt, O'ure;..Bon•• ti, ,,.cl ?rtJ'1or (this is his

usual error by which to the comitia of the plebs . in the forurq he opposes

those of the centuries in the campus as an aristocra.tical assembly, instead of

the council of the curies), oiiJ'tro• ou'Tt "'"''""'•' .. ~, ~,,..,.,,;.,,, ouTe J'1J'o,,.<rn

,.;,..oµhorii-Gc A«.~1"ir, «~T<Jc ti1l'Gi.lxrrnr" ~W&'fouc fx. TotV ~J'J tb.11,0'Ta.r ... ~.

dp:tilr 'T<trl•rnr. In ID}' account I have translated this back again into that

which Dionysius read without understanding it, and which was an unequivo­

cal tradition from extremely accurate and authentic notices. ·462

HISTORY OF ROME.

Thus much may be considered as historical, that. the proposal

for an arrangement procee<led from the patricians. Their great

council1 3 a empowered the senate to nPgotiate ; and the latter sent

the ten chiefs• 5 of its bo<ly on an embassy to the commonalty as to

a victorious foe. The compact between the two estates-for the

ambiguous word patres must here be referred, as it must generally

in Livy's earlier books, to the patricians, not to the senate-was

confirmed by a solemn treaty concluded by the fecials over the

body of a victim ; and all the Rornans swore to observe it.

The ·terms of this act are very different from what one should

look for, when the state of affairs was such, that the destruction of

the patricians, although it would certainly have entailed that of the

state, still appeared to be the more probable issue of the civil war.

Being reduced to choose between present sacrifices to be made by

individuals, and permanent ones by the order, the leaders of the

senate decided with signal aristocratical wisdom: and as they had

contrived to gain the Latins by entering into a confederacy with

them, with like policy they detached ,the cause of the multitude

from the interests of the men of rank in the second estate, who,

when deserted by the lower orders, becamp powerless. The plebs

neither gained the consulate, nor any other honours•e: the rights

1344 This assembly-the mention of which shows how carefully the An­

nals here copied the books of the augurs and pontiffs in representing the

whole procedure according to the forms of the constitution-reduces Dionysius

(v1. 67) to great straits; because he cannot concpive any ecclesia except that

of the demus. It was the assembly however which by the original constitu­

tion had to decide in questions of peace and war (vi. 66), consequently that

of the curies. How indeed should the senate have had the power of surren­

dering the rights of the estate by its own authority? To suppose that it was

a plebeian assembly is altogether absurd, as in fact the sagacious writer very

clearly perceives. Nor can it even be the mixed one of the centuries; for this

could only collect on the field of Mars, whereas here the Vulcanal ('ro itpor

'tou 'Hq>ottuTov) is expressly mentioned as the place of meeting. That temple

lay above the Comitium (the passages to prove this are collected by Nardini,

1. p. 272; who however mistakes the Comitium and its locality) on the lower

edge of the Palatine, and was considered a part of the Comitium, the very

place where the patricians held their assemblies. Seep. 413, note 1205.

45 The list of their names in Dionysius (v1. 69) is very probably au­

thentic: and that these ten were.. the deum primi is proved by the words just

before, oi t1Tlq>a.vtuT<t.'To1 'T,.V 7rp•u~u'Tepoev, that is, of the gentes majores, and by

the passage quoted above in note 784. Ev!m though they were not clearly

aware of this, the editors ought not to have filled up the list by inserting the

name of Sp. Nautius, of whom Dionysius had just said expressly that he was

the first among the 1to1.

46 Were there not reason to 1mspect that every story, which redoundsHl8TORY 01.<' ROME.

403

of the patricians were not altered ; all ihat was done was to give

force to the Valerian laws. On the other hand, although Livy says

nothing of any stipulations in behalf of the debtors, yet, as their dis­

tress was the source of the commotion, and the insurgents could

not yield on this point without abandoning themselves, we cannot

hesitate to believe the account in Dionysius, that all the contracts

·Of the insolvent debtors were cancelled, and that all who had in­

curred slavery by forfeiting their pledges or not paying their fines,

recovered their freedom 134 7,

But here too the sacrifice made was only for tlie moment; for .

the patricians managed to prevent any change in the law of debt.

