VI. THE FIRST CENTURY OF THE REPUBLIC
[Sidenote: [510-451 B.C.]]
The next task of the Romans was to regain the old position of Servius Tullius in Latium. Aided by the pressure constantly brought to bear on the Latins by the Volscians, the Romans also succeeded, in the year 493, in renewing with the former people their earlier alliance--an alliance based on perfect equality and reciprocity.[19] Highly important, moreover, from a military point of view was the treaty concluded in 486 between the Romans and the Latins on the one side and the Hernicans on the other.
About this time began the lingering feuds between the Romans and their allies and the neighbouring populations on the line that reached from the Etruscan cities Veii and Fidenæ, through the country of the Sabines and the Æquians to the scattered colonies of the Volscians on the southern borders of Latium. These conflicts rarely bore the character of actual warfare, being confined for the most part to carrying on or repelling burning and marauding expeditions. Yet there was no lack, especially with the Etruscans, of more serious engagements which, as we shall see, had great influence in determining the future of Italy and the Romans. Meanwhile these struggles served the Romans as an excellent school of war; but their political importance was not nearly so great as that of the internal conflicts that marked the development of republican Rome.
The conditions in Rome after the expulsion of the Tarquins were similar to those which prevailed in Greece under what was called the Eupatridian rule. The supreme power which was formerly vested in the king, now passed into the hands of a magisterial body whose members were to be appointed by vote. These republican officials, now commonly called consuls, were then given the title of prætors; a title that since the time of the decemvirs fell into disuse as designating the head of the state, but was later applied to the incumbents of a newly created office. The weight of the high civil, military, and judicial authority that passed from the hands of the king into those of the head of the republic, became considerably lessened by the action of causes that were, from their very nature, bound to make themselves more and more strongly felt. From the beginning of the republic, the Romans always placed two consuls at the head in order that the actions of the one might be under the restraining influence of the other’s veto. The term of the highest office was never longer than one year. At the expiration of the year the consul returned to the class of citizens to which he belonged, but could at any time be called to account for his official acts.
This system of one-year tenure of office was later found to have grave defects: but so much a part was it of the patrician as well as the democratic republicanism of that day that it never occurred to any one to change it. To the eminently practical Roman mind, however, the disadvantages connected with a yearly change of officials must have been apparent in many ways. As the life of Rome developed in fulness and freedom, the “scribes,” those lower officials who were permanently appointed to their posts, came to be of great importance in the actual conduct of public affairs. In time of war when naturally every head of the republic did not show equal qualifications for military leadership, the command of the army was given to some experienced general who was specially appointed by the proper authorities. When a consul was confronted by great and unexpected difficulties, he was empowered by the senate to appoint the best man of the state as dictator, and this dictator was in his turn to select as his assistant a master of horse--magister equitum. The dictatorship, which was for the term of but six months, had control over all minor offices, and as the dictator could not be held accountable, and as there was no appeal from his decisions, the patricians frequently had recourse, during the course of internal struggles, to the appointment of one, in order effectually to quell the plebeian opposition.
The consuls were preceded by but twelve lictors bearing the axe and fasces, while to the dictators were given twenty-four, like the kings in earlier days. Owing to the constant increase in the volume of public affairs the consuls frequently appointed, for the performance of certain duties, deputies, whose term of office expired with their own. Associated with the consuls in the keeping of the state archives and treasure were the two quæstors, probably the same officials to whom was also entrusted the prosecution of criminals. Two commissioners were appointed by the consuls to judge cases of sedition and high treason; the consuls had further to select and instruct two private personages who were to decide all civil suits. The consuls had unlimited power to impose fines; and as punishment for disobedience to certain laws, notably those governing the recruiting service, could even pronounce sentence of death. In cases requiring corporal or capital punishment the consuls and their aids had jurisdiction in the first instance; but save in cases that came under martial law, delinquents whom they had condemned could after the foundation of the republic (by virtue of the Valerian law, 509 B.C.) appeal to the higher tribunal of the general assembly, this body having also, even before 451, entire jurisdiction in regard to heavy fines.
The most marked limitation of the consuls’ power arose from the altered position of the senate towards them. According to formal law the senators stood in the same relation to the consuls as they did to the kings, being not above but under the head of the republic: who every four years, on the occasion of assessment for taxes, revised the list of senators and appointed new ones to fill whatever vacancies had occurred. Now, however, little by little, but ever more sensibly, began to be felt the enormous predominance held in all ages by any large aristocratic corporation whose members, all men of great political experience, have a life-long tenure of office, over functionaries who are appointed to their responsible positions for but the term of a single year. The senate represented the unity, and the firmly established traditions of Roman politics and rule. Not all the proud self-consciousness of a few powerful consuls could prevent the office as a whole from coming to be considered as merely the executive organ of the senate.
Since the foundation of the republic the people’s assemblies had also assumed an entirely different character and position. The necessity felt by the governing power at the overthrow of the Tarquins, to make sure of the sympathy of the lower classes had brought the centuriate assembly--in which both patricians and plebeians were bound together for the rendering of important decisions--into great prominence. The function of this body extended to the election of consuls, to the ratification or rejection of measures proposed by the higher government, to the declaration of wars of aggression, and lastly to the exercise of jurisdiction in criminal cases where appeal, now the privilege of the plebeian as well as of the noblest patrician, was permitted from the sentence of the quæstors.
PLEBEIANS AND PATRICIANS
The plebeians were soon forced to see, however, that under the new order all the advantages of public life fell to the patricians. If this class had at that time so far risen above its prejudices as to take into its own circles the more nearly related plebeian families, to admit them to equal marriage rights, to rights in the senate, and to eligibility for the various public offices; and if it had further opened the state’s domains to the mass of plebeians, and striven by a just apportionment of the land to found a new and more contented peasant order, there would be no need now to write the account of a hundred and fifty years’ struggle between these two classes. But instead of doing these things the Roman patricians displayed the most tenacious selfishness and greed--qualities manifested, it is true, in equal degree by all their plebeian kindred.
In matters pertaining to legal marriage, as well as in higher affairs of state, religious superstition played a very prominent part. It remained for some decades the honest belief of the patricians that they alone had the right of holding communications with the gods or of taking correct auspices, maintaining further that any intermingling by marriage with plebeian blood would impair if not destroy this power of reading signs. According to them, auspices taken by plebeians, being of no value, always failed in their effect; hence there could be no question of appointing plebeians to offices which were so indissolubly connected with the taking of public auspices.
Thus it came about that not long after the foundation of the republic, the populus, i.e., the patrician body, and the plebeian stood arrayed against each other like two entirely unrelated races--between whom there cannot possibly be any unity of feeling or equality of rights. Through absorption of the Sabellian clan of Appius Claudius--who, at variance with his own people, had gone over to the side of the Romans and at the head of five thousand followers had settled on the opposite shore of the Anio--the patrician party was much the stronger and more numerous, and having alone the right to make appointments to civil office and to the priesthood, was the true guardian and promoter of the legal traditions and spiritual knowledge of the state.
The election of consuls was by no means carried on by free vote; rather, it appears, a list of nominees was made out beforehand by the presiding consul and the senate, from which the voters must choose, having the right at most to reject the candidates offered without that of substituting others in their places. Should the majority of votes fall to an opposition candidate, however, the presiding consul was neither obliged to recognise the votes nor to proclaim the candidate elected. The curiate assembly of the patricians alone had the right to confer by the passage of a lex curiata de imperio, the supreme power or imperium upon the successful candidate. In the beginning of the republic the system of allowing colleges of the priesthood to appoint their own members was introduced, as was also that of appointing isolated priests and vestals through the pontifical college--an institution modelled doubtless on that of the pontifex maximus.
It was not those plebeians who enjoyed greater material advantages who gave the first signs of dissatisfaction at the existing condition of things; neither was it in the domain of politics, using the word in a narrow sense, that the first reactionary movements were observed: the first epoch-making uprising of the plebs had its origin in the social condition of the poorer peasants and leaseholders.
This class had suffered long under the judicial system of the patricians, who decided all causes according to a code of laws unknown to the inferior orders; but still greater was the oppression felt from another source. It is undoubtedly true that there existed a scale of social importance among the patrician landholders themselves, and that the possessions of many of them did not exceed those of the better situated among the plebeians; yet in other directions there were open to them opportunities from which the plebeians were debarred. Many of the larger property owners among the patricians could be reckoned--there having as yet arisen in Rome no great and independent commercial class--as capitalists. The trade in products of the soil was entirely in the hands of these rich proprietors, who in common with the other patricians besides realised all the profits resulting from the exploitation of the public lands. A considerable portion of these lands could, with the consent of the government, be “temporarily” occupied and cultivated by patrician landowners on payment of a yearly rental--such domains never to lose their character as state property, nor the government to release the right of remanding them at any time.
As a matter of fact, however, these terms were rarely kept, and the state domains were given away, sold, bequeathed or hypothecated exactly as though they had been private property. Apart from the illegality of such proceedings, they worked considerable harm to the plebeians, who deeply and bitterly resented the injustice shown by the authorities in exempting these estates from payment of rent and taxation. Whenever the situation of the state made it necessary to tax the patricians, it was their private property only that was assessed, and this made their condition, by reason of their large tax-free domains, greatly superior to that of the plebeians, who possessed only assessable lands. There was further the extreme severity shown in leaving free from impost the money capital of the patricians, while in the case of the plebeians no allowance was made for mortgages on their property.
We touch now upon the darkest spot in the situation of the poorer plebeians. The conflicts that had repeatedly broken out since the fall of the Tarquins, between the Roman populations and the neighbouring peoples, had pressed hard upon the plebeians. The successive calls to arms, the devastation of their lands, the plundering of their belongings, together with the heavy war-tax, formed an almost unsupportable burden, which was but little lightened by the declaration that the increase in impost would be looked upon by the government as a mere temporary advance and would be returned at a later period.
The pressure of these conditions plunged the greater part of the poorer leaseholders heavily in debt. The legal rate of interest was enormously high, considering the pecuniary shortage that prevailed--so high that it was welcomed by the plebeians as a great relief when later (probably 357 B.C.) the maximum was reduced to 8⅓ or 10 per cent. In case of failure to pay the interest on a debt, the accumulated interest was added to the original debt until the amount owed was increased to an overwhelming figure. It was a menace to the internal peace of the country that the creditors of the peasants were usually their patrician neighbours who, as capitalists, were the only ones in a position to lend. Analogous to the course pursued in Attica a century before, the Roman manor lords were now about to make the situation of the plebs one of economic dependence upon themselves. Hence in Rome, as in Attica, the first attack of the common people on the patrician classes was made on the ground of the extreme harshness of the Roman laws governing debt, framed, as they were, by a race which knew no mercy where its material interests were concerned. Sometimes the creditor, into whose hands the law gave complete possession of the person and property of the debtor, left this latter in nominal control and occupation of his land only to oppress him still further by demands for rent. To this arrangement the debtor frequently preferred taking advantage of the nexum, or usual form of loan contract under which he could place himself in bondage to the creditor to serve him as many years as were required to liquidate the debt, or until the creditor actually sold him as a slave in a foreign land.
It is no wonder that out of conditions so one-sided and oppressive, the deepest aversion should have arisen among the plebeians against the patrician rule. There were, indeed, some among the noble families who sought to establish better and more conciliatory relations between themselves and the lower people, notably the Valerii and the Horatii; but for the most part the patricians of those days were characterised by the harshest egotism and imperiousness. These qualities were particularly conspicuous in the Sabine Fabii, in the newly settled family of Appius Claudius,--who later displayed a certain eccentricity in good as well as evil that belied the usual conservative traits of the aristocracy,--and in the Quinctii and Manlii, who were the acknowledged supporters of a sort of iron military discipline to be applied in their relations with the lower classes. From all this it will be seen that only by a movement bordering on a general revolution could a new political adjustment be brought about that would insure an amendment in the social condition of the plebeians.
[Sidenote: [495-457 B.C.]]
According to the chronology, often faulty, of tradition, the distress of the plebeians and their consequent dissatisfaction had already, in the year 495 B.C., reached a momentous pitch. In 494 the plebs consented to serve only under the dictator Manius Valerius, beloved of the people, who conducted the first enlistments and met later with success in the field. But when his proposals looking to a modification of the laws against debtors fell through in the senate, the patience of the plebeians was at an end. Valerius, who was rightfully incensed, resigned his office; and the consuls of that year wishing to continue the war, the plebeian portion of the army withdrew from the main body and the patrician city, and under the conduct of their officers retired to the so-called “Sacred Mount” on the peninsula formed three Roman miles from Rome by the junction of the Anio and the Tiber.
This move was actuated by a desire on the part of the plebeians to cut themselves completely off from the rest of the people and establish themselves as an independent body at an entirely new point. The seriousness of the situation finally obliged the patricians and the senate to yield; and negotiations ensued, the effects of which were felt even as late as the imperial epoch.
The new compact between the two branches of the Roman population, to which was given an international form, provided that the plebeians residing in the state should be organised into an independent body, having their own official representatives that were to rival in power those of the patricians. In opposition to the consuls were placed two plebeian tribunes (usually called “people’s tribunes”) who were later increased in number to four, and after 457 to ten; who were appointed, according to all probability, by the state assemblies of the plebeians. Guardians of the community in the true sense of the word, their ædiles being ever at the service of the plebeians as police and general administration agents, these chosen tribunes had the right and duty to protect their fellow plebeians against injustice and maladministration on the part of the consuls, to resolutely uphold the right of appeal--in a word, to interfere whenever the interests of the plebeians seemed to be endangered. They were powerless only against the dictator and the military jurisdiction or imperium of the consuls outside the city. In Rome they had the right to prevent, by making prompt and personal protest, the execution of any patrician order whereat a citizen might take offence; and also to block or veto any patrician measure recommended to the citizen body, which was found to be unjust. This was called the right of intercession, or the veto of the plebeian tribunes.
From these circumstances it ensued that no tribune could, after the 10th of December, the date of accession to office, pass a single night outside the city during the whole official year;[20] his house, moreover, having to stand open night and day as a refuge for any who might need protection. To insure them perfect security in the performance of their duties the persons of the plebeian tribunes were declared “doubly sacred” and as such unassailable and inviolable. Whoever committed an attack on these personages was said to fall under the malediction of the gods and was, even according to earthly laws, adjudged guilty of a crime punishable with death. Hence every patrician, consuls included, who in any way infringed the tribunes’ rights, or offered them personal indignity could be held to strict account; in serious cases even arrested and brought before the tribunes themselves, who had power to inflict a penalty of fines or death. From their judgment however it was possible to appeal to the plebeian assemblies.
[Sidenote: [457-390 B.C.]]
Up to the time of the great wars with the Veientines and the Celts, the civil dissensions with which Rome was torn constantly grew in importance and menace, until shortly after the so-called decemviral period the class conflicts had assumed a character entirely different from that borne by them during the first half of the fifth century B.C. Before the great crisis ushered in by the decemvirate the work of the plebeian party leaders had been limited to bringing their state within a state to completer organisation, widening the breach that existed between the plebeians and the populus, or patrician body, and endeavouring by every means in their power to lessen the authority exercised by patrician officials over the plebeians. This period during which the two divisions of the Roman people met in a conflict of unexampled ferocity and hate, presents little that can be dwelt on with pleasure. Incidents of the most revolting nature arose from the extreme arrogance of the patrician youth; even the word assassination has frequently to be employed, while the internal strife had a serious effect on the fortunes of the nation in the wars it was constantly waging abroad. Yet even in those troubled times the foreign foe would singularly misreckon who counted on the connivance of either patricians or plebeians to open to him the city’s door, since when an external common danger threatened, the divided factions united as a rule to present a front solid and impenetrable as a wall of brass.
Fortunately for the future of Rome the bent towards a constantly widening separation between the plebeians and the patricians received, in the decemvir period, an entirely different turn. From that time the plebeian leaders were chiefly occupied in winning for their constituents their proper social and political position in the Roman state, with the balance leaning strongly, up to the decisive battle for the hegemony on the Apennine peninsula, to the side of the purely political questions of dispute. The sympathy of modern observers is almost entirely with the plebeians. The demands were moderate and the political views of the energetic honourable Roman peasants were immeasurably higher than those of the Greek democrats.[21]
In spite of all the heat and passion evinced on both sides, revolution was the last thing the parties thought of up to the very time of the Gracchi. Whereas in Hellas the triumphant party rarely receded from a position once taken or abandoned any pretensions however lofty, the Roman peasant assemblies contented themselves with claiming merely what, according to our modern ideas, was their just due. Attacked as they frequently were in their deepest interests, the only revenge dreamed of by the plebeians was secession--the voluntary cutting of themselves adrift from the patrician state; and their end at last attained, in good qualities as in bad they manifested precisely the same robust qualities that characterised their patrician adversaries. Their subsequent acts fully justified their course, since in their public affairs they revealed a vigour and capacity well-nigh inexhaustible.
But we must not judge the patrician class too harshly; revolting as their laws against debtors appear to us, we are not justified in attributing their adroitly maintained policy of resistance purely to the arrogance and selfishness of a privileged class, nor their refusal to admit plebeians to equal marriage laws and municipal offices entirely to base hypocrisy. We must, moreover, take into account the natural hesitation of an old, experienced governing body to give the leadership in public affairs into the hands of new and untried elements; and the plebeians themselves, far from despising the adversaries they so deeply hated, never failed to recognise those sterling qualities by which in peace and war they had achieved such signal service to the state, and elevated them to the position of models for their own character and conduct. And finally, at the decisive turning points in the evolution of Rome’s ancient constitution, it was not before superior might that the patricians lowered their banner and reached out the hand of friendship to their foe; it was solely in obedience to their own patriotic perception of what was best for the state and to the force of inner necessity.
[Sidenote: [510-452 B.C.]]
The wonderful tenacity displayed by both the divisions of the people in their conflicts with each other, proclaims them to be of one blood, and to have in actual fact but one cause, that of their agricultural interests. This kinship further explains the conservative character of these struggles, and the aristocratic tendencies constantly to be observed in the Roman administration from the time of the complete triumph of the plebeians down to that of the elder Cato. It was these class struggles and the manner in which they were carried on that gave the Roman constitution, as it gradually developed through succeeding generations, that stability and elasticity that later excited in more than one Greek statesman feelings of envy.
