Ancient history for colleges and high schools

Part II. A HISTORY OF ROME

BOSTON, U.S.A. :

PUBLISHED BY GINN & COMPANY.

^6

0^.

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1890, by

P. V. N. MYERS, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.

All Rights Reserved.

Typography by J. S. Cushing & Co., Boston, U.S.A. Presswork by Ginn & Co., Boston, U.S.A.

Preface To Part Second

Two years ago I gave to the school public a revised edition of that part of my Outlines of Ancient History^ first published in 1882, which covered the Eastern nations and Greece. At the request of my publishers, I have since revised the remaining portion of the book, that relating to Rome, and now give it out as a companion work to the earlier volume.

From the preface of the original work, I repeat my grateful acknowledgment of indebtedness to the following writers and works : Arnold's, Mommsen's, Niebuhr's, Merivale's, Liddell's, Gibbon's, and Leighton's histories of Rome ; Long's Decline and Fall of the Roman Republic ; Smith's Rome and Carthage ; Froude's Ccesar ; Guhl and Koner's Life of the Greeks and Romans ; Hadley's Introduction to Roman Law ; and Dunlop's and Cruttwell's works on Roman Literature. References to other authorities that I have used in the revision of the work will be found in place, in foot-notes. For the correction, or the further elucidation, of several matters relating to Roman antiquities, I am especially indebted to Lanciani's admirable work, Ancient Rome in the Light of Recent Discoveries,

Mrs. Margaret Andrews Allen — widow of the late Professor William F. Allen, to whom it is my privilege to refer as my friend and associate in the preparation of Allen and Myers* Ancient History — has very kindly co-operated with me in the

iii iv PREFACE.

preparation of the book, to the extent of furnishing from her husband's Short History of the Ro7nan People all the maps and the larger part of the cuts. A few of the illustrations have been engraved from photographs expressly for the present work. Respecting the charts and cuts from Professor Allen's book, I quote from the preface the following explanation, made in his name : " Particular care was taken in the selection of maps and illustrations. The colored maps are reproductions of the charts accompanying Professor Freeman's Historical Geography of Europe. The cuts are from Prang's Illustrations of the History of Art, Jaegar's Weltgeschichtey and other equally good authorities."

College Hill, Ohio, July, 1890.

Table Of Contents

PAGE

Preface « iii

List of Illustrations _ . , vii

Chapter I. The Roman Kingdom

(Legendary date, 753-509 B.C.)

Divisions of Italy. — The peninsula of Italy divides itself into three parts, — Northern, Central, and Southern Italy. The first comprises the great basin of the Po, lying between the Alps and the Apennines.^ In ancient times this part of Italy included three districts, — Liguria, Gallia Cisalpina, and Venetia. The first embraced the southwestern and the last the northeastern part of Northern Italy. Gallia Cisalpina lay between these two districts, occupying the finest portion of the valley of the Po. It received its name, which means " Gaul on this (the Italian) side of the Alps," from the Gallic tribes that about the fifth century before our era found their way over the mountains and settled upon these rich lands.

The countries of Central Italy were Etruria, Latium, and Campania, facing the Western, or Tuscan Sea ; Umbria and Picenum, looking out over the Eastern, or Adriatic Sea j and Samnium and the country of the Sabines, occupying the rough mountain districts of the Apennines.

Southern Italy comprised the districts of Apulia, Lucania, Calabria, and Bruttium. Calabria formed the " heel," and Bruttium the " toe," of the peninsula. The coast region of Southern Italy, as we have already learned, was called Magna Graecia, or

^ It should be noted that the Italy of early times did not embrace the northern part of the peninsula.

I

" Great Greece," on account of the number and importance of the Greek cities that during the period of Hellenic supremacy were estabhshed on these shores.

The large island of Sicily, lying just off the mainland on the south, may be regarded simply as a detached fragment of Italy, so intimately has its destiny been connected with that of the peninsula. In ancient times it was the meeting-place and battle-ground of the Carthaginians, the Greeks, and the Romans.