Without doubt its abolition was demanded: and if Agrippa's pur­

pose was to convince the plebeians that they themselves could not

dispense with money dealings, nor consequently with severe laws

to protect them, we discern the bearings of his fable, which cannot

possibly be made applicable to the political stale of things. The

belly was the type of the capitalists*: in their capacity of govern­

ors the patricians would have been entitled to a less ignoble

symbol.

•

With regard to the cancelling the debts Cicero pronounces, that

there was certainly some reason in the measures taken by states­

men of old to relieve the general distress brought on by the excess­

ive pressure of debts, as had been done even by Solon, and several

times by the Romans 48 • Ten years after indeed he thought

otherwise, and peremptorily condemned all such violent extremi­

ties4o: for in the interval he had been the witness of ruinous acts

to the honour of a Valerius, is apocryphal and derived from Antias, it might

look as if the admission of four hundred rich plebeians into the equestrian

order, attributed to the dictator M. Valerius (Dionysius vi. 44), ought to be

referred to the treaty between the estates; and to be regarded as a politic

device for separating the leading plebeian notables from the rest of their

order.

1347 Dionysius VI. 83. What is found in Zonaras, vu. 14, amounts to

the same thing; and they are supported by Cicero's whole view of these

events, as to the necessity of violating the letter of the law. De Re p. n. 34.

* This is the way Dion seems to have understood it. Too7m 1o'i>

,..Oi'o" 70 ?rhH'Boc O'"t1vH1uv, 6ic' r.i.i 711lY einr0pf.lv oiurf~.tJ &~I 101c ?TQVH'1'JV. ticdr tic

.;.qi1Mi:tv, ,..,) ti l<ti1wvo1 riqis;.oiv1o £,. l<tVi10'p.tt1,,,v, ou" •i> P.>.ttP•• 1o'ii1o 7,,,,

71"0>.Mor .;.,,..pttlvtt, .;, ,; -r• ,,.~ ix,om oi 71">.ou1ovv1•>, Gut.' oi .,,.;,.7,, ,;, ;,

""'Poi> .i.v"''i'":t{;,, ttourJ'I 1ou, ttt11i..ov7<t>, ""'l .. d71"o>.oliv7:1.1. Zonaras vu. 14.

48 Several times unquestionably; and in Cicero's youth by the law of

L. Valerius Flaccus, a patrician~ So greatly were circumstances changed.

49 De Offic. 11. 2'.2.46(

HISTORY OF ROME.

of arbitrary power, committed by the victorious party wl10m he

abhorred. This question is one of those on which assuredly no

inconsistency is betrayed by a change of opinion in consequence of

·fresh experience and under a different state of things. If a person

approves of Sully's rliminishing the interest payable to the public

creditors, who were swallowing up the revenues of the state, and

of hif! deducting the usurious proiits they had long enjoyed from

the principal; if he is aware how .lowering the interest, or the

capital of its debt, or the standard of its currency, has been the only

means whereby more than one state has been able to save itself

from the condition in which the whole produce of the ground and

of labour would have fallen into the hands of the fundholders 1350 ; if

.he knows how speedily and easily such wounds as this class sus­

tain in their property heal ; if he considers this, when reviewing

the history of the states of antiquity, whieh were drained by pri­

vate usury, he will be favourable to measures which tend to pre­

serve hereditary property and personal freedom, as Solon was. As

to any assignment of the public domains to the plebeians having

been agreed to, it is exceedingly improbable'!·

Whatever may have been done for the debtors, all traces of it

had vanished within a few years: for the good effected was soon

done away with, Rome for a long time being visited by misfortune

after misfortune. But the measures taken to compose the internal

dissensions gave birth to an institution, of a nature wholly peculiar,

dangerous only as great intellectual powers and animal spirits are

dangerous, which spread the majesty and the empire of the Roman

people, and preserved the republic from revolutions and from

tyranny; I mean the tribunate.

Little as the earl of Leicester foreboded, when he summoned

the deputies of the knights and commons to the parliament of the

1350 So that a bankruptcy must still have taken place in the end. A state

which sacrifices its tax-paye.rs to the public creditors, may be said propter

vitam vivendi perdere causas. Hume and Burke have declared that this idol­

atry of the national debt is worshipping Moloch.