One failure, however, was not spared this people, in spite of that practical sense that led them on only tried political ground, and caused them to advance by successive cautious steps rather than by means of dangerous innovations. It was precisely this conservative character maintained throughout by the Roman constitution that prevented the problems that confronted it from ever finding complete solution, that cumbered it with a number of empty, useless forms, and gave new life to certain dangerous elements--notably that of dualism--that were later, when the creative power of the people was on the wane and the national character for ability and skill about to disappear, to unfold in disastrous might.
The first period of inner dissensions, that extending to the middle of the fifth century B.C., has not completely been made known to us; historical accounts being so intermingled with myths and the chronicles and traditions of noble families as to be wholly unreliable. The period was certainly characterised, however, by incessant feuds with the neighbouring populations, and in the interior by the phase of the conflict between the patricians and the plebeians which revealed the two factions under their least favourable aspect.
The resentment shown by the burghers and higher officials at the institution of the plebeian tribunes caused for a number of years the most common use of the latter’s authority to be the protection from encroachment by the patricians and from the consequences of their own acts, such plebeians as had resisted unlawful taxation, or refused to render military service. The tribunes also, after 476 repeatedly upheld the rights of the plebeians in cases of breach of the compact with the patricians, and had the power to condemn any individual patrician who was guilty of such a breach to a heavy fine or even exile. Gradually the personal sanctity and inviolability of the tribunes had come to serve them as a means of aggression rather than of mere defence. Wherever they chose to interpose, all hindrances disappeared from their path; it was only when they contemplated some decided step that their fellow tribunes had the right to interfere, all important measures being adopted by a council of the tribunes.
This right of intercession soon assumed a high significance. Without actual legal right to resist the laws passed by patrician rulers the tribunes yet could, by simply declaring their readiness to support the plebeians in their passive stand against the demands of senate and consuls for troops of war, offer effectual opposition to the enforcement of the state’s decrees. In this way they came to have a widely extended power of intervention, and at an early date they claimed the right of being present at all meetings of the senate. Unquestionably the mass of the citizens would gladly have seen the plebeian tribunes driven from office, and on both sides party hatred ran high. In this period tradition, untrustworthy as history, places the murder (473) of Genucius, the tribune, and the legend of Coriolanus.
SPURIUS CASSIUS AND THE FIRST AGRARIAN LAW
[Sidenote: [494-466 B.C.]]
The taxation abuses and the tyranny of the laws regulating debt, as well as the monopoly by patricians of state domains, had been allowed to go uncorrected until 494. In this year a high-minded citizen, Spurius Cassius Viscellinus, who was appointed consul for the third time in 486 and who then brought about the alliance with the Hernicans, as he had earlier, in 493, brought about that with the Latins, took an important conciliatory step in agrarian matters by proposing that the public lands be surveyed and given out in grants to the poorer plebeians, the remaining portions to be rented to patricians under much stricter conditions of payment than formerly. His law, it appears, was passed, but was never actually enforced.[22] Out of revenge his compeers hurled at him the accusation, fatal in republican Rome, of having aspired to mount the throne; and in the following year at the expiration of his term of office he was sentenced to death.
From this time until 466, when it was again driven into oblivion by the pressure of outside wars, the tribunes demanded the full enforcement of the Lex Cassia. Important advance in the development of the constitution was meanwhile made in another direction. With the institution of the tribunes, the informal, irregularly held meetings of the peasant assemblies were organised into the officially recognised diet of the whole plebeian body, which excluding the patricians and their clients (the latter now casting in their votes with the plebeians in the centuriata, thus considerably strengthening the position of the patricians in this assembly) broke up into smaller assemblies presided over by their tribunes and called the comitia tributa (or assembly of the tribes) from the twenty-one district tribes into which the new organisation had divided the plebeians. These assemblies or comitia offered an opportunity to the tribunes gradually to educate the commonalty up to the high political standard set by the ablest of the plebeians.
In this manner alone could the plebeians develop their full strength and importance as a class, since all the advantages conferred by ancient tradition and political routine, by a clear insight into their own needs, and a firmly established social, religious, and political position, were on the side of the patricians, the plebeians having further to contend against the disadvantage of being widely scattered over a great extent of territory and of having received no preparatory political training or instruction. It was precisely these hindrances to the advancement of their people that the more active among the tribunes set about to overcome. A series of truly notable plebeian statesmen now came to the fore, the most prominent among them being the Icilii, the Virginii, and later the Duilii.
[Sidenote: [492-452 B.C.]]
As early as 492 an Icilius had passed a law making it a punishable crime to interrupt or in any way disturb the tribunes when in the act of laying their criminal decisions before the plebeians in the assembly of the tribes. Furthermore the tribunes, preventing as they did any violent interruption of the process of development by holding the plebeians, in all their upward strivings, strictly to the line of legal right, came to be the most powerful factor in the gradual development and formation of the Roman constitution. In domestic legislation they also constantly took the initiative, being chiefly concerned in gaining for the tribal assembly and their proceedings--which latter as merely “legislative monologues” had hitherto remained without result--a recognised position in the magistracy of the state. The centuriate assembly was at that time of comparatively little service to the plebeians. The plebeians eligible to vote greatly outnumbered the patricians of the same class; yet the arrangement of “voices” in the centuriata was such that the patricians largely predominated. The first census class consisted of eighty centuries, the mass of the members possessing the least means being united into one, while the second, third, fourth, and fifth census classes--those formed of the peasantry of the middle class--were divided up into ninety centuries.
[Sidenote: [482-452 B.C.]]
It was long, however, before the tribunes gained for their tribal assembly the recognition of the state. It was as late as 482, that the commonalty was entirely bound to the choice of the consuls and senate in consular elections, and it was only in 473--when the uprising provoked by the murder of the tribune Genucius, brought an able and energetic plebeian, Volero Publilius, forward as leader of the plebs--that any important step was made in advance. In the year 471 this tribune, by securing the passage of a law providing that the election of the tribunes and ædiles should be ratified by the tribal assembly, raised this body to a position beside that of the national assembly as an organ of the state with a special function in state legislation. The right of the plebs to deliberate and render decisions in their separate assemblies was thus recognised, and their hope of one day taking “legislative initiative” made an actual fact. All measures proposed by them, drawn up in the form of petitions to the senate, must pass through the hands of the tribunes, and the senate had no longer the right to reject such proposals straightway, but must first take counsel upon them with the tribunes. In case of approval by the senate the rogations (where they did not relate exclusively to the affairs of the plebeians) were laid before the curiate assembly as the last step preliminary to their passage as laws.[24]
THE INSTITUTION OF THE DECEMVIRATE
According to the fragmentary accounts that have been handed down there was a long cessation of the civil strife in consequence of the heavy burden of wars and pestilence under which Rome at one time laboured: but the old struggle was finally renewed under conditions that made possible an entire change of tactics on the part of the plebeian leaders. In the year 462 the tribune Caius Terentilius Harsa proposed a measure--adopted the following year by the united college of tribunes--that empowered the commonalty to appoint a committee of five plebeians who should frame certain laws for the limiting and regulating of the arbitrary power of punishment exercised by the consuls in suits against plebeians; just so much judicial power as the plebeian allowed him should the consul wield, but he was not to rule according to his own whim and pleasure. The aim of this measure was to complete the organisation of the plebs as an independent organ of the state, and to restrict as far as possible the functions of patrician magistrates in the administration of justice. It naturally met with the most determined opposition on the part of the older citizens; and even the most liberal and clear sighted among the patrician statesmen were alarmed at this incursion of the plebeians into a new field, since the greatest sufferers from any increase in the rights and independence of the plebs that would inevitably widen the gulf already existing between governing power and people, would be themselves. Bitter and prolonged were the party struggles that ensued, the same tribunes being appointed year after year by the people’s assemblies, while the senate and the older citizens, with equal obstinacy, rejected again and again the same old measures. The senate tried to conciliate the plebs by making other concessions, but in vain; finally in the year 457 it gave its consent to the number of the tribunes being increased to ten--a doubtful victory for the plebs, since among so many one or another could surely be found who could be induced by patrician influence to use his right of intercession against any plans of his colleagues that might be troublesome.[25]
[Sidenote: [454-449 B.C.]]
In one of the following years the consuls, A. Aternius and Sp. Tarpeius, passed a law limiting the hitherto unrestricted right of the consuls to impose property fines; according to its terms no man (except in cases of appeal) could be sentenced to a heavier fine than two sheep or thirty head of cattle in one day. In spite of all this the obstinacy of the people’s party remained unshaken until the senate finally succeeded in effecting a compromise, whereby the power of the consuls to inflict punishment was considerably lessened, while the dangerous power of initial rogation by the tribunes was completely done away with. Between 454-452 an agreement with the tribunes was reached that both divisions of the Roman people should have a common civil and criminal code, and the codification of the new statute book was intrusted to a commission of ten men appointed by the comitia centuriata. The choice was made in 452, and the commissioners--decemvirs, so-called, including none but patricians--entered upon their functions May 15th, 451. A complete reorganisation of the old system being the work in hand, the magistrates, particularly consuls and tribunes, were, according to an ancient custom, suspended from office under a proviso that safeguarded the sworn rights and liberties of the commonalty, while it bound the tribunes not to make appeal to the people, and their full power was given into the hands of the new governing body.
The manner in which the decemvirs at first discharged their duties is well known; so great was the legislative ability they displayed that during their first year of office, 451, they brought to completion the main object of their work. A code was shortly after approved by the senate, and accepted by the comitia centuriata, and affixed in the form of ten copper tablets to the speaker’s pulpit in the Forum. Ten new decemvirs were appointed for the year 450, and among these were several plebeians, the first non-aristocratic office holders to act as representatives for the entire Roman people. Whatever may have been the plan of the politicians of that day, it never reached fulfilment; as shortly after the completion of the new code, which comprised in all Twelve Tables, the decemvirate, headed by the brutally arrogant Appius Claudius,[26] began to assume the character of the most intolerable despotism. Dissatisfaction reached its height when Appius Claudius and his associates attempted, against all legal right, to retain their office after the 15th of May, 449, and undertook war against the Sabines and the Æquians.[b]
THE STORY OF VIRGINIA TOLD BY DIONYSIUS
[Sidenote: [449 B.C.]]
A plebeian, whose name was Lucius Virginius, a man inferior to none in military accomplishments, had the command of a century in one of the five legions that were employed against the Æqui; this person had a daughter, called from her father, Virginia, who far surpassed all the Roman virgins in beauty, and was promised in marriage to Lucius, formerly a tribune, the grandson of that Icilius who first instituted, and was first invested with, the tribunitian power. Appius Claudius, the chief of the decemvirs, having seen this virgin, who was now marriageable, as she was reading in a school (for the schools stood at that time near the Forum) he was presently captivated with her beauty, and the violence of his passion forcing him often to return to the school, his frenzy was, by this time, increased. But, finding it impossible for him to marry her, both because she was promised to another, and because he himself was married; and looking upon it, at the same time, to be below him to marry into a plebeian family, and contrary to the law, which he himself had inserted among those of the Twelve Tables, he first endeavoured to corrupt her with money; and, for that purpose, was continually sending some women to her governesses (for Virginia had lost her mother) and gave them much, and promised more. The women he sent to tempt the governesses had orders not to acquaint them with the name of the man who was in love with Virginia, but only that he was a person who had it in his power to do good and bad offices to those he thought fit. When he found himself unable to gain the governesses, and saw the virgin guarded even with greater care than before, his passion was inflamed, and he resolved upon more audacious measures. Then, sending for Marcus Claudius, who was one of his clients, a daring man, and ready for any service, he acquainted him with his passion; and, having instructed him what he would have him do and say, he sent him away, accompanied with a band of the most profligate men. Claudius, going to the school, seized the virgin, and attempted to lead her away publicly through the Forum; but there being an outcry, and a great concourse of people, he was hindered from carrying the virgin to the place he had designed, and addressed himself to a magistrate. This was Appius, who was then sitting alone in the tribunal to hear causes, and administer justice to those who applied for it. But, when Claudius was going to speak, the people, who stood round the tribunal cried out and expressed their indignation, and all desired he might stay till the relations of the virgin were present. And Appius ordered it should be so. In a short time, Publius Numitorius, uncle to Virginia by her mother, a man of distinction among the plebeians, appeared with many of his friends and relations; and, not long after, came Lucius, to whom she had been promised by her father, accompanied with a strong body of young plebeians. He came to the tribunal out of breath, and labouring for respiration, and desired to know who it was had dared to lay hands upon a virgin, who was a Roman citizen, and what he meant by it.
All being silent, Marcus Claudius, who had laid hold on Virginia, spoke as follows: “I have committed neither a rash nor a violent action in relation to this virgin, Appius Claudius; but, as I am her master, I take her according to law. I shall now inform you by what means she is become mine. I have a female slave, who belonged to my father, and has served a great many years. This slave, being with child, was engaged by the wife of Virginius, whom she was acquainted with, and used to visit, to give her the child she should be brought to bed of; and, in performance of this promise, when delivered of this daughter, she pretended to us that she was brought to bed of a dead child, and gave the girl to Numitoria; who, having no children, either male, or female, took the child; and, supposing it, brought it up. For a long time, I was ignorant of all this; but now being informed of it, and provided with many credible witnesses, and having also examined the slave, I fly to that law, which is common to all, and determines that the children shall belong to their mothers, not to those who suppose them; that, if the mothers are free, the children shall be free; if those are slaves, the children shall be slaves also; and that both the children and the mothers shall have the same masters. In virtue of this law, I desire that I may take the daughter of my slave, and I am ready to submit my pretensions to a trial; and, if any one claims her, to give sufficient sureties to produce her at the time appointed; but if they desire to have this affair speedily determined, I am willing this minute to plead my cause before you, and shall neither give security for her appearance, nor offer anything that may create a delay. Let them choose which of these conditions they like best.”
After Claudius had said this, and added many entreaties that his claim might not be less regarded than that of his adversaries, because he was his client, and of mean birth, the uncle of Virginia answered in few words, and those such as were proper to be addressed to a magistrate, saying, that Virginius, a plebeian, was the father of this girl, and then abroad in the service of his country; that Numitoria, his own sister, a woman of virtue and worth, was her mother, who died not many years before; that the virgin herself had been educated in such a manner as became a person of free condition, and a citizen of Rome; that she had been solemnly betrothed to Icilius, and that the marriage had taken effect, if the war with the Æqui had not intervened; that, during no less than fifteen years, Claudius had never attempted to aver anything of this kind to the relations of Virginia, but that now the virgin was marriageable, and of distinguished beauty, he was charmed with it, and published an infamous calumny, contrived not indeed by himself, but by a man who thought he had a right to gratify all his passions by all the methods he could invent. He added that, as to the trial, the father himself would defend the cause of his daughter when he returned from the campaign; and that, in the meantime, as he was her uncle, and ready to support her right, he himself claimed her person, to which he was entitled by the laws; and in this, he insisted upon nothing that was either new, or not allowed to every Roman, if not to every other man, which is, that if it is pretended that any person is a slave, not the man who maintains that he is so, but he who asserts his liberty, shall have the custody of that person, till the decision of the contest. And he said that Appius was obliged, on many accounts, to observe this institution; first, because he had inserted this very law with the rest in the Twelve Tables; and, in the next place, because he was chief of the decemvirate; and, besides, that he was invested not only with the consular, but also with the tribunitian, power, the principal function of which was to relieve such of the citizens as were weak and destitute of all other help. He then desired him to compassionate a virgin, who fled to him for assistance, and who had long since lost her mother, and was then deprived of her father, and in danger of losing not only her paternal fortunes, but also her husband, her country, and, the greatest of all human blessings, her liberty. And, having lamented the abuse to which the virgin would be delivered up, and by that means raised great compassion in all present, he at last spoke of the time to be appointed for the decision of this cause. [He urged that he be given custody of the girl until the return of her father. Appius however refused this request. Icilius, the virgin’s betrothed lover, protested that the outrage should never be consummated while he lived.]
Icilius was going on, when the lictors, by order of the magistrate, kept him off from the tribunal, and commanded him to obey the sentence. Upon which Claudius laid hold on the virgin, and was going to take her away, while she hung upon her uncle, and her spouse. The people, who stood round the tribunal, seeing her in so moving an agony, cried out all at once, and, without regarding the authority of the magistrate, fell upon those who were endeavouring to force her away. So that Claudius, fearing the violence, quitted Virginia, and fled for refuge under the feet of the decemvir. Appius, seeing all the people in a rage, was at first greatly disordered, and in doubt for a considerable time what measures to take; then calling Claudius to the tribunal, and speaking a few words to him, as it seemed, he made a sign for the audience to be silent, and said: “Since I find you are exasperated at the sentence I have pronounced, citizens, I shall waive the exactness of that part of it which relates to the giving sureties by Claudius for the appearance of Virginia; and, in order to gratify you, I have prevailed upon my client to consent that the relations of the virgin shall bail her till the arrival of her father. Take away the virgin, therefore, Numitorius, and acknowledge yourself bound for her appearance to-morrow. For this time is sufficient for you both to give Virginius notice to-day, and to bring him hither in three or four hours from the camp to-morrow.” And they desiring further time, he gave no answer, but rose up, and ordered his seat to be taken away.
He left the Forum full of anguish, distracted with love, and determined not to relinquish the virgin any more to her relations; but when she was produced by her surety, to take her away by force; to place a stronger guard about his person, in order to prevent any violence from the multitude, and early to post a great number of his friends and clients round the tribunal. That he might execute this resolution with a show of justice under the pretence of the non-appearance of the father, he sent some horsemen, whom he chiefly confided in, to the camp with letters for Antonius, who commanded the legion in which Virginius served, to desire he would detain the man in safe custody, lest, when he was informed of the situation of his daughter, he might escape out of the camp. But his design was prevented by the son of Numitorius, and the brother of Icilius, who being sent away by the rest of her relations upon the first motion of this affair, as they were young, and full of spirit, rode full speed; and, arriving at the camp before the men sent by Appius, informed Virginius of everything which had passed; who, going to Antonius, and concealing the true cause of his request, pretended that he had received an account of the death of some near relation, whose funeral and burial he was obliged by the law to perform; and, by that means obtained his dismission; and, setting out in the evening with the youths, he took a byroad for fear of being pursued both from the camp, and the city; which really happened; for Antonius, having received the letters about the first watch, detached a party of horse after him, and others, sent from the city, patrolled all night in the road that led from the camp to Rome. When Appius was informed of the unexpected arrival of Virginius, he was in a fury; and, going to the tribunal with a great number of attendants, ordered the relations of Virginia to appear. When they were come, Claudius repeated what he had said before, and desired Appius to decide the contest without delay, saying that both his informer and his witnesses were present, and that he was ready to deliver up the slave herself to be examined. He ended all with a feigned lamentation, grounded on a supposed fear of not obtaining the same justice with others, as he had said before, because he was his client; and also with desiring that Appius would not relieve those whose complaints were the most affecting, but whose demands were the most equitable.
