No More Learning

to the agnate descendants of curule magistrates although, after the manner of such decorations, all of them in course of time were extended to a wider circle. This can be distinctly proved in the case of the gold finger-ring, which in the fifth century was worn only by the nobility (Plin. H. N. , xxxiii. 18), in the sixth by every senator and senator's son (Liv. xxvi. 36), in the seventh by every one of equestrian rank, under the empire by every one who was of free birth. So also with the silver trappings, which still, in the second Punic war, formed a badge of the nobility alone (Liv. xxvi. 37) and with the purple border of the boys' toga, which at first was granted only to the sons of curule magistrates, then to the sons of equites, afterwards to those of all free-born persons, lastly — yet as early as the time of the second Punic war— even to the sons of freedmen (Macrob. Sat. 6). The golden amulet-case (bulla) was a badge of the children of senators in the time of the second Punic war (Macrob. I. e. Liv. xxvi. 36), in that of Cicero as the badge of the
children of the equestrian order (Cic. Verr. 58, 152), whereas children of inferior rank wore the leathern amulet (lorum). The purple stripe (clavus) on the tunic was a badge of the senators 99) and of the equites, so that at least in later times the former wore broad, the latter narrow with the nobility the clavus had nothing to do.
Plin. H. N. xxi. 3, 6. The right to appear crowned in public wai acquired by distinction in war (Polyb. vi. 39, Liv. x. 47) consequently, the wearing a crown without warrant was an offence similar to the assumption, in the present day, of the badge of a military order of merit without due title,
within the patriciate, may have served as
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6 THE GOVERNMENT AND THE GOVERNED book in
867. of constitution in 387, by which the plebeian families that attained the consulate were placed on a footing of equal privilege with the patrician families, all of whom were now probably entitled to carry images of their ancestors. Moreover, it was now settled that the offices of state to which these hereditary privileges were attached should in clude neither the lower nor the extraordinary magistracies nor the tribunate of the plebs, but merely the consulship, the praetorship which stood on the same level with it
383), and the curule aedileship, which bore part in the adminis
tration of public justice and consequently in the exercise of the sovereign powers of the state. 1 Although this plebeian nobility, in the strict sense of the term, could only be formed after the curule offices were opened to plebeians, yet exhibited in short time, not at the very first, certain compactness of organization —doubtless because such nobility had long been prefigured in the old senatorial plebeian families. The result of the Licinian laws in
reality therefore amounted nearly to what we should now call the creation of batch of peers. Now that the plebeian families ennobled by their curule ancestors were united into one body with the patrician families and acquired distinctive position and distinguished power in the commonwealth, the Romans had again arrived at the point whence they had started there was once more not merely governing aristocracy and
hereditary nobility —both of which in fact had never disappeared — but there was governing hereditary nobility, and the feud
Thus there remained excluded the military tribunate with consular powers 371), the proconsulship, the quaestorship, the tribunate of the people, and several others. As to the censorship, does not appear, not withstanding the curule chair of the censors (Liv. xl. 45 comp. xxvii. 8), to have been reckoned a curule office for the later period, however, when only man of consular standing could be made censor, the question has no practical importance. The plebeian aedileship certainly was not reckoned originally one of the curule magistracies (Liv. xxiii. 33)
however, have been subsequently included amongst them.
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chap, xi THE GOVERNMENT AND THE GOVERNED 7
between the gentes in possession of the government and the commons rising in revolt against the gentes could not but begin afresh. And matters very soon reached that
The nobility was not content with its honorary privileges which were matters of comparative indifference, but strove after separate and sole political power, and sought to convert the most important institutions of the state—the senate and the equestrian order—from organs of the commonwealth into organs of the plebeio-patrician aristocracy.