Happy the times when one cannot have to talk of such extreme cures, the

produce of all property and of labour having increased in the same, nay in a

greater, pi:oportion than the demands of the state, and when the fimdholder

is rather conducive to its prosperity! But such times are .a. bounteous gift of

fortune, which will hardly be enjoyed again for many ages in the same way

as it was enjoyed by Germany before the thirt,Y years war and befqre the

revolution.

51 In Dionysius (v1. 44) M. Valerius 11ays be hii.d e~cited the indigm:i.­

tion of the patricians by a measure of this kind. See now 13'16.HISTORY OF ROME.

...

465

barons, that this was the beginning of an assembly which was at

one time virtually to possess the supreme authority in th~ king­

dom; just as little did the plebeians on the Sacred Mount foresee,

when th,.ey obtained the inviolability of their magistrates, that the

tribunate would raise itself by degrees to a preponderating, and

then to an unlimited power in the republic, and that the possession

of it would be sufficient, nay in point of form would be indispensa­

ble, to lay the foundation of monarchal supremacy: Its sole pur­

pose was to afford protection against any abuse of the consul's

authoritytssg; to uphold the Valerian laws, which promised the ple­

beians that their life and person should be secure against arbitrary

force. The only innovation consisted in making the tribunes in~

violable: which induces us to suspect that, when the tribunes

before this time came forward in behalf of such as were maltreated,

they had themselves lost their lives or suffered insult: and hence

we might.wonder that this Clause should have been of any avail.

It became so, because an offender, however powerful, was outlawed

by it, so that no one who should kill him could under any pretext

be brought to trial for such an act; and the criminal's house was

forfeit to the temple of Ceres 53 • From the nature of his office as a

public guardian, the tribune's house was kept open night and day

for all who called to him for succour; and this he had the power

of bestowing against every one, whosoever it might· be; against

violence and wro~g done by a private individual, and against a ma­

gistrate.

That the tribunes of the several tribes must already have had

the right of bringing propositions each before his own tribe, is a

matter of course; and supposing that, whether by election or tacit

agreement, one out of every ten was chosen to preside over the

whole order, these'officers, though not yet inviolable, must needs

have been entitled to bring similar propositions before the general

assembly of the commonalty. Here again however it is me{\tioned

on a specific occasion as a step gained by the rights of the com­

monalty, that soon after the treaty between the estates th_e plebs

enacted terrible punishments for securing the privilege of the tri­

bunes to lay propositions before them. If any one impeded and

interrupted a tribune who was addressing the plebeian assembly,

he was to give bail to the college of tribunes for the payment of

1352 Auxilii latio adversus consules: Livy. BoiiBu.-: Dionysius.

53 Dionysius v1. 89. The formulary in Livy, m. 55, by which the head

of the criminal is devoted to Jupiter, belongs no doubt, as he represents it, to

the period after the decemvirat"e.

·

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I456

HISTORY OF ROME.

whatever mulct they should affix to his offence in arraigning him

before the commonalty: if he did not, his life and property were

to be forfeit 1354 , This law is represented by Dionysius as a mere

decree of the plebs; but its nature is such that it could not have

been passed without the agreement of the other· estate.

It was a controverted point even among the ancients, whether the

tribunate was a magistracy? They who would not allow any office

to be so, unless its authority extended over the whole nation, denied

it; and with justice, so far as relates to the earlier ages; but with

regard to the later they stickled about an empty shadow. In the

seventh century of the city the tribunes were to the fullest extent a

national magistracy; during the first two centuries of their existence

they were no less decidely a mere plebeian magistracy: but a ma­

gistracy they were incontestably: only their province was neither

government nor administration. In their most essential character

they were representatives of the commonalty; and as such, protec­

tors of the liberties of their order against the supreme power, not

partakers in that power: as such too, not empowered to impose a

mulct, but only to propose its imposition to the commonaltyss.

Neither were they judges between a consul and the person he had

sentenced to corporal punishment; but only mediators, in order

that the plebeian court might assemble without obstruction, and that

meanwhile the appellant might remain at liberty harmless •.. They

were the senses of their order; bringing before it what they perceived,

for its consideration and decision; and till it decided they prevented

any irrevocable act.