On the other side, the father of the virgin, and the rest of her relations, brought many just and well-grounded proofs to show the child could not have been supposed; alleging that the sister of Numitorius, and wife of Virginius, could have no probable reason to suppose a child, since she was then young, and married to a young man, and had brought forth a child no very considerable time after her marriage; neither, if she had been ever so desirous to introduce a foreign offspring into her own family, would she have taken the child of another person’s slave, rather than that of a free woman united to her by consanguinity, or friendship, whose fidelity might have secured to her the possession of the child she had taken; and, when she had it in her power to take either a male or a female child, she would have certainly chosen the former. For, after a woman is brought to bed, if she wants children, she must necessarily be contented with, and bring up, whatever nature produces; whereas, a woman who supposes a child will, in all probability, choose one of that sex which excels the other. As to the informer, and the credible witnesses which Claudius said he would produce in great numbers, they disproved their testimony by this reason, drawn from probability, that Numitoria would never have done a thing openly, and in conjunction with witnesses of free condition, which required secrecy, and might have been transacted by one person, and, by that means, have exposed herself to have the girl taken from her by the master of the mother, after she had brought her up.
While they were alleging these reasons, and many others of equal weight, and such as could admit of no reply, and at the same time representing the calamities of the virgin in a very affecting manner, all who heard them, when they cast their eyes upon her, compassionated the distresses in which her beauty had involved her (for, being dressed in mourning, her looks fixed on the ground, and the lustre of her eyes drowned in tears, she attracted the regard of all the spectators; such was her beauty, and such her grace, that she appeared more than mortal), and all bewailed this unexpected turn of fortune, when they considered from what prosperity she was fallen, and to what abuses and insults she was going to be exposed. They also reflected that, since the law which had secured their liberty was violated, nothing could hinder their own wives and daughters also from suffering the same treatment. While they were making these, and the like reflections, and communicating them to one another, they could not refrain from tears. But Appius, who was not in his nature a man of sense, being then corrupted with the greatness of his power, his mind distempered, and his heart inflamed with the love of Virginia, paid no regard to the reasons alleged in her favour, nor was moved with her tears, but even resented the compassion shown to her by the audience; since he looked upon himself to deserve greater compassion and to suffer greater torments from that beauty which had enslaved him. Wrought up to madness, therefore, by all these incentives, he had the confidence both to make a shameless speech, by which he plainly confirmed the suspicion that he himself had contrived the calumny against the virgin, and to commit a tyrannical and cruel action.
For, while they were going on to plead in her favour, he commanded silence; and all being silent, and the people in the Forum flocking to the tribunal from a desire to hear what he would say, he often turned his eyes here and there to observe the number of his friends, who by his orders had posted themselves in different parts of the Forum, and then spoke as follows: “This is not the first time, Virginius, and you who attend with him, that I have heard of this affair; I was informed of it long ago, even before I was invested with this magistracy. Hear now by what means it came to my knowledge: The father of this Marcus Claudius, when he was dying, desired me to be trustee for his son, whom he was leaving an infant; for the Claudii are hereditary clients to our family. During the time of this trust, I had information given me that Numitoria had supposed this girl, whom she had received from the slave of Claudius; and, upon examining into the matter, I found it was so. As it did not become me to stir in this affair myself, I thought it best to leave it to this man, when he grew up, either to take away the girl if he thought fit, or to come up to an accommodation with those who had brought her up, for a sum of money, or to gratify them with the possession of her. Since that time, being engaged in public affairs I gave myself no further concern about those of Claudius. But it is probable that when he was taking an account of his own fortunes he also received the same information concerning this girl which had before been given to me; neither does he claim anything unwarranted by law, in desiring to take the daughter of his own slave. If they would have accommodated this matter, it had been well; but, since it is brought into litigation, I give this testimony in his favour, and decree him to be the master of the girl.”
When those who were uncorrupted and friends of justice heard this sentence, they held up their hands to heaven, and raised an outcry mixed with lamentation and resentment; while the flatterers of the oligarchy gave acclamations capable of inspiring the men in power with confidence. And the assembly being inflamed and full of various expressions and agitations, Appius commanded silence, and said: “Disturbers of the public tranquillity, and useless both in peace and war, if you cease not to divide the city and to oppose us in the execution of our office, necessity shall teach you to submit. Think not that these guards in the Capitol and the fortress are placed there by us only to secure the city against a foreign enemy, and that we shall suffer you to sit here and taint the administration of the government. Be more prudent for the future than you are now; depart all of you who have nothing to do here, and mind your own affairs, if you are wise. And do you, Claudius, take the girl, and lead her through the Forum without fearing anyone, for the twelve axes of Appius shall attend you.” After he had said this, the people withdrew from the Forum, sighing, beating their foreheads, and unable to refrain from tears; while Claudius was taking away the virgin, who hung round her father, kissing him, and calling upon him with the most endearing expressions. In this distress Virginius resolved upon an action, deplorable indeed, and afflicting for a father, but at the same time becoming a lover of liberty and a man of great spirit; for, having desired leave to embrace his daughter for the last time without molestation, and to say what he thought fit to her in private before she was taken from the Forum, he obtained it from the magistrate; and his enemies retiring a little, he held her in his arms, while she was fainting, sinking to the ground, and scarce able to support herself, and for some time called upon her, kissed her, and wiped off her tears that flowed without ceasing; then, drawing her on by degrees, when he came to a cook’s shop, he snatched up a knife from the table and plunged it in her breast, saying only this, “I send thee, child, to the manes of thy ancestors with liberty and innocence, for if thou hadst lived, that tyrant would not have suffered thee to enjoy either.”[27] An outcry being raised, he held the bloody knife in his hand, and, covered as he was with the blood of his daughter, he ran like a madman through the city and called the citizens to liberty. Then, forcing his way through the gates, he mounted a horse that stood ready for him, and rode to the camp accompanied by Numitorius, who had attended him from thence to the city. He was followed by about four hundred other plebeians.[e]
FALL OF THE DECEMVIRATE
[Sidenote: [449-445 B.C.]]
The plebeian legions, infuriated by the story of the outrage, as related by Virginius, advanced on the city and invested the Aventine. Icilius in concert with the liberal patricians, L. Valerius Potitus and M. Horatius Barbatus, had already organised a party in Rome; and as the decemvirs, supported by a contingent of the old citizens, persisted in their refusal to relinquish their office, the plebeians, on the advice of M. Duilius, again withdrew in a body to the Sacred Mount on the Anio. This new secession forced the decemvirs to resign; and by means of negotiations with the senate carried on by Valerius and Horatius in the summer of 449, important concessions were gained, which assured--the old order of things having meanwhile been resumed--the future position of the plebs in the Roman state. As before there were appointed two magistrates (Valerius and Horatius being the first to fill this office) elected by the free choice of the citizens, to whom the name consul was now for the first time properly applied, and the plebs were again represented by their tribunes. The only legacy of the decemvirs to be taken up was the new system of laws, the complete revision and codification of all the legal forms and processes that had hitherto been current in Rome. In the “Twelve Tables” the whole Roman people had now a just and uniform code of marriage, property, civil, and criminal laws.[28] Apparently an attempt was made to mitigate their severity in certain respects; but the law of debtor and creditor still remained extremely harsh, and the maintenance of the prohibition against marriage between patricians and plebeians, with the denial of all legal rights to the issue of such marriages, kept alive the most intense phase of the animosity felt toward each other by the divided classes. On the other hand the new statutes sought to overthrow the former evil practices in consequence of which patricians and plebeians accused of capital political crimes were certain to receive severe sentence, the first from the tribal assembly, the second from the curiata. Hereafter the centuriate assembly was to be the sole organ of the people’s will in the trial and judgment of criminal offences. It was apparently at this epoch also that the Romans first caused their raw supplies of copper ore to be minted in copper coins.
Under the conduct of the consuls Horatius and Valerius, and of the able and energetic tribune of the plebs, M. Duilius, the affairs of Rome were soon brought into a condition of order and peace. A series of laws were set in operation which may be looked upon as the Magna Charta of the plebs, and on the proposition of the consuls the right of appeal was confirmed by the centuriate assembly, and given the most solemn and binding form, so that no magistrate (the dictator himself, who had retained all his former power, not excepted) who had pronounced sentence of death without admitting the right of appeal to the people could be a second time elected to office. The inviolability of the people’s tribunes was again declared, and safeguarded anew by a special enactment of the citizens under the sanction of the gods; and, representatives of the entire people as they were henceforth, their official organisation underwent important changes.
This was the beginning of the period during which patricians were driven by various causes to seek the protection of the tribunes, and the senate frequently availed itself of their support to break the opposition of the consuls. Their share in the transactions of the senate was now formally recognised; but they could still impose only money penalties on patrician opponents summoned before the tribal assembly, and when they contemplated bringing a capital charge they were obliged to apply first to the patrician magistrate, who would himself lay the charge before the centuriata. With the increase in importance of their position the tribunes received the right to take auspices. The election of quæstors, who as yet acted only in matters of finance, was also given over, in 447, to the tribunes under supervision by the consuls.
The great advance made by the plebs during the crisis the state had passed through was best evidenced by the altered position of the tribal assembly which, in obedience to the Valerio-Horatian law that declared the decisions of the plebs as uttered in the tribal assembly to be binding on the entire people, was given equal rights with the centuriata and elevated beside it to the importance of a second national assembly. Widely different interpretations have been given of the actual functions and position of the tribal assembly up to the time of the Tarentine War; but the views which seem most acceptable state that in order to become laws the decisions of the tributa in general matters, as well as those of the centuriata, needed the sanction of the senate, merely as a form, perhaps, and without any special proviso attached. The position of the senate appears to have remained unchanged in so far as that the tribunes were obliged to take counsel with that body and obtain its consent or authority before undertaking the passage of any measures that might require in their carrying out the full executive machinery of the state. This was the more necessary in that the senate, under the republic, had gradually assumed entire control of the state’s finances; and neither the consuls nor the dictator himself, with all his unlimited power, could touch any of the public funds without the senate’s express consent.
The tribal assembly, unhampered as it was by the complicated business routine that marked the proceedings of the centuriate assembly, offered the best field for the further development of the Roman state. Here the popular assemblies under the tribunes took a leading part in legislation, and the plebeians carried into the camp of the old citizens an active political war that was as ever directed towards levelling the distinctions that still separated them from the aristocratic classes, and gaining for themselves the rights and privileges that should be theirs under an impartial state rule.
Thus we see that from the close of the great crisis the plebs continued to gain ground slowly but surely. Aside from the rustic population, that lived widely scattered in villages or on country estates and were seldom brought into the current of political agitation unless great interests were at stake; there was still another class of plebeians who took no part in the general strife but bent their energies solely towards securing and making permanent their newly won advantage, and establishing peaceful relations with the aristocratic families. These designs were greatly aided by the fact that the leadership in all the upward movements of the plebs fell naturally into the hands of the richest and most able, politically, among them. It was only at a later period, when the issue at stake was the winning of a great political and agricultural victory for the benefit of the entire community, that the lesser and poorer peasant landholders, whose interests were more deeply involved than those of any other class, rose in union and brought to bear on the higher rank that mighty, irresistible pressure which is in their power to exert. Under these conditions the political conflict took on the character of a “class war,” with all the statesmanship, shrewdness, and craft, usual to such contests.
THE CANULEIAN LAW
[Sidenote: [445-421 B.C.]]
The first successful assault made since the great crisis on the position of the aristocracy in the state was that of the tribune Caius Canuleius, who in 445 B.C. caused the passage of a rogation which raised the prohibition against marriages between patricians and plebeians, and declared the full legality of such contracts. The chief object of this reform was to assure the rank and position of the patrician father to the children of plebeian women, the old law having declared all children of mixed marriages to belong to the order of plebs. This victory was particularly important from a political point of view, since it paved the way for the final coalescence of the two parties of the state. Encouraged by their success the tribunes prepared to push a new measure which, brought forward simultaneously with the rogation of Canuleius, had for design to facilitate the appointment of plebeians to the consulate, by leaving it open to the citizens to select for the office either plebeians or patricians. After a prolonged contest the old citizens yielded in so far as to effect a compromise agreeing to admit to consular power such plebeians as had distinguished themselves in a military career. The centuriate assembly appointed in place of consuls and to the same term of office military tribunes, invested with full consular authority, and to this position, which was decidedly inferior to that of consul in dignity and rank, plebeians were now eligible. For long this victory was one in theory only to the plebeians, the question constantly arising whether at the next election consuls or consular tribunes were to be appointed. Finally, in 444, the old-citizen party forced the newly elected military tribunes, among whom were doubtless two plebeians, to resign after only a few months, by pretexting errors made in taking the auspices at their election; and for the remainder of that year and the whole of the year following patrician consuls were appointed. As a result of such chicanery the consulship was filled by none but patricians up to the year 401 B.C.
Simultaneously with the establishment of consular tribunes the patricians introduced a new system of tactics to defend their political position, being led thereto partly by the constantly increasing mass of public affairs that passed under their hands. They withdrew one after the other from the consulship several important functions which they placed in the hands of officials newly created for that purpose, and thus secured to themselves the conduct of some of the weightiest of the state’s affairs. As the plebeian consular tribunes were persistently denied all share in the administration of justice, two new patrician officers of state were appointed called censors, to whom was entrusted the estimate and establishment every five years of the budget, the framing of the list of citizens, the assessment for taxation, the holding of the census, and the right of filling vacancies in the senate and of striking undesirable names off the lists of senators, knights, and citizens.
The office of censor as originally instituted was to last for the period of a lustrum, or five years; but in 434 the term was limited to one year and a half. Usually filled by former consuls or military tribunes, the position of censor gradually rose in dignity and power until it came to be the highest office in the Roman state. The later censors also had the right of punishing such citizens as had been guilty of dishonourable or immoral conduct, without laying themselves directly open to the action of the law, by means of a so-called censorial “note.” All senators who had fallen under their censure must resign their seat, all knights must forego performing their duties on horseback, and all citizens must withdraw from the associations of their tribe and submit to an increased tax.
Meanwhile the slow but steady onward march of the plebeians was not to be withstood. In the year 421 a proposal was made and adopted declaring them eligible to the quæstorship, and in 409 three out of four positions of quæstor were awarded to plebeian candidates. From the fact that after 400 one or more plebeians were regularly appointed to the military tribunate[29] it would appear that the road to political equality between the two great Roman orders at last lay open. And indeed the nation would have progressed to full and peaceful development both at home and abroad had not the orderly course of events been suddenly and disastrously broken in upon by a terrible storm of war.
EXTERNAL WARS
[Sidenote: [483-449 B.C.]]
Since the conclusion of the alliance with the Latins and the Hernicans scarcely a year had passed that was not marked by conflicts between the Romans, aided by their new allies, and one or another of their foes in central Italy--the attitude of the Romans during these hostilities, as late as the middle of the fifth century, being for the most part one of defence. At the time of the institution of the people’s tribunate Rome’s most dangerous enemy were the Etruscans of Veii, a people with whom she had waged, since 483, a bitter and disastrous frontier war. After a defeat suffered by the Veientines in 475, a truce to last four hundred months was concluded, which was not broken until 437.
During this time the feuds with other adversaries raged all the fiercer, that with the Sabines, which had commenced in 505, lasting until the great victory won by the consul, M. Horatius, in 449. Since then Rome’s peace had not been menaced from that quarter, all the vigorous young men of true Sabine blood having, as it appears, deserted their native cantons to follow the fortunes of their Sabellian kindred in the conquest of southern Italy. Hence the more prolonged and obstinately fought were the heavy wars carried on by the Romans against the brave Æquians, and those ancient foes of Latium, the mighty, warlike Volscians.[b]
While Rome in her early wars was for the most part triumphing over her enemies, and laying the foundations of her future power and glory, the daring enterprise of a handful of adventurers achieved what even the Gauls failed to accomplish, and struck a blow at her very heart. A band of slaves and exiles, amounting to about 4000, or not much more, and led by Herdonius, a Sabine, having descended the Tiber in boats in the dead of night, landed near the Capitoline Hill, apparently just beyond the wall which ran from the hill to the river, and where, as we have seen, its bank was unprotected. Hence Herdonius led his men towards the Forum and up the ascent of the Capitoline, without meeting with any resistance till he arrived at the Porta Pandana, and here only from the guard; for we have already mentioned that this gate was always left open. The guard being forced, the invaders proceeded up the hill, took possession of the Capitol and Arx, and invoked the slaves of Rome to strike for freedom. The origin of this daring attempt is involved in mystery. It may possibly have been organised by Cæso Quinctius, son of Cincinnatus, who was an exile; but that he took a personal share and perished in the enterprise, as Niebuhr, and after him Dr. Arnold, have assumed, there is not a tittle of evidence to show. It was not possible that the attempt should be permanently successful, yet, from the dissensions then prevailing at Rome, it caused great embarrassment and was only put down with the aid of the Tusculans. The Capitol was retaken by storm; Herdonius and many of his band were slain in the affray; the rest were captured and put to death.[g]
In these wars all the efforts of the Volscians were directed towards acquiring the territory to the north, and that on the seacoast and on the river Trerus, while the Æquians strove to extend their dominions westward and southwestward as far as the Latin-Roman domains.
[Sidenote: [487-425 B.C.]]