Mountains and Rivers. — Italy, like the other two peninsulas of Southern Europe, Greece and Spain, has a high mountain barrier, the Alps, along its northern frontier. Cicero once said that the gods had raised this wall to protect the peninsula from the northern barbarians. If such was the purpose of the celestial mountain-builders, it was a strange oversight on their part that they should have left a great gap in the Eastern, or Julian Alps ; for here is a low pass, through which the barbarians, as we shall see, often poured like a devastating flood into Italy.

Corresponding to the Pindus range in Greece, the Apennines run as a great central ridge through the entire length of the peninsula.

Italy has only one really great river, the Yo {Padus) , \^\i\Qh drains the large northern valley lying between the Alps and the Apennines. The streams running down the eastern slope of the Apennines are short and of little volume. Among them the Rubicon, the Metaurus, and the Aufidus are connected with great matters of history. Into the Rubicon it was that Caesar plunged whei>^j^,he. cast the die for the empire of the world; upon the Metaurus, Sasdrubal, the brother of Hannibal, was defeated in the Second Punic War ; and on the banks of the Aufidus was fought the great battle of Cannae.

Among the rivers draining the western slopes of the Apennines, the one possessing the greatest historic interest is the Tiber, on the banks of which Rome arose. North of this stream is the Arno i^Arnus) ^ vAixok). watered a part of the old Etruria; and south of it, the Liris, one of the chief rivers of Campania.

EARLY INHABITANTS OF ITALY. 3

Early Inhabitants of Italy. — There were, in early times, three chief races in Italy, — the ItaHans, the Etruscans, and the Greeks.^ The Italians, a branch of the Aryan family, embraced two principal stocks, — the Latin and the Umbro-Sabellian (Umbrians, Sabines, Samnites, Lucanians, etc.), — the various tribes or nations of which occupied nearly all Central, and a considerable part of Southern, Italy. The Etruscans, a wealthy, cultured, and maritime people of uncertain race, dwelt in Etruria, now Tuscany. They here formed a league of twelve cities, and before the rise of the Roman people were the leading race in the peninsula. Numerous works of art — such as tombs, fragments of walls, massive dikes to keep back the sea, and long tunnels piercing the sides of hills to drain the lakes lying in the craters of extinct volcanoes — show the advance in civilization they had made at a very remote date.

Some five hundred years B.C. the Gauls came over the Alps, pressed the Etrurians out of Northern Italy, into which quarter they had extended their power, and settling in those regions, became the most formidable enemies of the infant republic of Rome. Of the establishment of the Greek cities in Southern Italy we have already learned in connection with Grecian history.

The Latins. — Most important of all the Italian peoples were the Latins, who dwelt in Latium, between the Tiber and the Liris. These people, like all the Italians, were near kindred of the Greeks, and brought with them into Italy those same customs, manners, beliefs, and institutions that we have seen to have been the common possession of the various branches of the Aryan household.^ Their life was, for the most part, that of shepherds and farmers. There are said to have been in Latium in early times thirty towns, which formed an alliance, known as the Latin League. The city which first assumed importance and leadership among the towns of this confederation was Alba Longa, the ^' Long White

1 Besides these principal races there were the lapygians in Calabria, and the Venetians and the Ligurians in the north of the peninsula. The Ligurians were of non-Aryan race, but the others were seemingly of Aryan relationship.

2 See Eastern Nations and Greece, p. lo.

City," SO called because its buildings stretched for a great distance along the summit of a whitish ridge.

The Beginnings of Rome. — The place of pre-eminence among the Latin towns was soon lost by Alba Longa, and gained by another city. This was Rome, the stronghold of the Ramnes, or Romans, located upon a low hill on the south bank of the Tiber, about fifteen miles from the sea.

The traditions of the Romans place the founding of their city in the year 753 B.C. The town was estabhshed, it would seem, as an outpost to guard the northern frontier of Latium against the Etruscans.

Recent excavations have revealed the foundations of the old walls and two of the ancient gates. We thus learn that the city at first covered only the top of the Palatine Hill, one of a cluster of low eminences close to the Tiber, which, finally embraced within the limits of the growing city, became the famed "Seven Hills of Rome." From the shape of its enclosing walls, the original city was called Roma Quadrata, or " Square Rome."