In this manner they interposed whenever the liberties of the ple­

beians were infringed. The determining on war and peace, so long

as the earliest state of things continued, rested with the curies, after

the preliminary deliberation of ·the senate. But when the com­

monalty was recognised as a free half of the nation, and furnished

the whole infantry of the army, there were no laws to which its

consent should have been more indispensable than to those by which

war was declared. This however was. the very point the patriciaris

were the most anxious to evade bringing before the cen"turies; and

naturally so: for, as the plebeians were excluded from sharing in

the profits of war:-from sharing in the conquered territory always,

and not unfrequently in the booty, when it was sold and the produce

1354 Dionysius vu.17. I shall show in the proper place that he carries

this ordinance much too far back: but"this is no reason for looking upon it as

apocryphal.

·

'

'

55 They were not able multam dicere, but only irrogare.HISTORY OF ROME.

467

went into the chest of the patricians-they were little disposed to sa­

crifice their lives or their blood. Now in this·case the assent of the

tribunes, either express or silent, served as a substitute for that of

their ordr.r, and 'Yas a way of maintaining its rights: on the other

hand a r~fusal to serve derived strength from their prohibition; since

none could seize the plebeian whom li. tribune protected, withoui

laying hands on his inviolable person. All this ceased when the

rights of the commonalty were established. In like manner the veto

was often needed to rescue a person from the levy, who had only

been taken for the sake of venting some private grudge against him,

when beyond the mile of the civic liberties, where the consul's au­

thority became unlimited.

.

It often happened that the preventive power of the tribunes was

insufficient to hinder such acts of tyranny; or even to preserve the

solemn treaty from direct infringement. In such cases it was ne­

cessary that they should be able either to take the law into their

own hands or to demand its execution: by the original spirit of their

office they could only do the latter. We should expect to find that

this demand was to be made before a mixed jury under a foreman:

but the compact had been ratified by oath, under the form of a treaty

between the two estates; and, by a universal principle of Italian

international law, a people that had been injured either collectively

or in the person of one of its members, had the right of trying the

foreigner whom it charged with such an offence: and if any treaty

with his countrymen existed, they were bound. to deliver him up

for that purpose. They themselves were not competent to try him:

for indulgence would have been more than pardonable in a state of

manners which under many relations, such as that among the mem­

bers of the same gens and that between a patron and his clients,

made it an imperative duty not to condemn even the guilty; in a

state of manners akin to that where compurgation was obligatory:

but the judges being sworn, it was expected that, if their enemy

were proved innocent, they would acquit him. Whether this belief

did not rest on an innocent dream, and lead to acts of injustice, is

another question: but on these grounds the tribunes had the right

of arraigning consuls and other patricians before the commonalty.

The existence of this right implies that the patricians had the same

against any plebeians who were chargeable with a like offence

against their order.

.

That the consuls after the expiration of their magistracy should

have been amenable to the commonalty for misdemeanours against

the whole republic, would be so at variance with all the relations468

HISTORY OF ROME.

unequivocally apparent in these ages, that, if the instances (lf charges

preferred by tribunes on account of such misdemeanours during the

third century could in other respects be regarded as historical, we

should have to seek for a different explanation of them. According

to the spirit of the constitution in those days the curies were the

only judges in all that concerned the administration of the republic:

and so the tribunes must have had the rights of coming before them

as accusers, if the qumstors failed in th~ir duty.

The tribes were first made a branch of the legislature by the

Publilian law. Until then they could only 'pass re!'olutions, as

every other corporation can, which merely bound their own body.

On this as on oth!-Jr points Sylla, when he took away the right of

proposing laws from the tribunes, was unquestionably restoring

the letter of the constitution out of an age whch had passed away,

and which he every where aimed to revive.

That the number of tribunes at the first was only two, all the ac­

counts in effect agree 1806 : a~ to their names they differ: C. Licinius

and L. Albinius however seem to be pretty certain 57. , Though Si­

cinius had been chosen commander, he was not one of the first,

but only added to them afterward: this seems distinctly to favour

the conjecture that at the time of the secession the former were

already invested with the office, which as then was still insignifi­

cant; whereas Sicinius was selected to lead the army as the fittest

person in case the affair ended in war. 'With regard to the subse­

quent changes in the number we find divers accounts. According

to Piso there were but two down to the Publilian law U. C. 283 5 ":

according to Cicero they continued to be two for the first year, and

the next the npmber of the college was raised to ten~a: according

to Livy the two original ones presided at the election of three

others, of whom Sicinius was one. 'What discrepancies are these!