The Romans, on their side, sought to check the growth of the Volscians by spreading out parallel with them; and they immediately planted settlements or rather military posts all through the mountain regions between the Trerus and the Pomptine marsh, to separate the eastern tribes of the Volscians from those of the western. At times very serious in character, this war was carried on for a long period without any advantage to the Latins or the Romans, until at last, after 487, the struggle was brought almost to the very doors of Rome.[30] Step by step the Æquians pushed on until they gained possession of the Latin marshes as far as Mount Algidus, on the eastern wall of the Alban hills; and it was this chain of mountains that the latter made the starting-point of all their marauding expeditions into the Roman territory. It was 459 before a change came that was favourable to the Romans. In this year the western branch of the Volscians which for seventy years had not taken up arms against Rome, concluded a formal peace with the Romans, doubtless sacrificing thereto their capital, Antium, which had so frequently been the object of dispute. Relieved on that side, the Romans could now direct all their power against the Æquians and the eastern Volscians and in 431 there came a decidedly favourable turn in their affairs.
Probably the Volscians had been considerably weakened by incursions from the constantly expanding Sabellian tribes in their rear, and the Romans now took the offensive against them with growing success until piece by piece they regained all the territory that had formerly been taken from the Latins. The Æquians were driven back to their highlands, and the country of the eastern Volscians, turned into a seat of war, was traversed in 408 by the Romans who plundered on all sides. So weakened were Rome’s adversaries in 404 that they looked on passively at the siege and capture of Veii. In 400 Tarracina was taken, and in 393 Circeii was freshly colonised, so that even in the later period when it had attained its greatest size all of Latium was either subject or allied to Rome. Moreover as a result of these struggles, and during their course, the compact between the Romans and their Latin allies grew into a sort of hegemony, the Romans claiming the sole right to decide in all matters relating to wars and contracts, while the Latin prætors ceased to alternate with the Roman generals as commanders-in-chief of the army, and the positions of staff officers in the allied troops, at first open only to men appointed by the Romans, soon came to be filled almost exclusively by the Romans themselves.
The close of the fifth century was also marked by new conflicts between the Roman-Latin nations and the Veientines. The peace with this people which had lasted so many years came to an end in 438, when the Roman city Fidenæ, on the Tiber, fell into the possession of Veii. In 437 a war broke out that was interrupted in 434 by the conclusion of an eight years’ truce, then resumed until the total overthrow of Fidenæ in 425, after which it terminated in a second truce of twenty years. During all this period of truce the political situation of the Rasena, the race that had for long been powerful in Italy, was so adverse that the Romans were led to entertain the project of entirely destroying Veii and then proceeding northward from the Tiber on a grand conquering expedition against Etruria. The power of the Rasena had attained its height in the beginning of the fifth century when, firmly established on their three mainland districts, in alliance with the Carthaginians they made Greeks and Italians feel their supremacy on the Tyrrhenian Sea. Etruria had also owned for many decades--as Carthage had, since 500, owned the island of Sardinia--the coast lands of Corsica; but these possessions were seriously threatened by the rise in power of the Hellenes.
[Sidenote: [425-395 B.C.]]
Since the crushing defeat suffered by the Etruscans in 474 at the hands of Hiero I of Syracuse and the Greeks of Cyme, in a sea battle near that town, Syracuse, Tarentum, and Massilia had further impaired their predominance on the Italian seas. The Campanian province of Etruria and northern Italy were also about that time menaced simultaneously by different but equally powerful enemies. The danger on the Campanian side was from the Sabellian populations. At the time of Tarquinius’ departure the Samnites had probably been long in possession of the mountainous regions extending between the lowlands of the Apulian and Campanian coasts, and since the middle of the fifth century had sent out successive conquering expeditions which, penetrating further and further southward and seaward, threatened equal danger to the Italians and the Etruscans. Simultaneously with the uprising of the Lucanian Sabellians in Magna Græcia, in the third decade before the close of the fifth century, Campanian Sabellians invaded the beautiful regions on the Gulf of Naples. In 420 the Greeks lost Cyme--henceforth Italian Cumæ--but continued to have dominion in and around Naples for several centuries, and in 424, when Etruscan Capua fell, the Rasena were driven forever from that part of Italy.
More disastrous still to the Rasena of northern Italy were the conquests of the Celts, a people destined to play the gloomy rôle of destroyer, who had lately made violent irruption among the Italian races.
Their irresistible onward sweep against the Etruscans seems to have taken place in the early part of the fifth century, some time after the first migratory tribes had wandered out of Gaul. During the last three decades of the century the Celtic swarms also crossed the Padus and extended their conquests into the lowlands as far as the Adriatic Sea. So engrossed were the Etruscans of the regions between the Arno and the Tiber in their efforts to repel these invading hordes, that they had neither time nor thought to give to Veii which had been harassed by the Romans since 405. This war, during the course of which Veii was first blockaded in 404, then regularly invested in 403, marks a threefold epoch in the history of Rome. With it the Romans took the first step in the perilous path of foreign conquest, and departed from their old-time custom of short summer campaigns, the troops remaining the whole winter through in the lines and camps with which Veii was surrounded. This innovation was made possible by a resolution adopted by the senate that foot soldiers should be paid wages by the state; and a great amelioration was brought in the condition of the peasants and their grown sons, who were obliged to leave their farms in charge of their wives and servants while serving in the army, though they were under the same necessity of raising tribute as before. The perseverance of the Romans, coupled with the ability of their first true military leader, M. Furius Camillus, at last gained for them a victory over the stubbornly defended town. The list of Rome’s great generals opens with the name of the conqueror of Veii. A man possessing in the highest degree all the qualities of a commander, he first came into prominence in 401; and it was as dictator, in 396, that he took Veii by storm and completely destroyed it as a political commonwealth, thereby achieving the greatest victory, from a political, military, and territorial point of view, that had fallen to the Roman arms since the expulsion of the Tarquinians.
[Sidenote: [395-391 B.C.]]
The warlike spirit of the Romans and their thirst for conquest were raised to a high pitch by this success. Soon their might extended unbroken from the limits of the Ciminian forest, then an impenetrable wilderness, which they conquered between 395 and 391, to the southern frontiers of Latium. But their difficult apprenticeship was not yet at an end, for just then the Celts subjected them to a test which their political and military ability could not withstand; and both in its inner and outer development the Roman state received a check from which it could not readily recover.[b]
LEGENDS OF THE VOLSCIAN AND ÆQUIAN WARS
There are some famous legends connected with these threefold wars, which cannot be omitted by any writer of Roman history. These are the legends of Coriolanus, of Cincinnatus, and of the Fabian gens. The exact time to which they refer is uncertain; nor is it material to determine. They fall, however, within the period now under consideration.
CORIOLANUS AND THE VOLSCIANS
Caius Marcius was a youth of high patrician family, descended from the Sabine king, Ancus Marcius; and he was brought up by his mother Volumnia,[31] a true Roman matron, noble and generous, proud and stern, implacable towards enemies, unforgiving towards the faults of friends. Caius grew up with all the faults and virtues of his mother, and was soon found among the chief opponents of the plebeians. He won a civic crown of oak for saving a fellow-citizen at the battle of Lake Regillus, when he was seventeen years of age. But he gained his chief fame in the Volscian Wars. For the Romans, being at war with this people, attacked Corioli, a Latin city which then had fallen into the hands of the Volscians. But the assailants were driven back by the garrison; when Caius Marcius rallied the fugitives, turned upon his pursuers, and, driving them back in turn, entered the gates along with them; and the city fell into the hands of the Romans. For this brave conduct he was named after the city which he had taken, Caius Marcius Coriolanus.
Now it happened, after this, that the Roman people being much distressed by having their lands ravaged in war, and tillage being neglected, a great dearth ensued. Then Gelo, the Greek king of Syracuse, sent them ships laden with corn, to relieve the distress. It was debated in the senate how this corn should be distributed. Some were for giving it away to the poorer sort; some were for selling it at a low price; but Coriolanus, who was greatly enraged at the concessions that had been made to the plebeians, and hated to see them protected by their new officers, the tribunes, spoke vehemently against these proposals, and said: “Why do they ask us for corn? They have got their tribunes. Let them go back to the Sacred Hill, and leave us to rule alone. Or let them give up their tribunes and then they shall have the corn.” This insolent language wrought up the plebeians to a height of fury against Caius Marcius, and they would have torn him in pieces; but their tribunes persuaded them to keep their hands off; and then cited him before the assembly to give account of his conduct. The main body of the patricians were not inclined to assist Coriolanus; so, after some violent struggles, he declined to stand his trial, but left Rome, shaking the dust from his feet against his thankless countrymen (for so he deemed them), and vowing that they should bitterly repent of having driven Caius Marcius Coriolanus into exile.
He went straight to Antium, another Latin city which had become the capital of the Volscians, and going to the house of Attius Tullius, one of the chief men of the nation, he seated himself near the hearth by the household gods, a place which among the Italian nations was held sacred. When Tullius entered, the Roman rose and greeted his former enemy: “My name,” he said, “is Caius Marcius; my surname, Coriolanus--the only reward now remaining for all my services. I am an exile from Rome, my country; I seek refuge in the house of my enemy. If ye will use my services, I will serve you well; if you would rather take vengeance on me, strike, I am ready.”
Tullius at once accepted the offer of the “banished lord”; and determined to break the treaty which there then was between his people and the Romans. But the Volscians were afraid to go to war. So Tullius had recourse to fraud. It happened that one Titus Atinius, a plebeian of Rome, was warned in a dream to go to the consuls, and order them to celebrate the great games over again, because they had not been rightly performed the first time. But he was afraid and would not go. Then his son fell sick and died; and again he dreamed the same dream; but still he would not go. Then he was himself stricken with palsy; and so he delayed no longer, but made his friends carry him on a litter to the consuls. And they believed his words, and the great games were begun again with increased pomp; and many of the Volscians, being at peace with Rome, came to see them. Upon this Tullius went secretly to the consuls, and told them that his countrymen were thronging to Rome, and he feared they had mischief in their thoughts. Then the consuls laid this secret information before the senate; and the senate decreed that all Volscians should depart from Rome before sunset. This decree seemed to the Volscians to be a wanton insult, and they went home in a rage. Tullius met them on their way home at the fountain of Ferentina, where the Latins had been wont to hold their councils of old; and he spoke to them and increased their anger, and persuaded them to break off their treaty with the Romans. So the Volscians made war against Rome, and chose Attius Tullius and Caius Marcius the Roman to be their commanders.
The army advanced against Rome, ravaging and laying waste all the lands of the plebeians, but letting those of the patricians remain untouched. This increased the jealousy between the orders, and the consuls found it impossible to raise an army to go out against the enemy. Coriolanus took one Latin town after another, and even the Volscians deserted their own general to serve under his banners. He now advanced and encamped at the Cluilian Fossa, within five miles of the city.
Nothing was now to be seen within the walls but consternation and despair. The temples of the gods were filled with suppliants; the plebeians themselves pressed the senate to make peace with the terrible Coriolanus. Meantime the enemy advanced to the very gates of the city, and at length the senate agreed to send five men, chiefs among the patricians, to turn away the anger of their countryman. He received them with the utmost sternness; said that he was now general of the Volscians, and must do what was best for his new friends; that if they wished for peace they must restore all the lands and places that had been taken from the Volscians, and must admit these people to an equal league, and put them on an equal footing with the Latins. The deputies could not accept these terms, so they returned to Rome. The senate sent them back, to ask for milder terms; but the haughty exile would not suffer them to enter his camp.
Then went forth another deputation, graver and more solemn than the former--the pontiffs, flamens, and augurs, all attired in their priestly robes, who besought him, by all that he held sacred, by the respect he owed to his country’s gods, to give them assurance of peace and safety. He treated them with grave respect, but sent them away without relaxing any of his demands.
It seemed as if the glory of Rome were departing, as if the crown were about to be transferred to the cities of the Volscians. But not so was it destined to be. It chanced that as all the women were weeping and praying in the temples, the thought arose among them that they might effect what patricians and priests had alike failed to do. It was Valeria, the sister of the great Valerius Publicola, who first started the thought, and she prevailed on Volumnia, the stern mother of the exile, to accompany the mournful train. With them also went Virgilia, his wife, leading her two boys by the hand, and a crowd of other women. Coriolanus beheld them from afar, as he was sitting on a raised seat among the Volscian chiefs, and resolved to send back them also with a denial. But when they came near, and he saw his mother at the head of the sad procession, he sprang from his seat, and was about to kiss her. But she drew back with all the loftiness of a Roman matron, and said: “Art thou Caius Marcius, and am I thy mother? or art thou the general of the Volscian foe, and I a prisoner in his camp? Before thou kissest me, answer me that question.” Caius stood silent, and his mother went on: “Shall it be said that it is to me, to me alone, that Rome owes her conqueror and oppressor? Had I never been a mother, my country had still been free. But I am too old to feel this misery long. Look to thy wife and little ones; thou art enslaving thy country, and with it thou enslavest them.” The fierce Roman’s heart sank before the indignant words of her whom he had feared and respected from his childhood; and when his wife and children hanging about him added their soft prayers to the lofty supplications of his mother, he turned to her with bitterness of soul, and said: “O my mother, thou hast saved Rome, but lost thy son!”
So he drew off his army, and the women went back to Rome and were hailed as the saviours of their country. And the senate ordered a temple to be built and dedicated to “Woman’s Fortune” (Fortuna Muliebris); and Valeria was the first priestess of the temple.
But Coriolanus returned to dwell among the Volscians; and Tullius, who had before become jealous of his superiority, excited the people against him, saying that he had purposely spared their great enemy the city of Rome, even when it was within their grasp. So he lost favour, and was slain in a tumult;[32] and the words he had spoken to his mother were truly fulfilled.[c]
Critical Examination of the Story of Coriolanus
“If we examine the particulars of the foregoing narrative,” says Wilhelm Ihne, “we find that no single feature of it can be considered historical, and that it consists altogether of baseless fictions of a later period, which betray a great want of skill in the invention of a probable narrative, and even ignorance of the institutions and manners of the Roman people. The conquest of Corioli is evidently invented to account for the name Coriolanus. For the whole of the alleged history of the campaign in which Corioli is reported to have been conquered, the annalists, as Livy himself admits, had no positive testimony. And so thoughtless and ignorant were the Roman annalists, that they mentioned as the benefactor of the distressed Romans the tyrant Dionysius of Syracuse. This chronological error was discovered by the learned archæologist Dionysius, who was too well acquainted with the history of his disreputable namesake of Syracuse to suppose that he could have sent corn to Rome about half a century before he was born. He therefore substitutes Gelo as the Greek tyrant who is said to have sent the corn. It is evident that the removal of a gross blunder does not amount to positive evidence, and the learning and ingenuity of Dionysius are therefore thrown away.
“The accusation and sentence of Coriolanus by the plebs, almost immediately after the first election of tribunes, was impossible. According to Livy, the Volscians conquered, in the course of one summer, twelve--and, according to Dionysius, fourteen--Latin towns, overran the whole of Latium, and penetrated into the immediate neighbourhood of Rome. When we consider what a small measure of success usually followed a campaign, how difficult, even in the time of their undisputed supremacy, the Romans found it to reduce a single town, it may well be looked upon as a miracle that the Volscians took seven towns, as Dionysius says, in thirty days. But what is still more wonderful than the rapid conquest of so many Latin towns by the Volscians, is the ready restoration of them to the Latins.
“As a punishment for this treachery, which the Volscians, as it appears, were obliged to submit to, they were reported to have cruelly murdered Coriolanus at the end of the campaign. Yet another, and probably older, form of the legend says nothing of this revenge, but allows him to attain a great age among the Volscians, and to lament his banishment from his fatherland. The simple-minded old annalist saw nothing unnatural in the fact that a Roman exile should restore to the Romans towns conquered by the military strength of the Volscians.
“The germ from which the whole legend sprang is the story of the filial love of Coriolanus, and of the great authority exercised in olden times by Roman matrons over their sons and husbands. Now it is not beyond the range of possibility that, at one time or other, a Roman party leader, expelled in one of the numerous civil broils, may have joined the national enemies, and may have been induced by the tears of his mother and wife to desist from hostilities against his native city; but the story of Coriolanus, as given by Livy and Dionysius, relates things utterly impossible in Rome. The Roman senate could at no time have dreamed of sending an embassy of priests to ask for peace from a public enemy; still less can we reconcile a deputation of matrons with what we know of Roman manners and law, granting even that such a deputation was self-appointed, and not formally commissioned by the senate to act for the Roman people.”[d]
CINCINNATUS AND THE ÆQUIANS
In the course of these wars, Minucius, one of the consuls, suffered himself to be cut off from Rome in a narrow valley of Mount Algidus, and it seemed as if hope of delivery there was none. However, five horsemen found means to escape and report at Rome the perilous condition of the consul and his army. Then the other consul consulted the senate, and it was agreed that the only man who could deliver the army was L. Quinctius Cincinnatus. Therefore this man was named dictator, and deputies were sent to acquaint him with his high dignity.
Now this Lucius Quinctius was called Cincinnatus, because he wore his hair in long curling locks (cincinni); and, though he was a patrician, he lived on his own small farm, like any plebeian yeoman. This farm was beyond the Tiber, and here he lived contentedly with his wife Racilia.
Two years before he had been consul, and had been brought into great distress by the conduct of his son Cæso, a wild and insolent young man, who despised the plebeians and hated their tribunes, like Coriolanus. Like Coriolanus, he was impeached by the tribunes, but on very different grounds. One Volscius Fictor alleged that he and his brother, an old and sickly man, had been attacked by Cæso and a party of young patricians by night in the Subura; his brother had died of the treatment then received. The indignation of the people rose high; and Cæso, again like Coriolanus, was forced to go into exile. After this the young patricians became more insolent than ever, but they courted the poorest of the people, hoping to engage them on their side against the more respectable plebeians. Next year all Rome was alarmed by finding that the Capitol had been seized by an enemy during the night. This enemy was Appius Herdonius, a Sabine, and with him was associated a band of desperate men, exiles and runaway slaves. The first demand he made was that all Roman exiles should be restored. The consul, P. Valerius, collected a force, and took the Capitol. But he was himself killed in the assault, and L. Quinctius Cincinnatus, father of the banished Cæso, was chosen to succeed him. When he heard the news of his elevation, he turned to his wife and said, “I fear, Racilia, our little field must remain this year unsown.” Then he assumed the robe of state, and went to Rome. Now it was believed that Cæso had been concerned in the desperate enterprise that had just been defeated. What had become of him was unknown, but that he was already dead is pretty certain; and his father was very bitter against the tribunes and their party, to whom he attributed his son’s disgrace and death. P. Valerius, the consul, had persuaded the plebeians to join in the assault of the Capitol, by promising to gain them further privileges: this promise Cincinnatus refused to keep, and used all his power to frustrate the attempts of the tribunes to gain its fulfilment. At the end of his year of office, however, when the patricians wished to continue him in the consulship, he positively declined the offer, and returned to his rustic life as if he had never left it.