The Early Roman State : King, Senate, and Popular Assembly. — The early Roman state seems to have been formed by the union of three communities.^ These constituted three tribes, known as Ramnes (the Romans proper, who gave name to the mixed people), Titles, and Luceres. Each of these tribes was divided into ten wards, or districts {curicE) ; each ward was made up of gentes, or clans, and each clan was composed of a number of famiUes. The heads of these families were called patres, or "fathers," and all the members patricians; that is, "children of the fathers."

At the head of the nation stood the King, who was the father of the state. He was at once ruler of the people, commander of

1 Compare the beginning of Rome with that of Athens, Eastern Nations and Greece, p. 200: "The synoikismos [union of several communities, as in the present case] did not necessarily involve an actual settlement together at one spot; but while each resided as formerly on his own land, there was thenceforth only one council-hall and court-house for the whole." — MoMMSEN.

CLASSES OF SOCIETY. 5

the army, judge and high priest of the nation, with absolute power as to hfe, and death.

Next to the king stood the Senate, or " council of the old men," composed of the ^' fathers," or heads of the families. This council had no power to enact laws : the duty of its members was simply to advise with the king, who was free to follow or to disregard their suggestions.

The Popular Assembly {comitia curiata) comprised all the citizens of Rome ; that is, all the members of the patrician families old enough to bear arms. It was this body that enacted the laws of the state, determined upon peace or war, and also elected the king.

Classes of Society. — The two important classes of the population of Rome under the kingdom and the early republic were the patricians and. the plebeians. The former were the members of the three original tribes that made up the Roman people, and at first alone possessed political rights. They were proud, exclusive, and tenacious of their inherited privileges. The latter were made up chiefly of the inhabitants of subjected cities, and of refugees from various quarters that had sought an asylum at Rome. They were free to acquire property, and enjoyed personal freedom, but at first had no political rights whatever. The greater number were petty land-owners, who held and cultivated the soil about the city. A large part of the early history of Rome is simply the narration of the struggles of this class to secure social and political equality with the patricians.

Besides these two principal orders, there were two other classes, — clients and slaves. The former were attached to the families of patricians, who became their patrons, or protectors. The condition of the client was somewhat like that of the serf in the feudal system of the Middle Ages. A large clientage was considered the crown and glory of a patrician house.

The slaves were, in the main, captives in war. Their number, small at first, gradually increased as the Romans extended their conquests, till they outnumbered all the other classes taken togather, and more than once turned upon their masters in formidable revolts that threatened the very existence of the Roman state.

The Legendary Kings. — For nearly two and a half centuries after the founding of Rome (from 753 to 509 B.C., according to tradition), the government was a monarchy. To span this period, the legends of the Romans tell of the reigns of seven kings, — Romulus, the founder of Rome ; Numa, the lawgiver ; Tullus Hostilius and Ancus Marcius, conquerors both ; Tarquinius Priscus, the great builder ; Servius Tullius, the reorganizer of the government and second founder of the state ; and Tarquinius Superbus, the haughty tyrant, whose oppressions led to the abolition by the people of the office of king.

The traditions of the doings of these monarchs and of what happened to them blend hopelessly fact and fable. We cannot be quite sure even as to their names. Respecting Roman affairs, however, under the last three rulers (the Tarquins), who were of Etruscan origin, some important things are related, the substantial truth of which we may rely upon with a fair degree of certainty ; and these matters we shall notice in the following paragraphs.

Growth of Rome under the Tarquins. — The Tarquins extended their authority over the whole of Latium. The position of supremacy thus given Rome was naturally attended by the rapid growth in population and importance of the little Palatine city.^ The

1 Several causes have been assigned to account for the early and rapid growth of the power of Rome. Its situation upon the Tiber was, without doubt, favorable to its early development as a centre of trade and commerce; while its distance from the sea protected it from the depredations of the pirates, which in early times swarmed in the Mediterranean and desolated the coast cities. But most potent of all influences in shaping the fortunes and character of the inhabitants of the little Palatine town was the necessity which they found themselves under to form some sort of social and political connection with the neighboring communities that held possession of the hills immediately about them. The early circumstances of the national life would thus seem to have given a certain legal and political bias to that Roman geniu? which was destined to give laws to the world.