Cicero's statement, so far as it is at variance with the account that

1356 Even Dionysius, v1. 89, who first names two, and then proceeds,,

h 1 J't 1rpo' -rou-r•"· Livy is quite express on this point: so are Cicero pro

Corn., and de Rep. 11. 34; Tuditanus and Atticus in Asconius on the Corne­

Iiana; Lydus de Magist. 1. 38. 44; Zonoras vu. 15.

57 These are named ,by Livy and by Lydus 1. 44: the latter in these '

statements always follows Gaius, that is mediately, Gracchanus. In Asco­

nius indeed we find Sicinius instead of Licinius; and the surname proves that

it is not an error of the scribe: but L. Junius is a mistaken alteration made by

Manutius: the Laurentian MS, LIV. 27, has Lactinius; which confirms L. Al­

binius. L. Albinius, de plebe Romana homo, leads the Vestals to'Crere: Livy

v. 40. The fictitious L. Junius Brutus appears nowhere except in Dionysius.

58 Livy 11. 58.

59 Cicero Fragm. Corne!.HISTORY OF ROME.•

'4G!J

the number was not raised to ten till six and thirty years after the

institution of the tribunate, may be regarded as certainly wrong:

besides it is surely in the highest degree improbable that the Pub­

lilian law should have introduced a number containing a direct re­

ference to the centuries, from which it took away the election; and

should have done away with one bearing a proportion to the num­

ber of the tribes, to which it transferred the election. For the fi,•e

tribunes were chosen one from each class 1360 , as two were from each

after the nm~ber was doubled 61 : a relation which cannot possibly

have continued, when the constitution of the centuries had under­

gone a thorough change.

Officers who were the representives of the sev~ral classes, must

needs have been chosen by each severally: nor can we suppose

that they ·should have been so by a majority of the centuries taken

collectively. This was an approach to that equality which must

have prevailed in the assembly of the tribes: except that the ple­

hei.an knights were excluded 69 , as well as the locupletes below the

fifth class: for the proletarians, it is' probable, were not originally ad­

mitted to vote even in their tribes. A far more important restriction

lay in the dependence of the centuries upon the auguries, and in

the right of the clients to vote in them: but one beyond all compare

more momentous was, that at first the tribune elect was to be ap­

proved of by the patricians in the curies 63 • In a negotiation con­

ducted with address this concession might. be gained under the spe­

cious colour of its being for the good of the plebs itself that its offi- ·

cers should not be personally offensive to the first estate: it might

also be suggested that it was more dignified to have the same mode

of election as that by which curule offices were filled; although the

law concerning the imperium of a magistrate, which he himself

proposed to the curies, was something very different from this ac­

ceptance: and as the curies had t~ accept, they might also reject 64 •

13GO Quinque creatos esse, singulos ex singulis classibus. Asconius on

the .Corneliana. See above p. 346.

131 Decem creati sunt, bini ex singulis classibus. Livy m. 30.

62 On this point again we see how artfully the patricians endeavoured

to divide their opponents: here however on the whole their efforts were vain.

63 Dionysius v1. 90: after the election by the plebeians, <rouc 'lr«'<p•xiou'

.,,.,;_,..,,..., t7r1xupt•><T«I TMV "-p;)v {ii<pov i7rnt:i.un«c. And after the Publilian

law the consuls reproach the tribunes:.;;,... ,..j 'l>P""f:tl 'TMV ..j.ii<pov u7rip Uf'-llJP

in-1<1><ponir. x. 4. See above note 849.

·

64 It is a remarkable instance of what may be effected by public opin­

ion and by the dread of it 1 .to find that all the influence of the clicntry, and of470

HISTORY OF RO.ME.