It was two years after these events that the deputies of the senate, who came to invest him with the ensigns of dictatorial power, found him working on his little farm. He was clad in his tunic only; and as the deputies advanced, they bade him put on his toga, that he might receive the commands of the senate in seemly guise. So he wiped off the dust and sweat, the signs of labour, and bade his wife fetch his toga, and asked anxiously whether all was right or not. Then the deputies told him how the army was beset by the Æquian foe, and how the senate looked to him as the saviour of the state. A boat was provided to carry him over the Tiber; and when he reached the other bank he was greeted by the senate, who followed him to the city, while he himself walked in state, with his four-and-twenty lictors. Cincinnatus then chose L. Tarquitius as his master of the horse. This man was a patrician, but, like the dictator himself, was poor--so poor that he could not afford to keep a horse, but was obliged to serve among the foot-soldiers.
That same day the dictator and his master of the horse came down into the Forum, ordered all shops to be shut, and all business to be suspended. All men of the military age were to meet them in the Field of Mars before sunset, each man with five days’ provisions and twelve stakes; the older men were to get the provisions ready, while the soldiers were preparing the stakes. Thus all was got ready in time; the dictator led them forth, and they marched so rapidly that by midnight they had reached Mount Algidus, where the army of the consul was hemmed in.
Then the dictator, when he had discovered the place of the enemy’s army, ordered his men to put all their baggage down in one place, and then to surround the enemy’s camp. They obeyed, and each one raising a shout, began digging the trench and fixing his stakes, so as to form a palisade round the enemy. The consul’s army, which was hemmed in, heard the shout of their brethren, and flew to arms; and so hotly did they fight all night, that the Æquians had no time to attend to the new foe, and next morning they found themselves hemmed in on all sides by the trench and palisade, so that they were now between two Roman armies. They were thus forced to surrender. The dictator required them to give up their chiefs, and made their whole army pass under the yoke, which was formed by two spears fixed upright in the ground, and a third bound across them at the top.
Cincinnatus returned to Rome amid the shouts and exultation of his soldiers; they gave him a golden crown, in token that he had saved the lives of many citizens; and the senate decreed that he should enter the city in triumph.
So Cincinnatus accomplished the purpose for which he had been made dictator in twenty-four hours. One evening he marched forth to deliver the consul, and the next evening he returned victorious. But he would not lay down his high office till he had avenged his son Cæso. Accordingly he summoned Volscius Fictor, the accuser, and had him tried for perjury. The man was condemned and banished; and then Cincinnatus once more returned to his wife and farm.[c]
Critical Examination of the Story of Cincinnatus
“That this story belongs less to the region of history than to that of fancy,” says Ihne, “is evident from the physical impossibilities it contains. The distance between Rome and the hill Algidus is more than twenty miles. This distance the Roman army under Cincinnatus is said to have accomplished between nightfall and midnight, though the soldiers were burthened with three or four times the usual number of stakes for intrenchments. Then, after such a march, the men were set to work to make a circumvallation round the whole Æquian army, which itself enclosed the army of Minucius, and must, therefore, have occupied a considerable extent of ground. The work of circumvallation was accomplished in the same night, uninterrupted by the Æquians, though the Romans at the very commencement had raised a shout to announce their arrival to the blockaded army of Minucius. With these details the story is, of course, mere nonsense. But if, following the example of Dionysius, we strip off from the popular legend all that is fanciful, exaggerated, or impossible, and place the heroic deed of Cincinnatus on such a footing that it assumes an air of probability, we shall gain nothing, because by such a rationalising process we shall not be able to convert a legend into genuine history.”
“We arrive at the same conclusion by observing the fact that the story of Cincinnatus, in its general and characteristic features, is related no less than five times.”[d]
THE FABIAN GENS AND THE VEIENTINES
It has already been related that, after the final expulsion of the Tarquins, the patricians withdrew from the plebeians those rights which they had originally obtained from King Servius, and which had been renewed and confirmed to them during the time that the Tarquins were endeavouring to return. And for a number of years it appears that the Fabii engrossed a great share of this power to themselves. For we find in the lists of consuls that for seven years running (from 485 to 479 B.C.), one of the two consuls was always a Fabius. Now these Fabii were the chief opponents of the Agrarian law; and Cæso Fabius, who was three times consul in the said seven years, was the person who procured the condemnation of Sp. Cassius, the great friend of the plebeians. This Cæso, in his second consulship, found himself as unpopular as Appius Claudius. His soldiers refused to fight against the enemy. But in his third consulship, which fell in the last of the seven years, he showed an altered spirit, he and all his house. For the Fabii saw the injustice they had been guilty of towards the plebeians, and the injury they had been doing to the state; and Cæso himself came forward, and proposed that the Agrarian law of Sp. Cassius should be carried into full effect. But the patricians rejected the proposal with scorn; and so the whole Fabian gens determined to leave Rome altogether. They thought they could serve their country better by warring against the Veientines than by remaining at home. So they assembled together on the Quirinal Hill, in all 306 men, besides their clients and followers, and they passed under the Capitol, and went out of the city by the right-hand arch of the Carmental gate. They then crossed the Tiber, and marked out a place on the little river Cremera, which flows into the Tiber below Veii. Here they fortified a camp, and sallied forth to ravage the lands of the Veientines and drive their cattle.
So they stood between Rome and Veii for more than a year’s time, and the Romans had peace on that side, whereas the Veientines suffered greatly. But there was a certain day, the Ides of February, which was always held sacred by the Fabii, when they offered solemn sacrifices on the Quirinal Hill, to the gods of their gens. On this day, Cæso their chief led them forth for Rome; and the Veientines, hearing of it, laid an ambush for them, and they were all cut off. And the plebeians greatly mourned the loss of their patrician friends, and Menenius, the consul, who was encamped near at hand, but did not assist them, was accused by the tribunes of treacherously betraying them, as has been above recorded.
But one young Fabius, who was then a boy, was left behind at Rome when the rest of his gens went forth to settle on the Cremera. And he (so it was said) was the father of the Fabii who were afterwards so famous in the history of Rome. After this, it is said, the men of Veii asked and obtained a peace of forty years.[c]
FOOTNOTES
[19] [It must be remembered, however, that formerly Rome had been a member of the Latin league; while the treaty of 493 was ratified by Rome on the one side and the Latin league on the other.]
[20] [In the time of the Punic Wars, however, we find the tribunes sometimes undertaking long journeys on public commissions.]
[21] [This idealised view is not held by all scholars.]
[22] [More probably, according to Herzog,[m] his bill never became a law; and, as no record was made of unpassed bills, we do not know the precise nature of his proposal. Possibly it aimed to give the peasants a better title to the lands they held.]
[23] [According to some authorities, he was hurled from the Tarpeian Rock; other ancient writers assert that his father put him to death.]
[24] [The comitia centuriata was now the great legislative body. At this early period the tribunes could influence legislation by moral suasion or by obstructing the levy of troops, disturbing public business, and threats of violence. The tribal assembly had as yet no legislative power. Cf. Herzog.[m]]
[25] [As long as the function of the tribunes was limited to the protection of the weak and to the obstruction of public business, an increase in number added strength; but when they acquired a right to initiate legislation, their great number weakened them, as the text makes clear.]
[26] [Recent researches convince Fiske[n] that Appius Claudius was a liberal, far-sighted statesman, neither brutal nor unnecessarily despotic; but it is hardly probable that anything can now dispel the traditional view. Unfavourable contemporary judgments are seldom reversed by posterity.]
[27] [Livy[h] makes Virginius say: “In this manner, my child, the only one in my power, do I secure your liberty.” Livy continues as follows: “Then looking back on Appius, ‘With this blood, Appius,’ said he, ‘I devote thee and thine head to perdition.’ Appius, alarmed by the cry raised at such a horrid deed, ordered Virginius to be seized. But he, clearing a passage with the weapon wherever he went, and protected also by a great number of young men who escorted him, made his way to the gate. Icilius and Numitorius raised up the lifeless body and exposed it to the view of the people, deploring the villainy of Appius, the fatal beauty of the maiden, and the necessity which had urged the father to the act. The matrons who followed joined their exclamations: ‘Are these the consequences of rearing children? Are these the rewards of chastity?’ with other mournful reflections, such as are suggested by grief to women, and which, from the greater sensibility of their tender minds, are always the most affecting. The discourse of the men, and particularly of Icilius, turned entirely on their being deprived of the protection of tribunes, and consequently of appeals to the people, and on the indignities thrown upon all.”]
[28] [The Twelve Tables were considered as the foundation of all law, and Cicero always mentions them with the utmost reverence. But only fragments remain, and those who have bestowed the greatest labour in examining these can give but an imperfect account of their original form and contents. A few provisions only can be noticed here.
(1) The patricians and their clients should be included in the plebeian tribes. And when we speak of clients, we must now comprehend also the freedmen (libertini), who were a large and increasing class. Further, the three old patrician tribes now, or before this, became obsolete; and henceforth a patrician was known not as a Ramnian, a Titian, or a Lucerian, but as a burgess of the Pollian, Papirian, or some other local tribe.
(2) The law of debt was left in its former state of severity. But the condition of borrowing money was made easier; for it was made illegal to exact higher interest than 10 per cent. For this is the meaning of fœnus unciarium. Uncia (derived from unus) is one of the twelve units into which the as was divided, each being one-twelfth part of the whole. Now ⅟₁₂ of the capital is 8⅓ per cent.; but as the old Roman year was only ten months, we must add two months’ interest at the same rate; and this amounts to 10 per cent. for the year of twelve months.
(3) No private law or privilegium--that is a law to impose any penalty or disability on a single citizen, similar in character to our bills of attainder--was to be made.
(4) There was to be an appeal to the people from the sentence of every magistrate; and no citizen was to be tried for his life except before the centuriate assembly.
(5) The old law or custom prohibiting all intermarriage (connubium) between the two orders was now formally confirmed, and thus a positive bar was put to any equalisation of the two orders. No such consummation could be looked for, when the code of national law proclaimed them to be of different races, unfit to mingle one with the other.
(6) To this may be added the celebrated law by which any one who wrote lampoons or libels on his neighbours was liable to be deprived of civil rights (diminutio capitis). By this law the poet Nævius was punished when he assailed the great family of the Metelli.[c]]
[29] [As a matter of fact, plebeians were represented in the office for but two or three years; it then fell exclusively into the hands of the patricians. Cf. Herzog.[m]]
[30] [“After these events,” says Eutropius,[f] “a census was held in the city, in which the number of the citizens was found to be 119,319.”]
[31] [That is, according to Plutarch.[i] Other authorities give Veturia as the name of his mother and Volumnia as that of his wife.]
[32] [Eutropius[f] writes him this dismal epitaph: “He was the next after Tarquin that acted as general against his country.”]
VII. THE INVASION OF THE GAULS AND ITS SEQUEL
We come now to a period in which Roman courage and fortitude were put to a severe test--when one of the unknown peoples of the north, henceforth to be familiar as Gauls, invaded Italy, and came, at last, to the walls of Rome itself. They were hardy warriors, as full of courage seemingly as the Romans themselves, and accustomed to carry all before them.
The exact details of their conflict with the Romans have been so mingled with tradition that no one, nowadays, pretends to know just what they really were. A full story of their alleged doings is given by Livy,[c] and may well be reproduced here as showing what has passed for history during all these centuries, and what is, perhaps, as near to history as we can hope to attain in this matter. If for no other reason we must turn to this account because it contains incidents that have become proverbial. It is here, for example, that one finds the tale of the cackling geese which awakened Marcus Manlius, and through him saved the city from the Gauls, who were surreptitiously scaling the heights. Here, again, is the story that the Romans, forced finally to capitulate through famine and pestilence, made complaint of unfair weights used by the Gauls, and that Brennus, the conquering leader, threw his sword into the scale, crying insolently, “Woe to the conquered!” The dramatic climax, with true theatrical precision, makes the once exiled Camillus, now dictator of the Romans, appear just at this moment to offer the insolent Brennus the sword instead of gold, and in the final outcome to conquer him and his hosts, destroying them to the last man.
This is the completion of the story which Livy and his successors have made famous for all time. It matters little now as to just how much of this is true, and how much fable; and even if it did matter, the facts can never be known. We must be content, despite all the bickerings of specialists as to this or that feature of the transaction, to believe that the Gauls actually did invade Italy at this period; that they actually did conquer and ravish Rome, destroying most of its precious records, and that finally, for some reason unknown to us, the conquerors retired, leaving the Romans to rebuild their city and to take up anew the interrupted course of their progress.
The lasting importance of the invasion was, perhaps, due more to the destruction of the Roman records, thus shutting us out from the true history of early Roman times, than to any other direct evils which the Gauls inflicted upon their enemies.[a]
THE GAULS
[Sidenote: [391-390 B.C.]]
The course of Roman history, hitherto disturbed only by petty border wars, now suffers a great convulsion. Over her neighbours on the east and north the republic was in the ascendant; on the west the frail oligarchies of Etruria had sunk before Camillus and his hardy soldiers; when, by an untoward union of events, Rome saw her best general banished, and heard of the barbarian host which was wasting the fair land of Italy. The Gauls burst upon Latium and the adjoining lands with the suddenness of a thunderstorm. It swept over the face of Italy, crushing and destroying. The Etruscans were weakened by it; and if Rome herself was laid prostrate, the Latins also suffered greatly, the Volscians trembled, and the Æquians were irrecoverably weakened.
The Gauls were a tribe of that large race of mankind who are known under the name of Celts, and who at the time in question peopled nearly the whole of western Europe, from the heart of Germany to the ocean. The northern and central parts of the continents were already in the hands of various nations, called by the common name of Germans or Teutons, to whom belonged the Goths, Saxons, Danes, Normans, Lombards, Franks, and Alamanni, while the Celts possessed France, a great part of Germany, most of Spain and Portugal, together with the British Isles. Of these Celts there were two great divisions, commonly called Gael and Cymri, differing in habits and language. The ancient inhabitants of France were Gael, those of Britain and Belgica were Cymri; and the Druidical religion, though sometimes adopted by the Gael, was properly and originally Cymric. Gael are still found in Ireland and in the Highlands of Scotland; Cymri in Wales and Low Brittany; and they have left traces of their name in Cumberland.
Before the time we are now speaking of, there had been a great movement in the Celtic nations. Two great swarms went out from Gaul. Of these, one crossed the Alps into Italy; the other, moving eastward, in the course of time penetrated into Greece, and then passed into Asia Minor, where they were known under the name of Galatians.
It is supposed that the Gael who dwelt in the eastern parts of Gaul, being oppressed by Cymric tribes of the west and north, went forth to seek new homes in distant lands, as in later times the Gothic and German nations were driven in the contrary direction by the Huns and other Asiatic hordes, who were thronging into Europe from the east. At all events, it is certain that large bodies of Celts passed over the Alps before and after this time, and having once tasted the wines and eaten the fruits of Italy, were in no hurry to return from that fair land into their own less hospitable regions. The course taken by these adventurers was probably over divers passes of the Alps, from the Mount Cenis and the Little St. Bernard to the Simplon. Pouring from these outlets, they overran the rich plains of northern Italy, and so occupied the territory which lies between the Alps, the Apennines, and the Adriatic, that the Romans called this territory Gallia Cisalpina, or Hither Gaul. The northern Etruscans gave way before these fierce barbarians, and their name is heard of no more in those parts. Then the Gauls crossed the Apennines into southern Etruria, and while they were ravaging that country they first came in contact with the sons of Rome.
The common date for this event is 390 B.C. How long before this time the Gallic hordes had been pouring into Italy we know not. But whenever it was that they first passed over the Alps, it is certain that now they first crossed the Apennines.
The tribe which took this course were of the Senones, as all authors say, and therefore we may suppose they were Gaelic; but it has been thought they were mixed with Cymri, since the name of their king or chief was Brennus, and brenhin is Cymric for “a king.” They are described as large-limbed, with fair skins, yellow hair, and blue eyes, in all respects contrasted with the natives of southern Italy. Their courage was high, but their tempers fickle. They were more fitted for action than endurance; able to conquer, but not steady enough to maintain and secure their conquests.
Brennus and his barbarians (it was said or sung) passed into Etruria at the invitation of Aruns, a citizen of Clusium (Chiusi), whose daughter had been dishonoured by a young Lucumo or noble of the same place. To avenge his private wrongs this Etruscan called in the Gauls, as Count Julian in the Spanish romance called in the Moors to avenge the seduction of his daughter by Roderic the Goth. The Gauls, nothing loath, crossed the mountains, and laid siege to Clusium; on which the Etruscans of the city, terrified and helpless, despairing of effectual succour from their own countrymen, sent to seek aid from the city of the Tiber, which had conquered so many old Etruscan cities. Common danger makes friends of foes; and the senate determined to support the Etruscans against the barbarians. However, all they did was to send three ambassadors, sons of Fabius Ambustus, the pontifex maximus, to warn the Gauls not to meddle further with the men of Clusium, for Clusium was the ally of Rome. The barbarians took slight notice of the message, and continued the war. Now it chanced that there was a battle fought while the three Fabii were still at Clusium; and they, forgetting their peaceful character of envoys, took part with the Clusians against the Gauls, and one of them was seen stripping the arms off a Gallic champion whom he had slain. The barbarians, in high wrath, demanded to be led straight against the city whose sons were so faithless; but their chiefs restrained them, and sent an embassy to Rome demanding that the envoys should be given up. Then the senate, not caring to decide so weighty a matter, referred it to the people; and so far was the people from listening to the demands of the Gaul, that at the comitia next ensuing, these very envoys were all three elected military tribunes. On hearing of this gross and open insult, Brennus broke up his camp at Clusium, and marched southward for Rome. The river Clanis, upon which stood Clusium, led them down to the Tiber beneath Volsinii. Having crossed that river, and pouring down its left bank, they found themselves confronted by the Romans on the banks of the Allia, a little stream that rises in the Sabine hills and empties itself into the Tiber at a point nearly opposite the Cremera. Their left rested on the Tiber, the Allia was in their front, and their right occupied some hilly ground. Brennus attempted not to attack in front, but threw himself with an overpowering force upon the right flank of the enemy; and the Romans, finding their position turned, were seized with panic fear and fled. The greater part plunged into the Tiber in the hope of escaping across the river to Veii, and many made their escape good; but many were drowned, and many pierced by Gallic javelins. A small number reached Rome.[b]
LIVY’S ACCOUNT OF THE GAULS IN ROME
[Sidenote: [390 B.C.]]