GROWTH OF ROME.

original walls soon became too strait for the increasing multitudes ; new ramparts were built — tradition says under the direction of the king Servius Tullius — which, with a great circuit of seven miles, swept around the entire cluster of the Seven Hills. A large tract of marshy ground between the Palatine and Capitoline hills was drained by means of the Cloaca Maxima, the " Great Sewer," which was so admirably constructed that it has been preserved to the present day. It still discharges its waters through a great arch into the Tiber. The land thus reclaimed became the Forum,

VIEW OF THE CAPITOLINE, WITH THE CLOACA MAXIMA. (A Reconstruction.)

the assembling-place of the people. At one angle of this public square, as we should term it, was the Comitium, a large platform, where the assembhes of the patricians were held. Standing upon this platform, so placed that the speaker could command with his voice both the plebeians in the Forum and the patricians in the Comitium, was the rostrum,^ or desk, from which the Roman

1 So called because decorated with the beaks {j-ostra) of war-galleys taken from enemies,

THE ROM AM KINGDOM.

orators delivered their addresses. This assembUng-place in later times was enlarged and decorated with various monuments and surrounded with splendid buildings and porticoes. Here more was said, resolved upon, and done, than upon any other spot in the ancient world.

The Senate-house occupied one side of the Forum ; and facing this on the opposite side were the Temple of Vesta and the palace of the king. Overlooking all from the summit of the Capitoline was the famous sanctuary called the Capitol, or the Capitoline Temple, where beneath the same roof were the shrines of Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva, the three great national deities.

Upon the level ground between the Aventine and the Palatine was located the Circus Maximus, the " Great Circle," where were celebrated the Roman games. The most noted of the streets of

CONSTITUTION OF SERVIUS TULLIUS. 9

Rome was the Via Sacra, or " Sacred Way," which traversed the Forum and led up the CapitoUne Hill to the temple of Jupiter. This was the street along which passed the triumphal processions of the Roman conquerors.

New Constitution of Servius Tullius. — The second king of the Etruscan house, Servius Tullius by name, effected a most important change in the constitution of the Roman state. He did here at Rome just what Solon at about this time did at Athens.^ He made property instead of birth the basis of the constitution. The entire population was divided into five classes, the first of which included all citizens, whether patricians or plebeians, who owned iwtnty jugera (about twelve acres) of land ; the fifth and lowest embraced all that could show title to even two jugera. The army was made up of the members of the five classes ; as it was thought right and proper that the public defence should be the care of those who, on account of their possessions, were most interested in the maintenance of order and in the protection of the frontiers of the state.

The assembling-place of the military classes thus organized was on a large plain just outside the city walls, called the Campus Martins, or " Field of Mars." The meeting of these mihtary orders was called the comitia- centuriata^ or the " assembly of hundreds." ^ This body, which of course was made up of patricians and plebeians, gradually absorbed the powers of the earlier patrician assembly {co7nitia curiaia).

The reforms of Servius Tullius were an important step towards the establishment of social and political equality between the two great orders of the state. The new constitution indeed, as Mommsen says, assigned to the plebeians duties only, and not rights : but being called to discharge the duties of citizens, it was not long before they demanded the rights of citizens ; and as the bearers of arms, they were able to enforce their demands.

2 This assembly was not organized by Servius Tullius, but it grew out of the military organization he created.

The Expulsion of the Kings. — The legends make Tarquinius Superbus, or Tarquin the Proud, the last king of Rome. He is represented as a monstrous tyrant, whose arbitrary acts caused both patricians and plebeians to unite and drive him and all his house into exile. This event, according to tradition, occurred in the year 509 B.C., only one year later than the expulsion of the tyrants from Athens.^

So bitterly did the people hate the tyranny they had abolished that it is said they all, the nobles as well as the commons, bound themselves by most solemn oaths never again to tolerate a king, enacting that should any one so much as express a wish for the restoration of the monarchy, he should be considered a public enemy, and be put to death. We shall hereafter see how well this vow was kept for nearly five hundred years.