That their share in the election was confined to this, is placed be­

yol}d a question by the passages just quoted from Dionysius 1 sas,

although it has been misinterpreted into an elec,tion at their comitia,

Dionysius himself, and even by Ci­

and that too by the ancients,

cero66. The former however, as he was led in other places by the

well-informed writers he followed to see the matter in its true light,

felt perplexed; because he had a suspicion, even if he did not find

it distinctly stated, that the plebs was not comprised in the curies;

and he therefore distributes it amongst them 67 for the purpose of

this election. If we reflect how very easily the election and the

confirmation might be confounded, we shall loo:~ on those passages

as decisive, in which Dionysius takes a clear view of the subject,

and which are in perfect harmony with the whole system of the

ancient constitution. That the commonalty should have entrusted

the choice of its representives to the patricians is an absolute im­

po8sibility: .the unanimity among the plebeians however may easily

have been 'so great, that, as tribunes were at all events to be ap­

pointed, the right of refusing to confirm their election may have

availed the patricians but little. Nor, if one solitary creature of

theirs was thrust in by the votes of the clients, was this material,

so long as questions within the college were decided by the ag,ree­

ment of the majority among themselves: and the contrary practice

was not introduced till after the decemvirate and the revival of the

abolished office. The a~thors of the ancient books, who ascribed this

innovation to the most virulent of all the patricians, Appius Clau·

dius 68 , were mistaken about the date of this change in the constitu­

tion; but they were aware of its incalculable importance: the

tribunes, from being representatives of the commonalty and merely

authorised to report to it, were by this measure converted into

magistrates each individually wielding a power of his own.

by

0

personal intiigues, was not able to prevent the. election of the most eminent

men, who faithfully discharged their duties to their order,

,

'

1365 If this historian, who is so precise in his expressions, had meant to

say, tlie curies do not elect you-and not, they do not vote about you after your

election-he would have said, VfMM oiJ ;i:,t1po.,.ovoiir1'"·

/ 66 Dionysius v1: 8!). N•,unS•l, o JM,U•' ei, 'tit' .,.,;.,., oilr!'it' </Jpit'tpi"",

~ o?r"'' {6ov>.n·:U "" itu'tit' ,.,.po'1'1t')'•p•vsv-.;vp;i:,ov"1t' (that is, Jn,uitp;>:,ov')

J.mJwi.vvoun x. 41. Publilius ,U•'tit'}'ooY (the elections) £,. 7Mc </Jpit7ptitx'ii,

4•<P•1>•plit,, ilv oi 'Poo,ua:;., xoupt<t.7n1 xitMUrl'IV, t?rl 1hv </JU>.e111d1. Cicero Fragm.

Com, Itaque auspicato postero anno x tribuni pl. comitiis curiatis creati sunt.

67, vi. 89: quoted in the preceding note: The expression 7it' 7671 oil"'it'

is very remarkable.

68 Livy 11. 44. 1v. 48. In the former of these cases the matter is decided

by the majority, four against one.IUSTORY OF ROME.

471

As a corporate body the CO!llmonalty, beside its representatives,

required certain peculiar and local magistrates. Such were the

rediles, whose office is said to have been instituted after the treaty

of the Sacred Mount; and, like that of the tribunes, may probably

have been older.. The nature of their duties in early ages is very

uncertain: they are represented a;; having been immediately subor­

dinate to the tribunes, and as having been judges in such causes as

they were appointed to decide by these their superiorsl 369, That

they exercised a kind of police is unquestionable: the inspecting

the markets however is said not to have been assigned to them till

later7°: at all events their power must have been confined to their

own order. The temple of Ceres was under their peculiar guar­

dianship ; where no doubt they from the first kept the a~chives of

the commonalty, as they did, subsequently the decrees of the

senate7 1 : hence probably their office got its name. This tem,ple

stood in the plebeian suburb, though not on the Aventine, but by

the Circus7ll: the valley of Murcia; like the neighbouring hill, had

been allotted to the commonalty by Ancus*. The goddess of agri­

culture was the immediate patroness of the class of free husband­

men: hence the property of all who insulted the plebeian magis­

trates was confiscated for the treasury of this temple : and here the

poor plebeians had bread distributed to them7 8 , of course under the

superintendence of the mdiles. This must have been the way of

laying out the produce of such fines as were imposed, not by the

whole nation, but by the plebs, in part on charges brought forward

by the rediles: who must needs have had the management of the

public chest of the commonalty.