The miraculous attainment of so sudden a victory held even the Gauls in a state of stupefaction. And at first they stood motionless with panic, as if not knowing what had happened; then they apprehended a stratagem; at length they began to collect the spoils of the slain, and to pile up the arms in heaps, as is their custom. Then, at length, when no appearance of anything hostile was anywhere observed, having proceeded on their journey, they reach the city of Rome not long before sunset: where, when some horsemen, who had advanced before, brought back word that the gates were not shut, that no guard was posted before the gates, no armed troops on the walls, another cause of amazement similar to the former made them halt; and dreading the night and ignorance of the situation of the city, they posted themselves between Rome and the Anio, after sending scouts about the walls and the several gates to ascertain what plans the enemy would adopt in their desperate circumstances.
With respect to the Romans, as the greater part had gone to Veii from the field of battle, and no one supposed that any survived except those who had fled back to Rome--being all lamented as lost, both those living and those dead--they caused the entire city to be filled with wailings. The alarm for the public interest stifled private sorrow, as soon as it was announced that the enemy were at hand. Presently the barbarians patrolling around the walls in troops, they heard their yells and the dissonant clangour of their arms. All the interval up to the next day kept their minds in such a state of suspense that an assault seemed every moment about to be made on the city: on their first approach, when they arrived at the city (it was expected); for if this were not their design, that they would have remained at the Allia; then towards sunset, because there was not much of the day remaining, they imagined that they would attack them before night; then that the design was deferred until night, in order to strike the greater terror. At length the approach of light struck them with dismay; and the calamity itself followed closely upon their continued apprehension of it, when the troops entered the gates in hostile array. During that night, however, and the following day, the state by no means bore any resemblance to that which had fled in so dastardly a manner at the Allia. For as there was not a hope that the city could be defended, so small a number of troops now remaining, it was determined that the youth fit for military service, and the abler part of the senate with their wives and children, should retire into the citadel and Capitol, having collected stores of arms and corn; and thence from a fortified post, that they should defend the deities, and the inhabitants, and the Roman name: that the flamen (Quirinalis) and the vestal priestesses should carry away far from slaughter and conflagration the objects appertaining to the religion of the state; and that their worship should not be intermitted, until there remained no one who could continue it. If the citadel and Capitol, the mansion of the gods, if the senate, the source of public counsel, if the youth of military age, should survive the impending ruin of the city, the loss of the aged, the crowd left behind in the city, and who were sure to perish[33] under any circumstances would be light. And in order that the plebeian portion of the multitude might bear the thing with greater resignation, the aged men, who had enjoyed triumphs and consulships, openly declared that they would die along with them, and that they would not burden the scanty stores of the armed men with those bodies, with which they were now unable to bear arms, or to defend their country. Such was the consolation addressed to each other by the aged now destined to death.
Their exhortations were then turned to the band of young men, whom they escorted to the Capitol and citadel, commending to their valour and youth whatever might be the remaining fortune of a city which for 360 years had been victorious in all its wars. When those who carried with them all their hope and resources parted with the others, who had determined not to survive the ruin of their captured city, both the circumstance itself and the appearance (it exhibited) was really distressing, and also the weeping of the women and their undecided running together, following now these, now those, and asking their husbands and children what was to become of them, (all together) left nothing that could be added to human misery. A great many of them, however, escorted their friends into the citadel, no one either preventing or inviting them; because the measure which was advantageous to the besieged, that of reducing the number of useless persons, was but little in accordance with humanity.
The rest of the crowd, chiefly plebeians, whom so small a hill could not contain, nor could they be supported amid such scarcity of corn, pouring out of the city as if in one continued train, repaired to the Janiculum. From thence some were dispersed through the country, some made for the neighbouring cities, without any leader or concert, following each his own hopes, his own plans, those of the public being given up as lost. In the meantime the flamen Quirinalis and the vestal virgins, laying aside all concern for their own affairs, consulting which of the sacred deposits should be carried with them, which should be left behind, for they had not strength to carry them all, or what place would best preserve them in safe custody, considered it best to put them into casks and to bury them in the chapel adjoining to the residence of the flamen Quirinalis, where then it was profane to spit out. The rest they carried away with them, after dividing the burden among themselves, by the road which led by the Sublician bridge to the Janiculum.
Meanwhile at Rome, all arrangements being now made, as far as was possible in such an emergency, for the defence of the citadel, the crowd of aged persons having returned to their houses, awaited the enemy’s coming with minds firmly prepared for death. Such of them as had borne curule offices, in order that they might die in the insignia of their former station, honours, and merit, arraying themselves in the most magnificent garments worn by those drawing the chariots of the gods in procession, or by persons riding in triumph, seated themselves in their ivory chairs, in the middle of their halls. Some say that they devoted themselves for their country and the citizens of Rome, Marcus Fabius, the chief pontiff, dictating the form of words.
The Gauls, both because by the intervention of the night they had abated all angry feelings arising from the irritation of battle, and because they had on no occasion fought a well-disputed fight, and were then not taking the city by storm or violence, entering the city the next day, free from resentment or heat of passion, through the Colline Gate which lay open, advance into the Forum, casting their eyes around on the temples of gods, and on the citadel, which alone exhibited any appearance of war. From thence, after leaving a small guard, lest any attack should be made on them whilst scattered, from the citadel or Capitol, they dispersed in quest of plunder; the streets being entirely desolate, some of them rushed in a body into the houses that were nearest; some repair to those which were most distant, considering these to be untouched and abounding with spoil.
Afterwards being terrified by the very solitude, lest any stratagem of the enemy should surprise them whilst being dispersed, they returned in bodies into the Forum and the parts adjoining to the Forum, where the houses of the commons being shut, and the halls of the leading men lying open, almost greater backwardness was felt to attack the open than the shut houses; so completely did they behold with a sort of veneration men sitting in the porches of the palaces, who besides their ornaments and apparel more august than human, bore a striking resemblance to gods, in the majesty which their looks and the gravity of their countenance displayed. Whilst they stood gazing on these as on statues, it is said that Marcus Papirius, one of them, roused the anger of a Gaul by striking him on the head with the ivory, while he was stroking his beard, which was then universally worn long; and that the commencement of the bloodshed began with him, that the rest were slain in their seats. After the slaughter of the nobles, no person whatever was spared; the houses were plundered, and when emptied were set on fire.
But whether it was that all were not possessed with a desire of destroying the city, or it had been so determined by the leading men of the Gauls, both that some fires should be presented to their view (to see) if the besieged could be forced into a surrender through affection for their dwellings, and that all the houses should not be burned down, so that whatever portion should remain of the city, they might hold as a pledge to work upon the minds of the enemy; the fire by no means spread either indiscriminately or extensively on the first day, as is usual in a captured city.
The Romans beholding from the citadel the city filled with the enemy, and their running to and fro through all the streets, some new calamity presenting itself in every different quarter, were neither able to preserve their presence of mind, nor even to have perfect command of their ears and eyes. To whatever direction the shouts of the enemy, the cries of women and children, the crackling of the flames, and the crash of falling houses, had called their attention, thither, terrified at every incident, they turned their thoughts, faces, and eyes, as if placed by fortune to be spectators of their falling country, and as if left as protectors of no other of their effects, except their own persons: so much more to be commiserated than any others who were ever besieged, because, shut out from their country, they were besieged, beholding all their effects in the power of the enemy. Nor was the night, which succeeded so shockingly spent a day, more tranquil; daylight then followed a restless night; nor was there any time which failed to produce the sight of some new disaster. Loaded and overwhelmed by so many evils, they did not at all abate their determination (resolved) though they should see everything in flames and levelled to the dust, to defend by their bravery the hill which they occupied, small and ill-provided as it was, being left (as a refuge) for liberty. And now, as the same events recurred every day, as if habituated to misfortunes, they abstracted their thoughts from all feeling of their circumstances, regarding their arms only, and the swords in their right hands, as the sole remnants of their hopes.
The Gauls also, after having for several days waged an ineffectual war against the buildings of the city, when they saw that among the fires and ruins of the captured city nothing now remained except armed enemies, neither terrified by so many disasters nor likely to turn their thoughts to a surrender, unless force were employed, determined to have recourse to extremities, and to make an attack on the citadel. A signal being given at break of day, their entire multitude was marshalled in the Forum; thence, after raising the shout and forming a testudo, they advanced to the attack. Against whom the Romans, acting neither rashly nor precipitately, having strengthened the guards at every approach, and opposing the main strength of their men in that quarter where they saw the battalions advancing, suffered the enemy to ascend, judging that the higher they ascended, the more easily would they be driven back down the steep. About the middle of the ascent they met them; and making a charge thence from the higher ground, which of itself bore them against the enemy, they routed the Gauls with slaughter and destruction, so that never after, either in parties or with their whole force, did they try that kind of fighting.
Laying aside all hope of succeeding by force of arms, they prepare for a blockade; of which having had no idea up to that time, they had, whilst burning the city, destroyed whatever corn had been therein, and during those very days all the provisions had been carried off from the land to Veii. Accordingly, dividing their army, they resolved that one part should plunder through the neighbouring states, that the other part should carry on the siege of the citadel, so that the ravagers of the country might supply the besiegers with corn.
The Gauls, who marched from the city, were led by fortune herself, to make trial of Roman valour, to Ardea, where Camillus was in exile: who, more distressed by the fortune of the public than his own, whilst he now pined away arraigning gods and men, fired with indignation, and wondering where were now those men who with him had taken Veii and Falerii, who had conducted other wars rather by their own valour than by the favour of fortune, heard on a sudden that the army of the Gauls was approaching, and that the people of Ardea in consternation were met in council on the subject.
Both friends and enemies were satisfied that there existed nowhere at that time a man of equal military talent. The assembly being dismissed, they refreshed themselves, carefully watching for the moment the signal should be given; which being given, during the silence of the beginning of the night they attended Camillus at the gates. Having gone forth to no great distance from the city, they found the camp of the Gauls, as had been foretold, unprotected and neglected on every side, and attacked it with a shout. No fight anywhere, but slaughter everywhere; their bodies, naked and relaxed with sleep, were cut to pieces. Those most remote, however, being roused from their beds, not knowing what the tumult was, or whence it came, were directed to flight, and some of them, without perceiving it, into the midst of the enemy. A great number flying into the territory of Antium, an attack being made on them in their straggling march by the townspeople, were surrounded and cut off.
A like carnage was made of the Tuscans in the Veientian territory; who were so far from compassionating the city which had now been its neighbour for nearly four hundred years, overpowered as it now was by a strange and unheard-of enemy, that at that very time they made incursions on the Roman territory; and laden with plunder, had it in contemplation to lay siege to Veii, the bulwark and last hope of the Roman race. The Roman soldiers had seen them straggling over the country, and collected in a body, driving the spoil before them, and they perceived their camp pitched at no great distance from Veii. Upon this, first self-commiseration, then indignation, and after that resentment, took possession of their minds: “Were their calamities to be a subject of mockery to the Etrurians, from whom they had turned off the Gallic war on themselves?” Scarce could they curb their passions, so as to refrain from attacking them at the moment; and being restrained by Quintus Cædicius, the centurion, whom they had appointed their commander, they deferred the matter until night. A leader equal to Camillus was all that was wanted; in other respects matters were conducted in the same order and with the same fortunate result. And further, under the guidance of some prisoners, who had survived the nightly slaughter, they set out to Salinæ against another body of Tuscans; they suddenly made on the following night still greater havoc, and returned to Veii exulting in their double victory.
Meanwhile, at Rome, the siege, in general, was slow, and there was quiet on both sides, the Gauls being intent only on this, that none of the enemy should escape from between their posts; when, on a sudden, a Roman youth drew on himself the admiration both of his countrymen and the enemy. There was a sacrifice solemnised at stated times by the Fabian family on the Quirinal Hill. To perform this Caius Fabius Dorso having descended from the Capitol, in the Gabine cincture, carrying in his hands the sacred utensils, passed out through the midst of the enemy’s post, without being at all moved by the calls or threats of any of them, and reached the Quirinal Hill; and after duly performing there the solemn rites, coming back by the same way with the same firm countenance and gait, confident that the gods were propitious, whose worship he had not even neglected when prohibited by the fear of death, he returned to the Capitol to his friends, the Gauls being either astounded at such an extraordinary manifestation of boldness, or moved even by religious considerations, of which the nation is by no means regardless.
In the meantime, not only the courage, but the strength of those at Veii increased daily, not only those Romans repairing thither from the country who had strayed away after the unsuccessful battle, or the disaster of the city being taken, but volunteers also flowing in from Latium, to come in for share of the spoil. It now seemed high time that their country should be recovered and rescued from the hands of the enemy. But a head was wanting to this strong body. The very spot put them in mind of Camillus, and a considerable part consisted of soldiers who had fought successfully under his guidance and auspices, and Cædicius declared that he would not give occasion that any one, whether god or man, should terminate his command rather than that, mindful of his own rank, he would himself call (for the appointment of) a general. With universal consent it was resolved that Camillus should be sent for from Ardea, but not until the senate at Rome were first consulted; so far did a sense of propriety regulate every proceeding, and so carefully did they observe the distinctions of things in their almost desperate circumstances. They had to pass at great risk through the enemy’s guards. For this purpose a spirited youth, Pontius Cominius, offered his services, and supporting himself on cork was carried down the Tiber to the city. From thence, where the distance from the bank was shortest, he makes his way into the Capitol over a portion of the rock that was craggy, and therefore neglected by the enemy’s guard: and being conducted to the magistrates, he delivers the instructions received from the army. Then having received a decree of the senate, both that Camillus should be recalled from exile at the comitia curiata, and be forthwith appointed dictator by order of the people, and that the soldiers should have the general whom they wished, he passed out the same way and proceeded with his despatches to Veii; and deputies being sent to Camillus to Ardea, conducted him to Veii: or else the law was passed by the curiæ, and he was nominated dictator in his absence; for I am more inclined to believe that he did not set out from Ardea until he found that the law was passed; because he could neither change his residence without an order of the people, nor hold the privilege of the auspices in the army until he was nominated dictator.
Whilst these things were going on at Veii, in the meanwhile the citadel and Capitol of Rome were in great danger. For the Gauls either having perceived the track of a human foot where the messenger from Veii had passed, or having of themselves remarked the easy ascent by the rock at the temple of Carmentis, on a moonlight night, after they had at first sent forward an unarmed person, to make trial of the way, delivering their arms, whenever any difficulty occurred, alternately supported and supporting each other, and drawing each other up, according as the ground required, they reached the summit in such silence that they not only escaped the notice of the sentinels, but of the dogs also, an animal extremely wakeful with respect to noises by night.
The notice of the geese they did not escape, which, as being sacred to Juno, were spared though they were in the greatest scarcity of food. Which circumstance was the cause of their preservation. For Marcus Manlius, who three years before had been consul, a man distinguished in war, being aroused from sleep by their cackling and the clapping of their wings, snatched up his arms, and at the same time calling the others to do the same, proceeded to the spot; and whilst the others were thrown into confusion, he struck with the boss of his shield and tumbled down a Gaul, who had already got footing on the summit; and when the fall of this man as he tumbled threw down those who were next him, he slew others, who in their consternation had thrown away their arms, and caught hold of the rocks to which they clung. And now the others also having assembled, beat down the enemy by javelins and stones, and the entire band, having lost their footing, were hurled down the precipice in promiscuous ruin. The alarm then subsiding, the remainder of the night was given up to repose (as far as could be done considering the disturbed state of their minds), when the danger, even though past, still kept them in a state of anxiety.
Day having appeared, the soldiers were summoned by sound of trumpet to attend the tribunes in assembly, when recompense was to be made both to merit and to demerit; Manlius was first of all commended for his bravery and presented with gifts, not only by the military tribunes, but with the consent of the soldiers, for they all carried to his house, which was in the citadel, a contribution of half a pound of corn and half a pint of wine: a matter trifling in the relation, but the prevailing scarcity had rendered it a strong proof of esteem, when each man, depriving himself of his own food, contributed in honour of one man a portion subtracted from his body and from his necessary requirements. Then the guards of that place where the enemy had climbed up unobserved, were summoned; and when Quintus Sulpicius declared openly that he would punish all according to the usage of military discipline, being deterred by the consentient shout of the soldiers who threw the blame on one sentinel, he spared the rest. The man, who was manifestly guilty of the crime, he threw down from the rock, with the approbation of all. From this time forth the guards on both sides became more vigilant; on the part of the Gauls, because a rumour spread that messengers passed between Veii and Rome, and on that of the Romans, from the recollection of the danger which occurred during the night.
But beyond all the evils of siege and war, famine distressed both armies; pestilence, moreover, oppressed the Gauls, both as being encamped in a place lying between hills, as well as heated by the burning of the houses, and full of exhalations, and sending up not only ashes but embers also, whenever the wind rose to any degree; and as the nation, accustomed to moisture and cold, is most intolerant of these annoyances, and, suffering severely from the heat and suffocation, they were dying, the diseases spreading as among cattle, now becoming weary of burying separately, they heaped up the bodies promiscuously and burned them; and rendered the place remarkable by the name of Gallic piles.
A truce was now made with the Romans, and conferences were held with the permission of the commanders; in which when the Gauls frequently alluded to the famine, and referred to the urgency of that as a further motive for their surrendering, for the purpose of removing that opinion, bread is said to have been thrown in many places from the Capitol, into the advanced posts of the enemy. But the famine could neither be dissembled nor endured any longer. Accordingly, whilst the dictator is engaged in person in holding a levy, in ordering his master of the horse, Lucius Valerius, to bring up the troops from Veii, in making preparations and arrangements, so that he may attack the enemy on equal terms, in the meantime the army of the Capitol, wearied out with keeping guard and with watches, having surmounted all human sufferings, whilst nature would not suffer famine alone to be overcome, looking forward from day to day, to see whether any succour would come from the dictator, at length not only food but hope also failing, and their arms weighing down their debilitated bodies, whilst the guards were being relieved, insisted that there should be either a surrender, or that they should be bought off, on whatever terms were possible, the Gauls intimating in rather plain terms, that they could be induced for no very great compensation to relinquish the siege. Then the senate was held and instructions were given to the military tribunes to capitulate.