The Roman Religion.

Influence upon Political Affairs. — To the early Romans the gods were very real. Hence religion had a great influence upon the course of public events at Rome during the first centuries of her existence. Later, when the learned had lost faith in and fear of the gods, rehgion was used corruptly for political purposes. Thus it happens that the pohtical history of the Roman people

The sixth and fifth centuries B.C. in ancient history correspond politically to the eighteenth and nineteenth in modern history. As the later period is characterized, in the pohtical sphere, by the substitution of democracy for monarchy, so was the earlier era marked by the decay of monarchical and the growth of popular forms of government. Speaking of the abolition of monarchy at Rome, Mommsen says : " How necessarily this was the result of the natural development of things is strikingly demonstrated by the fact that the same change of constitution took place in an analogous manner through the whole circuit of the Italo-Grecian world. Not only in Rome, but likewise among the other Latins as well as among the Sabellians, Etruscans, and ApuHans, — in fact, in all the Italian communities, just as in those of Greece, — we find the rulers for hfe of an earlier epoch superseded in after times by annual magistrates."

THE CHIEF ROMAN DEITIES.

becomes closely interwoven with their religion. Therefore, in order to understand the transactions of the period upon which we are about to enter, we must first acquaint ourselves with at least the prominent features of the religious institutions and beliefs of the Romans.

The Chief Roman Deities. — The basis of the Roman religious system was the same as that of the Grecian : the germs of its institutions were brought from the same early Aryan home. At the head of the Pantheon stood Jupiter, identical in all essential

HEAD OF JANUS. (From a Roman Coin.)

attributes with the Hellenic Zeus. He was the special protector of the Roman people. To him, together with Juno and Miner\^a, was consecrated, as we have already noticed, a magnificent temple upon the summit of the Capitoline Hill, overlooking the Forum and the city. Mars, the god of war, standing next in rank, was the favorite deity and the fabled father of the Roman race, who were fond of calling themselves the " Children of Mars." They proved themselves worthy offspring of the war-god. Martial games

THE ROMAN KINGDOM.

and festivals were celebrated in his honor during the first month of the Roman year, which bore, and still bears, in his honor, the name of March. Janus was a double-faced deity, " the god of the beginning and the end of everything." The month of January was sacred to him, as were also all gates and doors. The gates of his temple were always kept open in time of war and shut in time of peace. The fire upon the household hearth was regarded as the symbol

of the goddess Vesta.

Her worship was a favorite one with the Romans. The nation, too, as a single great family, had a common national hearth, in the Temple of Vesta, where the sacred fires were kept burning from generation to generation by six virgins, daughters of the Roman state.^ The Lares and Penates were household gods. Their images were set in the entrance of the dwelling. The Lares were the spirits of ancestors, which were thought to linger about the home as its guardians.

Oracles and Divination. — The Romans, like the Greeks, thought that the will of the gods was communicated to men by means of oracles, and by strange sights, unusual events, or singu-

1 For an interesting account of the remains of the House of the Vestals, brought to light by recent excavations, see Lanciani's Ancient Rome in the Light of Recent Discoveries.

VESTAL VIRGIN,

THE SACRED COLLEGES. 13

lar coincidences. There were no true oracles at Rome. The Romans, therefore, often had recourse to those in Magna Graecia, even sending for advice, in great emergencies, to the Delphian shrine. From Etruria was introduced the art of the harus|)ices, or soothsayers, which consisted in discovering the will of the gods by the appearance of victims slain for the sacrifices.