The noblest and most salutary forms and institutions, which,

whether in civil or moral societies, are bequeathed from generation

to generation, after the lapse of centuries will prove defective.

However exquisitely fit they may have been when they were

framed, it would be necessary that the vital power in states and

churches should act instinctively, and evince a faculty of perpetu­

ally adapting itself to the occasion, as the ship Argo did when it

1369 L>.I,.,., ;.•, iv i,,-1.,.pi+nV'T<:<I ti<S1vo1, (the tribunes) xp1vouV'T<:<,. Diony­

sius VI. 90. T~ t1.p;x,t:tiov £,,.l 'TOV'T<f ~poiivT• (as keepers of the archives) ""'

t?Tl 'Tl)> "'""~"'· Zonaras vu. 15.

70 Zonaras proceeds: v,,.?epov J's ,.,.) "•,,._, ._• tt."77t:t, ,.,.) 1nv 7,,,, ,,,,;{i)v <:<'J'•P"'

im7pt:t1Tn1Tt1.v. According to Pliny however (H. N. xvm. 4) they had some

share in the management of the corn-trade even before the year 315.

71 Livy m. 55.

72 Nardini m. pp. 242, 243.

* See above pp. 270, 271.

73 Varro in Nonius v. pandere (1. 209).472

IlISTORY OF ROME.

spoke, if such a fitness is to last. As it is however, they either

continue· without any outward alteration; and then are only the

more certain of becoming a mere lifeless shell: or they are gradually

developed and transformed; during which process their original

purpose is usually but little thought of, and often totally ~isunder­

stood: nay the condition of the persons for whose sake the institu­

tions were first enacted, will often undergo so great a change that

there ceases to be .any room for such a purpose. And then, should

any one perceive that what is now oppressing and harassing us

would not have existed but for these forms and the events which

fashioned them, he may unthinkingly turn his displeasure against

them; may wish, not that they were suitably modified, but that they

had never been ; and may e:i.;tol what they did away with, without

knowing what it was, without asking what and where he himself

would be, but for those institutions which now in their turn have

outlived themselves. ·

In this spirit does Quintus Cicero in the Dialogues on the Laws

inveigh against the tribunate: which indeed was in his days a source

of so much vexation and heartfelt sorrow to every honest citizen,

that one easily understands how they could overlook the good

which even in the desperate disorder of those times ougbt to have

been sought and might have been obtained from it. But the native

of Arpinum should have remembered that, but for this office, his

birthplace, which made him a Roman citizen, would have continued

to be an insignificant town of the Volscians; that, but for the esta­

blishment of the liberties of the plebeians, his beloved brother

would never have become, what by his consular power he had been

for a year,-and that year worth.a whole life-and what he was to

all eternity by the power of his min<l, the head of the Roman world:

yea, that the man who turned the weapons of the tribunate against

the father of his country, was a Claudius, whom nothing but ab1,1se

had made a tribune.

Perhaps even Marcus Cicero himself was not fully aware how

small and humble the power of the tribunate originally was: never­

theless he soars above prejudices, and declares, that Rome ought

either to have retained the monarchal ·government, or that it was

necessary to grant free<lom in good earnest, and not merely in

empty words, to the plebs 13H,

•

'

But for this institution, which was dictated by necessity, the

1374 De Leg. 111. 10. (25).

non verbo, danda libertas.

Autexigendi reges non fuerunt: aut plebi re,HISTORY OF ROME.