Upon this the matter was settled between Quintus Sulpicius, a military tribune, and Brennus, the chieftain of the Gauls, and one thousand pounds weight of gold was agreed on as the ransom of a people, who were soon after to be the rulers of the world. To a transaction very humiliating in itself, insult was added. False weights were brought by the Gauls, and on the tribune objecting, his sword was thrown in in addition to the weight by the insolent Gaul, and an expression was heard intolerable to the Romans, “Woe to the vanquished!”
But both gods and men interfered to prevent the Romans from living on the condition of being ransomed; for by some chance, before the execrable price was completed, all the gold being not yet weighed in consequence of the altercation, the dictator comes up, and orders the gold to be removed, and the Gauls to clear away. When they, holding out against him, affirmed that they had concluded a bargain, he denied that the agreement was a valid one, which had been entered into with a magistrate of inferior authority without his orders, after he had been nominated dictator; and he gives notice to the Gauls to get ready for battle. He orders his men to throw their baggage in a heap, and to get ready their arms, and to recover their country with steel, not with gold, having before their eyes the temples of the gods, and their wives and children, and the soil of their country disfigured by the calamities of war, and all those objects which they were solemnly bound to defend, to recover, and to revenge. He then draws up his army, as the nature of the place admitted, on the site of the half-demolished city, and which was uneven by nature, and he secured all those advantages for his own men, which could be prepared or selected by military skill.
The Gauls, thrown into confusion by the unexpected event, take up arms, and with rage, rather than good judgment, rushed upon the Romans. Fortune had now changed; now the aid of the gods and human prudence assisted the Roman cause. At the first encounter, therefore, the Gauls were routed with no greater difficulty than they had found in gaining the victory at Allia. They were afterwards beaten under the conduct and auspices of the same Camillus, in a more regular engagement, at the eighth stone on the Gabine road, whither they had betaken themselves after their defeat. There the slaughter was universal: their camp was taken, and not even one person was left to carry news of the defeat.
The dictator, after having recovered his country from the enemy, returns into the city in triumph; and among the rough military jests which they throw out on such occasions he is styled, with praises by no means undeserved, Romulus, and parent of his country, and a second founder of the city. His country, thus preserved by arms, he unquestionably saved a second time in peace, when he hindered the people from removing to Veii, both the tribunes pressing the matter with greater earnestness after the burning of the city, and the commons of themselves being more inclined to that measure; and that was the cause of his not resigning his dictatorship after the triumph, the senate entreating him not to leave the commonwealth in so unsettled a state.[c]
OTHER ACCOUNTS OF THE DEPARTURE OF THE GAULS
[Sidenote: [390-349 B.C.]]
Such was the conclusion of the legend. But, unfortunately for Roman pride, here also, as in the tale of Porsenna, traces of true history are preserved which show how little the Roman annalists regarded truth. Polybius tells us, as if he knew no other story, that the departure of the Gauls was caused by the intelligence that the Venetians, an Illyrian tribe, had invaded their settlements in northern Italy, and that they actually received the gold and marched off unmolested to their homes. It is added by a later historian, that Drusus, the elder brother of the emperor Tiberius, recovered this very gold from the Gauls of his own day.
The Gauls left the city in ruins, in whatever way they were compelled to retire, whether by the sword of Camillus, or by the softer persuasion of gold. Two later inroads of the Gauls are distinguished by two famous legends: the last, or nearly the last, which occur in the pages of Roman history.
In the Manlian house there was a family which bore the name of Torquatus. This name was said to have been won by T. Manlius, who fought with a gigantic Gallic champion on the bridge over the Anio in 361 B.C., and slew him. From the neck of the slain enemy he took the massy chain (torques) which the Gallic chiefs were in the habit of wearing. He put it round his own neck, and returning in triumph to his friends, was ever after known by the name of T. Manlius Torquatus. Of him we shall hear more.
Again, when L. Camillus, a nephew of the great Camillus, was pursuing the Gauls through the Volscian plains in 349 B.C., a champion challenged any one of the Roman youth to single combat. The challenge was readily accepted by M. Valerius, who, by the side of the huge Gaul, looked like a mere stripling. At the beginning of the combat (wonderful to tell) a crow lighted upon his helmet; and as they fought, the bird confounded the Gaul by flying in his face and striking him with his beak, and flapping its wings before his eyes; so that he fell an easy conquest to the young Roman. Hence M. Valerius was ever after known by the name of Corvus, and his descendants after him. Him also we shall hear of hereafter; for he lived to be a great general, and more than once delivered his country from great danger.[b]
Thus runs the legend of the first great event in Roman history--an event so important that the echo reached even to Greece. “The capture of Rome by the Gauls,” says George Cornewall Lewis,[f] “is the first event in Roman history which, so far as we know, attracted the notice of the contemporary Greeks. Plutarch says that Heraclides of Pontus spoke of a report from the far West, which described an Hellenic city called Rome, situated somewhere near the great sea, as having been taken by an army from the distant land of the Hyperboræans.”
Ihne[g] is very incredulous of most of the legends, even suggesting that the legend of the geese had an ætiological origin and was merely invented to explain a religious ceremony in which a dog was impaled and a goose decorated with gold, instead of being actually the origin of that annual ceremony. Lewis, however, finds the older story amply substantiated.[34] Among the chief sceptics are Mommsen,[h] Schwegler,[i] and Pais[j] the most radical of all. Niebuhr’s[e] story of the whole event is worth quoting, beginning with his comments on the story that Aruns of Clusium brought in the Gauls.[a]
NIEBUHR ON THE CONDUCT OF THE ROMANS
Though history rejects the incident as demonstrably false, it is well suited to the legend; and every legend which was current among the people long before the rise of literature among them, is itself a living memorial of ancient times,--even though its contents may not be so,--and deserves a place in a history of Rome written with a due love for the subject.
The determination to sacrifice the old men certainly cannot be called inconceivable in a people of antiquity. This however is inconceivable, that they should have been so far influenced by the example of the patricians, as to await their doom like devoted victims. Could they be sure that a wished-for death would speedily release them? that wanton cruelty would not protract it by torture? that they should not be driven along as slaves, without regard to their strength, at the mere caprice of the barbarians? They might have defended the walls and the gates, might have maintained a resistance with all sorts of missiles in the interior of the city, might have made many of their enemies share their fate; had the quarters that held out been set fire to, the victor would have been deprived of his spoil. But in fact Livy is the only writer who speaks of this torpid resignation. Others related that, while all the rest of the people quitted their homes, eighty priests and aged patricians of the highest rank sat down in the Forum on their curule thrones in festal robes awaiting death. That such a resolution should have been freely taken by men of the same class, who deemed it intolerable to outlive the republic and the worship of the gods, is by no means improbable; least of all if, after resolving to face death, they solemnly devoted themselves by the hands of the chief pontiff for the republic and for the destruction of her foes. On the other hand it is utterly inconceivable that the chief part of the women and children should not have retired from the city, where every kind of insult and outrage inevitably awaited them, when it was yet possible for them to be saved by flight. It is said that a great number pressed forward at the last moment and gained admittance into the Capitol and the citadel; as if, had this been feasible, they would not all have forced their way in; as if that small place could have held more than the men requisite to defend it, with provisions for them. Finally, the story that the Romans in their despair did not close the gates of the city, and that nothing but the fear of some stratagem withheld the conquerors from marching in, sounds very incredible. On this point, however, we do not want any internal reasons; since the authentic account in Diodorus states that the Gauls, on finding the walls entirely deserted, burst open the gates.
It would be extremely unjust to impute what has here been said about Livy’s narrative to a design of detracting from his merits. Such criticisms cannot impair his imperishable fame. As soon as we cease to call for what it was Livy’s least care to supply, nothing remains to disturb the pleasure which his description must yield to every unprejudiced mind. If there be one so distempered as to forego that pleasure, because his account has been proved to be historically untenable, we may pity, but we must not indulge its perverseness.
A writer who adopts a dry and neglected report in preference to a well-known and masterly narrative, must justify himself, and show that it is not from the love of paradox, that he has discarded the more beautiful story. [Niebuhr reminds his readers of his previously expressed admiration for Livy with renewed assurances of his entire sincerity. He then concludes thus eloquently]: And in his own peculiar excellencies, in that richness and that warmth of colouring which many centuries after were the characteristics of the Venetian painters born under the same sky, Livy never shone more brilliantly than in this very description; a more vivid one is not to be found in any Latin or Greek historian.[e]
SEQUEL OF THE GALLIC WAR
[Sidenote: [390-384 B.C.]]
We can imagine better than describe the blank dismay with which the Romans, on the departure of the Gauls, must have looked upon their ancient homes. Not only was the country ravaged, as had often happened in days of yore, but the city itself, except the Capitol, was a heap of ruins. It is not strange that once again the plebeians should have thought of quitting Rome forever. Not long before they had wished to migrate to Veii; now, they had actually been living there for many months. Rome no longer existed; patriotism, they said, no longer required them to stand by their ancient home; why should not all depart--patricians with their clients and freedmen, as well as plebeians--and make a new Rome at Veii? In vain Camillus opposed these arguments with all the influence which his late services had given him. Standing in the Forum, under shadow of the Capitol, with the citadel defended by Manlius over their heads, in the sight of their country’s gods, now brought back from Cære, the plebeians were ready to agree to a general migration of the whole people, when (so runs the story) a sudden omen changed their hearts. A certain centurion was leading a party of soldiers through the city, and, halting them in the Forum while the question was in hot debate, he used these memorable words: “Standard-bearer, pitch the standard here; here it will be best for us to stay!”
It was therefore resolved to rebuild the city, and the senate did all in their power to hasten on the work. They took care to retrace, as far as might be, the ancient sites of the temples; but it was impossible to prescribe any rules for marking out the streets and fixing the habitations of the citizens. All they did was to supply tiling for the houses at the public expense. So men built their houses where they could, where the ground was most clear of rubbish, or where old materials were most easy to be got. Hence, when these houses came to be joined together by others, so as to form streets, these streets were narrow and crooked, and, what was still worse, were often built across the lines of the ancient sewers, so that there was now no good and effectual drainage. The irregularity continued till Rome was again rebuilt after the great fire in the time of the emperor Nero.
Great were the evils that were caused by this hurry. The healthiness of the city must have been impaired, order and decency must have suffered, but there was one particular evil at the moment which threatened very great mischief. The mass of the people, having little or nothing of their own, or having lost all in the late destruction, were obliged to borrow money in order to complete their dwellings: and as tillage had for the last season been nearly suspended, the want and misery that prevailed were great. Now again, as after the wars against the Tarquins, many of the poorer sort were reduced to bondage in the houses of the wealthy.
Then it was that M. Manlius, the defender of the Capitol, stood forth as the patron of the poor. He saw a debtor being taken to prison, whom he recognised as a brave centurion that had formerly served with him in the wars. He instantly paid the man’s debt, and set him free. Then, selling the best part of his landed property, he declared that, while he could prevent it, he would never see a fellow-citizen imprisoned for debt. His popularity rose high, and with the poorer sort the name of M. Manlius was more in esteem than that of the great Camillus. Nor did he content himself with relieving want; he also stepped forward as an accuser of the patricians and senators: they had divided among themselves, he said, part of the gold which had been raised to pay the Gauls. On the other hand, the patricians asserted that Manlius was endeavouring to make himself tyrant of Rome, and that this was the real purpose of all his generosity. The senate ordered a dictator to be named, and A. Cornelius Cossus was chosen. He summoned Manlius before him, and required him to prove the charge which he had maliciously brought against the ruling body. He failed to do so and was cast into prison, but claimed to be regularly tried before the whole people assembled in their centuries; and his claim was allowed. On the appointed day he appeared in the Campus Martius, surrounded by a crowd of debtors, every one of whom he had redeemed from bondage. Then he exhibited spoils taken from thirty enemies slain by himself in single combat; eight civic crowns, bestowed each of them for the life of a citizen saved in battle, with many other badges given him in token of bravery. He laid bare his breast and showed it all scarred with wounds, and then, turning to the Capitol, he called those gods to aid whom he had saved from the sacrilegious hands of the barbarians. The appeal was felt, and if the centuries had then given their votes, he would certainly have been acquitted of high treason. So his enemies contrived to break up that assembly; and shortly after he was put on his trial in another place, the Peteline grove, whence (it is said) the Capitol could not be seen. Here he was at once found guilty, and condemned to be thrown down the Tarpeian rock. A bill was then brought in and passed, enacting that his house on the Capitol should be destroyed, and that no one of his gens should hereafter bear the forename of Marcus.[35]
[Sidenote: [384-376 B.C.]]
But something was done to relieve the poor. The lands which had been taken from the Veientines on the right bank of the Tiber were now incorporated into the Roman territory and divided into four tribes, so that all free men settled in these districts became burgesses of Rome, and had votes in the comitia both of the centuries and tribes. This politic measure, however, served no less to conciliate the affections of their new Etrurian subjects than to benefit their own poor citizens. Moreover an attempt was made to plant a number of poor citizens in the Pontine district. Yet these measures were insufficient to heal the breach which still subsisted between the patricians and plebeians. Nothing could be effectual to this end but the admission of the plebeians to the chief magistracy; and a struggle now commenced for that purpose.
It has been said that all difference between the patrician and plebeian orders was rapidly disappearing, or rather that the patrician families were gradually becoming fewer, while many plebeian families were rising to wealth and power. Already we have seen the plebeians obtain a footing in the senate; they were allowed to fill the offices of quæstor and ædile, and, as military tribunes, could command the armies of the state; but to the highest curule offices, as the censorship and consulship, they were not admissible, the reason given being, that for these offices the auguries must be taken and no religious rites could be performed save by persons of pure patrician blood. This now began to be felt to be a mockery. Men saw with their own eyes and judged with their own understanding that patricians and plebeians were men of like natures, were called on alike to share burdens and danger in the service of the state, and therefore ought to share alike the honours and dignities which she conferred. So Canuleius argued many years before, so the plebeians thought now; and two resolute tribunes arose, who at length carried the celebrated laws by which plebeians were admitted to the highest honours. These were C. Licinius Stolo and L. Sextius, his kinsman.
There is a well-known story of the manner in which they were first roused to the undertaking. It runs thus: M. Fabius Ambustus, a patrician, had two daughters, the elder married to Ser. Sulpicius, a patrician, the younger to C. Licinius, a plebeian. It happened that Sulpicius was consular tribune in the same year that Licinius was tribune of the plebs; and as the younger Fabia was on a visit to her sister, Sulpicius, returning home from the Forum with his lictors, alarmed the plebeian’s wife by the noise he made in entering the house. The elder sister laughed at this ignorance; and the younger Fabia, stung to the quick, besought her husband to place her on a level with her proud sister. But the story must be an invention--because Licinius’ wife could not have been ignorant of the dignities of the office; and because there was nothing to prevent Licinius himself from being consular tribune, and thus equal to his brother-in-law.[36]
THE LICINIAN ROGATIONS
[Sidenote: [376 B.C.]]
However this might be, Licinius and Sextius, being tribunes of the plebs together in the year 376 B.C., promulgated the three bills which have ever since borne the name of the Licinian Rogations. These were:
I. That of all debts on which interest had been paid, the sum of the interest paid should be deducted from the principal, and the remainder paid off in three successive years.
II. That no citizen should hold more than five hundred jugera (nearly 320 acres) of the public land, nor should feed on the public pastures more than one hundred head of larger cattle and five hundred of smaller, under penalty of a heavy fine.
III. That henceforth consuls, not consular tribunes, should always be elected, and that one of the two consuls must be a plebeian.
Of these laws, the first is of a kind not very uncommon in rude states of society. If persons lend and borrow money they enter into a legal contract, and the state is bound to maintain this contract. Cases will occur when the borrower is unable to pay his debts, and that from no fault or neglect of his own; and the laws provide for cases of insolvency in which the insolvent is not guilty of fraud. But if the state were to cancel all legal debts, persons would be very slow to lend money at all, and thus credit and commerce would be destroyed. At Rome, after the Gallic War, as at Athens in the time of Solon (when a similar ordinance was passed), all things were in such confusion that it might be necessary to resort to arbitrary measures; and we may well believe that Licinius, himself a wealthy man, would not have interfered but for necessity. But the precedent was bad; and in later times one of the worst means used by demagogues was a promise of novæ tabulæ, or an abolition of all debts.
The second law was a general agrarian law. Former agrarian laws had merely divided certain portions of public land among the needy citizens; but this laid down a general rule, by which the holding (possessio) of all such lands was to be limited. The purpose of Licinius was good. He wished to maintain that hardy race of yeomen who were the best soldiers in the state-militia; whereas if all these lands were absorbed by the rich, they would be cultivated by hired labourers or slaves. The subsequent history will show how unfortunate it was for Rome that this law was not more fully executed.
[Sidenote: [376-368 B.C.]]
At first the patricians were equally opposed to all these laws; they were the chief creditors, and therefore would lose by the first law; they held the bulk of the public lands on easy terms, and therefore would lose by the second; they alone could be consuls, and therefore they could not brook the third. We need not therefore wonder at a violent resistance; nor is it wonderful that they should enlist many rich plebeians on their side, for these persons would suffer as much as themselves from the first two laws. Accordingly we find that some tribunes were found to put a veto on the bills. But Licinius and Sextius would not be thus thwarted, and themselves turned the powerful engine of the veto against their opponents. When the time of the elections arrived they interdicted all proceedings in the comitia of the centuries; consequently no consuls, consular tribunes, censors, or quæstors could be elected. The tribunes and ædiles, who were chosen at the comitia of tribes, were the only officers of state for the ensuing year.