The Sacred Colleges. — The four chief sacred colleges, or societies, were the Keepers of the Sibylline Books, the College of Augurs, the College of Pontiffs, and the College of the Heralds

K curious legend is told of the Sibylline Books. An old woman came to Tarquinius Superbus and offered to sell him, for an extravagant price, nine volumes. As the king declined to pay the sum demanded, the wonian departed, destroyed three of the books, and then, returning, offered the remainder at the very same sum that she had wanted for the complete number. The king still refused to purchase, so the sibyl went away and destroyed three more of the volumes, and bringing back the remaining three, asked the same price as before. Tarquin was by this time so curious respecting the contents of the mysterious books that he purchased the remaining volumes. It was found upon examination that they were filled with prophecies respecting the future of the Roman people. The books, which were written in Greek, were placed in a stone chest, and kept in a vault beneath the Capitoline temple ; and special custodians were appointed to take charge of them and interpret them. The number of keepers, throughout the most important period of Roman history, was fifteen. The books were consulted only in times of extreme danger.

The duty of the members of the College of Augurs was to interpret the omens, or auspices, which were casual sights or appearances, by which means it was beheved that Jupiter made known his will. Great skill was required in the "taking of the auspices," as it was called. No business of importance, public or private, was entered upon without first consulting the auspices, to ascertain whether they were favorable. The public assembly, for illustration, must not convene, to elect officers or to enact laws, unless the auspices had been taken and found propitious. Should a peal of thunder occur while the people were holding a meeting, that was considered an unfavorable omen, and the assembly must instantly disperse.

It is easy to see how the power of the augurs might be used corruptly for political ends. At first all the members of the college were patricians, and very frequently they would prevent the plebeians from holding an assembly by giving out that the auspices were not favorable ; and sometimes, when matters were not taking such a course in the popular assembly as suited the nobles, and some measure obnoxious to their order was on the point of being carried, they would secure an announcement from the augurs that Jupiter was thundering, or manifesting his displeasure in some other way; and the people were obliged to break up their meeting on the instant. One of the privileges contended for by the plebeians was admission to this college, that they might assist in watching the omens, and thus this important matter not be left entirely in the hands of their enemies.

The College of Pontiffs was so called probably because one of the duties of its members was to keep in repair the Bridge {pons) of Piles over the Tiber.-^ This was the most important of all the religious institutions of the Romans ; for to the pontiffs belonged the superintendence of all religious matters. In their keeping, too, was the calendar, and they could lengthen or shorten the year, which power they sometimes used to extend the office of a favorite or to cut short that of one who had incurred their displeasure. The head of the college was called Pontifex Maximus, or the Chief Bridge-builder, which title was assumed by the Roman emperors, and after them by the Christian bishops of Rome ; and thus the name has come down to our times.

The College of Heralds had the care of all public matters pertaining to foreign nations. If the Roman people had suffered any

1 See p. 20. It is possible that pons originally signified not " bridge," but "way" generally, 2Mdi pontifex therefore meant "constructor of ways." —

MOMMSEN.

SACRED GAMES.

IS wrong from another state, it was the duty of the heralds to demand satisfaction. If this was denied, and war determined upon, then a herald proceeded to the frontier of the enemy's country and hurled over the boundary a spear dipped in blood. This was a declaration of war. The Romans were very careful in the observance of this ceremony.

Sacred Games. — The Romans had many rehgious games and festivals. Prominent among these were the so-called Circensian

SUOVETAURILIA.

(A lustratory sacrifice of a bull, a sheep, and a swine, which ended a festival know.i as the Ambarvalia, in which the fields were purified and blessed.)

Games, or Games of the Circus, which were very similar to the sacred games of the Greeks.^ They consisted, in the main, of chariot-racing, wrestling, foot-racing, and various other athletic contests.

These festivals, as in the case of those of the Greeks, had their

^ See Eastern Nations and Greece, p. i8i.

origin in the belief that the gods deHghted in the exhibition of feats of skill, strength, or endurance ; that their anger might be appeased by such spectacles ; or that they might be persuaded by the promise of games to lend aid to mortals in great emergencies. At the opening of the year it was customary for the Roman magistrate, in behalf of the people, to promise to the gods games and festivals, provided good crops, protection from pestilence, and victory were granted the Romans during the year. So, too, a general in great straits in the field might, in the name of the state, vow plays to the gods, and the people were sacredly bound to fulfil the promise. Plays given in fulfilment of vows thus made were called votive games.^