473

two estates could not have subsisted side by side in a republic: a

king, even in an elective monarchy, might have prevented any

such necessity, from arising: in a hereditary one it would never

have been felt. Among the Greeks the prince, the offspring of a

heroic race and the ward of Jove, did not belong exclusively to any

part of the state: the inhabitants of the newly acquired territories,

if they resigned themselves heart and. soul to his sceptre, were

loved and cherished by him no less than the houses of the most

ancient of the ruling tribes: he was able to provide that every free

man should enjoy all the rights he was entitled to by his actual

condition and by his services: and many a disparity may be for­

gotten where there is a common bond of personal attachment. But

this conservative form of government was unknown to the Romans,

so far as our history goes back, as it was perhaps throughout the

whole of ancient Italy. No sooner had it disappeared among' the

Greeks, than the 'houses-began to oppress the commonalty, the

towns to oppress the country people; and with few exceptions it

was to their. own ruin. · For some powerful members of the houses

offered themselves to the disaffected as their champions, and com­

bining with the commonalty or the population of the surrounding

country, and with a party of the ruling burghers, made themselves

masters of the supreme power. This was the origin of the tyrants,

who were to be found in all parts of Greece during a period of 150

years down to about the 70th Olympiad: some few among them

were deserving of their odious name ; their authority in every In~

stance was founded on usurpation; in themselves they were often

benevolent, just, and wise; their influence was mostly salutary.

For the institutions which had newly grown up, had time to gain

strength and steadiness under their dictatorship; since they stood

as a personal guardian power by the side of the state; and, when

they laid down their authority, it was like a youth who had reached

the age of discretion under wise tutelage. Now because the old

governments refused to accede to any reasonable terms, revolutions

, ensued: and from this consequence the Roman patricians escaped,

not through their wisdom, not through their firmness, but through

the establishment of the tribunate. It is a profound remark of

Cicero'sl37 5 , that it was a check to the fierce bursts of the people's

fury, the task of resisting oppression being undertaken by their

chosen representatives, who in conducting the opposition moderated,

and often_ q.uieted it., To judge from the lessons of Greek history.

1375 De Leg.

l.-3K.

111.

lQ (24. 25).HISTORY OF ROME.

it was no less fortunate for the patricians that the members of their

order were from the first excluded from this office; although this

arrangement was probably made by the plebeians for their own se­

curity.

By the leaders of this estate, who looked forward to the time

when their posterity ~hould partake in the curule honours, this

office was doubtless designed to be merely a transient institution ;

which was to be dropped when that end should be reached. Their

wishes were fulfilled : the plebs kept on increasing in power and

in dignity ; the patricians, from being a branch of the nation,

dwindled into an insignificant number of families : the n~blesse of

the two orders was united, and enlarged by fresh ennoblements:

the plebs as an estate had no longer any oppression to dread : yet

the tribunate did not pass away. But it now put on a totally differ­

ent character : it became a mode of representing the whole nation,

even the patricians ; although they neither el~cted nor were eligible

to it. From this time forward the tribunes are entitled to the name

of tribunes of the people, as we are in the habit of calling them

from the beginning; so much so indeed that it will hardly be poss­

ible to abstain altogether from using this name in the earlier ages,

·when as yet it was not appropriate 1376 • The people in a strict

sense is the whole nation, and its sovereign assembly as contra­

distinguished from the senate, such as it existed at Rome after the

Hortensian law: but this word of many meanings acts with an

intoxicating effect upon the mind; and the conscientious historian

will therefore be glad to find substitutes for it: fortunately the in­

stitutions of the middle ages have supplied one for the times of

convulsion and dissension, which is perfectly accurate and sober.

In the later history of the Roman republic we find the tribunician

power carried to such a pitch by the changes in the state of things

and by its own usurpations, that it overtops the consuls and the

senate, nay the people itself: and yet no one had learned from the,

experience of the past that those branches of the state, which were

then in need of the same shelter as the plebeians had once needed,

had a right to receive it. In the course of centuries things went so·

far that the tribunes no longer stood over against the supreme au­

thority as representatives of the nation, but were tyrants elected for

: under a

the term of their office : a kind of national convention

.

.

1376 The old German writers call the tribunes Zunftmeister (masters of

guilds or aldermen), which has an odd sound enough: but in selecting this

name they were guided by a. just feeling that the plebs stood in the same

relation to the houses as the guilds did.HISTORY OF ROME.

475

notion like that which prevailed during the revolutionary frenzy

that the full power3 nominally conferred by an election, where the

greater part of the constituents vote without at all knowing what

they are doing, bestow an unlimited authority. This however was

only the last stage of the tribunate : the century and a half, on the

history of which we are now about to enter; are the period of its

blameless struggles in behalf of its own estate and of the whole

nation ; struggles by which the greatness and glory of Rome were

achieved and secured for a still longer period •

•

END OF VOL. I.•