This state of things (as the Roman annalists say) lasted for five years,[37] Licinius and Sextius being re-elected to the tribunate every year. But in the fifth year, when the people of Tusculum, old allies of Rome, applied for aid against the Latins, the tribunes permitted consular tribunes to be elected to lead the army, and among them was M. Fabius Ambustus, the father-in-law and friend of Licinius. The latter, far from relaxing his claims, now proposed a fourth bill, providing that, instead of two keepers of the Sibylline books (duumviri), both patricians, there should be ten (decemviri), to be chosen alike from both orders--so scornfully did he treat the pretensions of the patricians to be sole ministers of religion.
The latter felt that the ground was slipping from under them, and that the popular cause was daily gaining strength. In vain did the senate order a dictator to be named for the purpose of settling the matter in their favour. The great Camillus assumed the office for the fourth time, but resigned; and P. Manlius Capitolinus, who was named presently after, effected nothing.
Once more, as when the patricians were in opposition to the tribunes, Terentilius and Canuleius, so now did the more moderate party propose a compromise. The law respecting the keepers of the Sibylline books was allowed to pass, and it was suggested that the two former of the Licinian rogations, the two social laws, might be conceded, if the plebeians would not press the political law, and claim admission to the highest curule rank. But this the tribunes refused. They could not, they said, effectually remedy the social evils of their poor brethren unless they had access to the highest political power; and they declared they would not allow the first two bills to become law unless the third was passed together with them. “If the people will not eat,” said Licinius, “neither shall they drink.” In vain the patricians endeavoured to turn this declaration against them; in vain they represented the tribunes as ambitious men who cared not really for the wants of the poor in comparison of their own honour and dignity; in vain the mass of the plebeians avowed themselves ready to accept the compromise. The tribunes set their faces like iron against the threats of the higher sort and the supplications of the lower. For another five years the grim conflict lasted, till at length their resolution prevailed, and in the year 367 B.C. all the three Licinian rogations became law.
This great triumph was achieved with little tumult (so far as we hear) and no bloodshed. Who can refuse his admiration to a people which could carry through their most violent changes with such calmness and moderation?
But the patricians, worsted as they were, had not yet shot away all their arrows. At the first election after these laws were passed, L. Sextius was chosen the first plebeian consul. Now the consuls, though elected at the comitia of the centuries, were invested with the imperium or sovereign power by a law of the curies. This law the patricians, who alone composed the curies, refused to grant; and to support this refusal the senate had ordered Camillus, who was now some eighty years old, to be named dictator for the fifth time. The old soldier, always ready to fight at an advantage, perceived that nothing now was practicable but an honourable capitulation. The tribunes advised the people to submit to the dictator, but declared that they would indict him at the close of his office; and he, taking a calm view of the state of things, resolved to act as mediator.
EQUALISATION OF THE TWO ORDERS
[Sidenote: [368-367 B.C.]]
The matter was finally adjusted by a further compromise. The plebeian consul was invested with the imperium; but the judicial power was now taken from the consuls and put into the hands of a supreme patrician judge, called the Prætor of the City (Prætor Urbanus), and Sp. Camillus, son of the dictator, was the first prætor. A hundred men (centumviri) were named, to whom he might delegate all difficult cases not of a criminal nature. At the same time also another magistracy, the curule ædileship, was created, to be filled by patricians and plebeians in alternate years. These curule ædiles shared the duties of the plebeian ædiles, and besides this, had to superintend the great games, for which they were allowed a certain sum from the treasury. At the same time a fourth day was added to these games in honour of the plebeians.
Thus the patricians lost one of the consulships, but retained part of the consular functions under other titles. And when Camillus had thus effected peace between the orders, he vowed a temple to Concord; but before he could dedicate it, the old hero died. The temple, however, was built according to his design; its site, now one of the best known among those of ancient Rome, can still be traced with great certainty at the northwestern angle of the Forum, immediately under the Capitoline. The building was restored with great magnificence by the emperor Tiberius; and it deserved to be so, for it commemorated one of the greatest events of Roman history,--the final union of the two orders, from which point we must date that splendid period on which we now enter. By this event was a single city enabled to conquer, first of all Italy, and then all the civilised countries of the known world, that is, all the peoples bordering on the Mediterranean Sea.
Various causes were for some time interposed to prevent the due execution of the Licinian laws. Indeed the first two of these measures, which aimed at social improvements, may be said to have failed. Social abuses are always difficult to correct. The evils are, in these cases, of slow growth; their roots strike deep; they can only be abated by altering the habits and feelings of the people, which cannot be effected in the existing generation; they will not give way at once to the will of a law-giver, however good his judgment, however pure his motives, however just his objects. But the common difficulty of removing social evils was increased in Rome at this time by circumstances.
[Sidenote: [367-343 B.C.]]
For two years a pestilence raged in the city, which swept away great numbers of citizens and paralysed the industry of all. The most illustrious of its victims was Camillus, who died even more gloriously than he had lived, while discharging the office of peacemaker. About the same time the region of the city was shaken by earthquakes; the Tiber overflowed its bed and flooded the Great Circus, so that the games then going on were broken off. Not long after a vast gulf opened in the Forum, as if to say that the meeting-place of the Roman people was to be used no more. The seers said that the gods forbade this gulf to close till that which Rome held most valuable were thrown into it. Then, when men were asking what this might be, a noble youth, named M. Curtius, said aloud that Rome’s true riches were brave men, that nothing else so worthy could be devoted to the gods. Thus saying, he put on his armour, and mounting his horse, leaped into the gulf; and straightway, says the legend, the earth closed and became solid as before; and the place was called the Lacus Curtius forever after.
To these direct visitations of God, the pestilence and the earthquake, was added a still more terrible scourge in the continued inroads of the Gauls. It has been noticed above that in the years 361 and 350 B.C. hordes of these barbarians again burst into Latium and again ravaged the Roman territory.
These combined causes increased the distress of the poor, and we read without surprise that in the year 357 B.C., ten years after the passing of the Licinian laws, a bill was brought forward by Duilius and Mænius, tribunes of the plebs, to restore the rate of interest fixed by the Twelve Tables, which in the late troubles had fallen into neglect; and five years later (in 352) the consuls brought forward a measure to assist the operation of the Licinian law of debt. They appointed five commissioners (quinqueviri), with power to make estimates of all debts and of the property of the debtors. This done, the commissioners advanced money to discharge the debt, as far as it was covered by the property of the debtor. The measure was wise and useful, but could only be partial in its effects. It could not help those debtors who had no property, or not enough property to pay their debts withal. Hence we find that in another five years (347 B.C.) the rate of interest was reduced to 5 per cent.; and some years afterwards it was tried to abolish interest altogether. But, laws to limit interest proved then, as they have proved ever since, ineffectual to restrain the practices of grasping and dishonest usurers.
There were, then, great difficulties in the way of a law for relieving debtors. These were increased, as has been seen, by circumstances, and we must now add the selfishness and dishonesty of the rich patricians and plebeians, who held the bulk of the public land in their own hands, and contrived to evade the Licinian law in the following way. If a man held more than five hundred jugera, he emancipated his son and made over a portion of the land nominally to him, or, if he had no son, to some other trusty person. With sorrow we hear of these practices, and with still greater sorrow we learn that in the year 354 B.C. C. Licinius himself was indicted by the curule ædile, M. Popilius Lænas, for fraudulently making over five hundred jugera to his son, while he held another five hundred in his own name. Thus this remedy for pauperism was set aside and neglected, till the Gracchi arose, and vainly endeavoured, after more than two centuries of abuse, to correct that which at first might have been prevented.
The law for equalising political power was more effective. For eleven years after the Licinian law one consul was always a plebeian. Then the patricians made one last struggle to recover their exclusive privilege; and in the year 355 B.C. we have a Sulpicius and a Valerius as consuls, both of them patricians; and in the course of the next dozen years we find the law violated in like manner no less than seven times. After that it is regularly observed, one consul being patrician and the other plebeian, till at length in the year 172 B.C., when the patrician families had greatly decreased, both consulships were opened to the plebeians, and from that time forth the offices were held by men of either order without distinction.
These violations of the law above mentioned were effected by the power by which the senate ordered the patrician consul to name a dictator. At least in the space twenty-five years after the Licinian laws we have no fewer than fifteen dictators. Now several of these were appointed for sudden emergencies of war, such as the Gallic invasions of 361 and 350. But often we find dictators when there is no mention of foreign war. In the year 360 we find that both the consuls enjoyed a triumph, and not the dictator. These and other reasons have led to the belief that these dictators were appointed to hold the consular comitia, and brought the overbearing weight of their political power to secure the election of two patrician consuls.
But if this were the plan of the patricians, it availed not. After the year 343 B.C. the law was regularly observed, by which one consul was necessarily a plebeian. The plebeians also forced their way to other offices. C. Marcius Rutilus, the most distinguished plebeian of his time, who was four times elected consul, was named dictator in the year 356 B.C., no doubt, by the plebeian consul Popilius Lænas; and five years later (351) we find the same Marcius elected to the censorship.
Practically, therefore, the political reform of Licinius and Sextius had been effectual so far as the admission of plebeians to the highest offices of state was concerned. It must be remarked, however, that these privileges, though no longer engrossed by patricians, seem to have been open only to a few wealthy plebeian families. C. Marcius Rutilus, as we have just remarked, held the consulship four times in sixteen years (357-342). M. Popilius Lænas and C. Pœtelius Libo enjoyed a similar monopoly of honours.
As the exclusive privileges of the patricians thus gradually and quietly gave way, instead of being maintained (as in modern France) till swept away by the violent tide of revolution, so did the power of the senate rise. It was by the wisdom or policy of this famous assembly that the city of Rome became mistress of Italy and of the world. Hitherto the contest has been internal, of citizen against citizen, in order to gain an equality of rights. Henceforth, for two hundred years, we shall have to relate contests with foreign peoples, and to give an account of the conquest of Italy, for which the Roman senate and people, now at length politically united, were prepared.
EXTERNAL AFFAIRS
[Sidenote: [390-342 B.C.]]
Abroad, after the burning of the city, Rome had once more to struggle for very existence. Before the city was so far restored as to be habitable, it was announced that the Æquians and Volscians were in arms. The Æquians seem to have shared in the general disaster caused by the Gallic inroad; henceforth at least the part they play is insignificant. But the Volscians boldly advanced to Lanuvium, and once more encamped at the foot of the Alban hills. The city was in great alarm; and Camillus was named dictator for the exigency. He defeated them with great loss, and pursued them into their own territory. He then marched rapidly to Bola, to which place the Æquians had advanced and gained another victory.
But in the moment of triumph news came that Etruria was in arms. The Etruscans hoped by a brave effort to recover the territory which the Romans had for the second time appropriated. A force was sent against them; but so completely was it routed on the nones of July, that this day was noted in the Calendar as the Poplifugia. Siege was then laid to Sutrium by the victors, and it fell. But the prompt dictator, on the first alarm, marched his troops straight from Bola to the point of danger; and on the very day on which Sutrium had yielded to the foe, it was again taken by the Roman general. Thus Camillus again appears as the saviour of Rome. He enjoyed a threefold triumph over the Volscians, the Æquians, and the Etrurians.
It was two years after, that the Etruscan territory, now effectually conquered, was formed into four tribes. By the addition of these new tribes, the first that had been added since this very territory had been wrested from Rome by Porsenna, the whole number was raised to twenty-five. The late assault of the Etruscans, perhaps, suggested the wisdom of making the free inhabitants of this district citizens of Rome. Men who had lately been subject to the oppressive government of a civic oligarchy, being now mingled with Roman plebeians who had received allotments in the district, and seeing the comparative freedom of all Roman burgesses, were sure to fight for Rome rather than join in an insurrection against her. Here was the beginning of that sagacious policy, which for a time led political enfranchisement hand in hand with conquest. Thirty years later (358 B.C.) the senate pursued the same course with respect to the Pontine district and other lowlands which had been recovered from the grasp of the Volscians. A settlement of poor plebeians, which was attempted in 387 B.C., failed; the emigrants were cut off by the Volscian hills-men. But the territory being now formed into two tribes, so as to make the whole number twenty-seven, the inhabitants had an interest in repressing predatory inroads.
[Sidenote: [387-354 B.C.]]
Soon after followed the struggle for the Licinian laws; and during this period the annals are altogether silent on the subject of wars.
But before the promulgation of the Licinian laws, there were threatenings of greater danger than was to be feared either from Etruscans or Volscians. The Latins and Hernicans, who since the time of Sp. Cassius had fought by the side of Rome in all her border wars, no longer appeared in this position. The inroad of the Gauls had broken up the league. Rome had been reduced to ashes, and was left in miserable weakness. Many of the thirty Latin towns, the names of which occur in the league of Cassius, were so utterly destroyed, that the antiquary in vain seeks for their site in the desolation of the Campagna. But the two important cities of Tibur and Præneste (Tivoli and Palestrina), perched on steep-scarped rocks, defying the rude arts of the invader, had gained strength by the ruin of their neighbours, and appear as independent communities, standing apart from the rest of Latium and from Rome. It was believed that the Prænestines encouraged the Volscians in their inroads, and in 382 B.C. war was declared against them. Some of the Latin cities joined Præneste; others sought protection against her from Rome. In this war even the Tusculans deserted Rome. But after a struggle of five years, the dictator, T. Quinctius, took nine insurgent cities, and blockaded Præneste itself, which capitulated on terms of which we are not informed. Soon after Tusculum also was recovered; and for the present all fear of the Latins subsided.
But a few years after the temple of Concord had been erected by old Camillus, fresh alarms arose. The Hernicans gave signs of disquietude. War was declared against them in 362 B.C. Next year came the second inroad of the Gauls, and it was observed with consternation, that this terrible foe occupied the valley of the Anio, and was not molested either by the Latins of Tibur or by the Hernicans. In the year 360 B.C. the Fasti record a triumph of the consul Fabius over this last-named people, and another of his colleague Pœtelius over the men of Tibur and the Gauls--an ominous conjunction.
But this new inroad of the barbarians, which threatened Rome with a second ruin, really proved a blessing; for the remaining Latin cities, which in the late conflicts had stood aloof, terrified by the presence of the Gauls, and seeing safety only in union, now renewed their league with Rome, and the Hernicans soon after followed their example. The glory of concluding this second league belongs to C. Plautius, the plebeian consul of the year 358 B.C. The Gauls now quitted Latium; and Privernum and Tibur, the only Latin cities which rejected the alliance, were both compelled to yield (357, 354 B.C.).
While these dangers were successfully averted on the northeastern frontier, war had been declared against Rome by the powerful Etruscan city of Tarquinii, which lies beyond the Ciminian hills. This was in the very year in which the new league was formed with the Latins and Hernicans. But for this, it is hard to imagine that Rome, exhausted as she was, could have resisted the united assaults of Gauls, Volscians, Latins, Hernicans, and Etruscans. As it was, she found it hard to repel the Tarquinians. This people made a sudden descent from the hills, defeated the consul C. Fabius, and sacrificed 307 Roman prisoners to their gods (358 B.C.). Two years later they were joined by the Faliscans. Bearing torches in their hands, and having their hair wreathed into snake-like tresses, they attacked the Romans with savage cries, and drove them before them. They overran the four new tribes, and threatened Rome itself. Then M. Popilius Lænas, the plebeian consul, being ordered by the senate to name a dictator, named another plebeian, C. Marcius Rutilus, the first of his order who was advanced to this high office; and his conduct justified the appointment. The enemy was defeated. The senate refused a triumph to the plebeian, but the people in their tribes voted that he should enjoy the well-earned honour.
[Sidenote: [356-351 B.C.]]
For a moment the people of Cære, the old allies of the Roman people, who had given shelter to their sacred things, their women, and children, in the panic of the Gallic invasion, joined the war; but almost immediately after sued for peace. The Romans, however, remembered this defection. The Tarquinians were again defeated in a great battle. Three hundred and fifty-eight prisoners were scourged and beheaded in the Forum to retaliate for former barbarity. In the year 351 B.C. a peace of forty years was concluded, after a struggle of eight years’ duration.
It was in the very next year after the conclusion of this war that the third inroad of the Gauls took place, of which we have above spoken, when M. Valerius gained his name of Corvus. Thus remarkably was Rome carried through the dangers of intestine strife and surrounding wars. When she was at strife within, her enemies were quiet. Before each new assault commenced, a former foe had retired from the field, and Rome rose stronger from every fall. She had now recovered all the Latin coast land from the Tibur to Circeii; and her increasing importance is shown by a renewed treaty with the great commercial city of Carthage. But a more formidable enemy was now to be encountered than had as yet challenged Rome to conflict, and a larger area opened to her ambition. In the course of a very few years after the last event of which we have spoken the First Samnite War began.[b]
The destruction of Rome by the Gauls is the dividing point between historical and ante-historical Rome, as Ihne[g] justly notes; for the conflagration wiped out not only the records but most of the monuments as well. He complains, however, that it is long after the conflagration before the chronicles become really trustworthy. He doubts equally the story of how Valerius won the name of Corvus and the achievements of L. Furius Camillus. He says in conclusion:
“The result of our investigations is that the whole of the six wars with the Gauls, as Livy[c] relates them, are not much more than stop-gaps, marking points of time at which the annals of the old time have been filled up with edifying and patriotic matter. We can, therefore, infer that a considerable part of the other wars is equally apocryphal, and we may perhaps have the satisfaction of thinking that there were no wars to relate and that the Romans had now and then a little breathing-place.” So extreme an erasure of tradition with all its details will not, however, win the approval of many students of these times.[a]
FOOTNOTES
[33] The aged were doomed to perish under any circumstances (utique), from scarcity of provisions, whether they retired into the Capitol with the military youth, or were left behind in the city.
[34] [As a forewarning here of the comparatively recent Gallic re-invasions of Italy, one may quote what J. J. Ampère[d] says in his L’histoire romaine à Rome: “To terminate cheerfully the story of the geese of Manlius, I will recall a caricature representing a French soldier plucking a goose on the Capitoline Hill; beneath were the words, ‘Vengeance of a Gaul.’”]
[35] It may be observed that each gens et familia clung to the same forenames. Thus Publius, Lucius, Cneius, were favourite forenames of the Cornelii; Caius of the Julii; Appius of the Claudii; and so on.
[36] [And yet, though constitutionally eligible, Licinius could hardly have won the consular tribuneship, for the patricians had practically monopolised the office, as the fasti prove.]
[37] [The annalists were probably wrong in supposing that Rome was without magistrates for this period. Doubtless their error is due to chronological confusion.]