The dependence de jure of the Roman senate of the The
stage.
more especially of the larger patricio-plebeian senate, on the magistracy had rapidly become lax, and had °f "* in fact been converted into independence. The subordi
nation of the public magistracies to the state -council, introduced by the revolution of 244 337); the trans- 510. ference of the right of summoning men to the senate from
the consul to the censor 375) lastly, and above all, the
legal recognition of the right of those who had been curule magistrates to seat and vote in the senate 407), had converted the senate from council summoned the
magistrates and in many respects dependent on them into governing corporation virtually independent, and in certain sense filling up its own ranks for the two modes
which its members obtained admission —election to curule office and summoning by the censor—were both virtually in the power of the governing board itself. The burgesses, no doubt, at this epoch were still too independ ent to allow the entire exclusion of non-nobles from the senate, and the nobility were perhaps still too judicious even to wish for this but, owing to the strictly aristocratic gradations in the senate itself — in which those who had been curule magistrates were sharply distinguished, accord ing to their respective classes of consulares, prattorii, and aedilicii, from the senators who had not entered the senate
republic,
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8 THE GOVERNMENT AND THE GOVERNED book hi
through a curule office and were therefore excluded from debate —the non-nobles, although they probably sat in considerable numbers in the senate, were reduced to an insignificant and comparatively uninfluential position in
and the senate became substantially mainstay of the nobility.
The institution of the equites was developed into a second, less important but yet far from unimportant, organ of the nobility. As the new hereditary nobility had not the power to usurp sole possession of the comitia, necessarily became in the highest degree desirable that should obtain at least separate position within the body representing the community. In the assembly of the tribes there was no method of managing this; but the equestrian centuries under the Servian organization seemed as were created for the very purpose. The 1800 horses which the community furnished1 were constitutionally
The current hypothesis, according to which the six centuries of the nobility alone amounted to 1200, and the whole equestrian force accordingly to 3600 horse, not tenable. The method of determining the number of the equites by the number of duplications specified by the annalists mistaken in fact, each of these statements has originated and
to be explained by itself. But there no evidence either for the first number, which only found in the passage of Cicero, Dt Jiep. ii. 20, acknowledged as miswritten even by the champions of this view, or for the second, which does not appear at all in ancient authors. In favour, on the other hand, of the hypothesis set forth in the text, we have, first of all, the number as indicated not by authorities, but by the institutions themselves for certain that the century numbered 100 men, and there were originally three 90), then six 107), and lastly after the Servian reform eighteen 116), equestrian centuries. The deviations of the authorities from this view are only apparent. The old self-consistent tradition, which Becker has developed (ii. 1, 243), reckons not the eighteen patricio-plebeian, but the six patrician, centuries at 1800 men and this has been manifestly followed by Livy, 36 (according to the reading which alone has manuscript authority, and which ought not to be corrected from Livy's particular estimates), and by Cicero I. e. (according to the only reading grammatically admissible, MDCCC. see Becker, ii. 1,
But Cicero at the same time indicates very plainly, that in that statement he intended to describe the then existing amount of the Roman equites in general. The number of the whole body has therefore been transferred to the most prominent portion of by prolepsis, such as common in the case of the old annalists not too much given to reflection
244).
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9
of likewise by the censors. It was, no doubt, the duty of these to select the equites on military grounds and at their musters to insist that all horsemen incapacitated by age or otherwise, or at all unserviceable, should surrender their public horse; but the very nature of the institution implied that the equestrian horses should be given especially to men of means, and it was not at all easy to hinder the censors from looking to genteel birth more than to capacity, and from allowing men of standing who were once admitted, senators particularly, to retain their horse beyond the proper time. Perhaps it was even fixed by law that the senator might retain it as long as he wished. Accordingly it became at least practically the rule for the senators to vote in the eighteen equestrian centuries, and the other places in these were assigned chiefly to the young men of the
The military system, of course, suffered from this not so much through the unfitness for effective service of no small part of the legionary cavalry, as through the destruction of military equality to which the change gave rise, inasmuch as the young men of rank more and more withdrew from
just in the same way 300 equites instead of 100 are assigned to the parent-community, including, by anticipation, the contingents of the Tities and the Luceres (Becker, 1, 238). Lastly, the proposition of Cato (p. 66, Jordan), to raise the number of the horses of the equites to aaoo, as distinct a confirmation of the view proposed above, as a distinct refutation of the opposite view. The closed number of the equites probably continued to subsist down to Sulla's time, when with the de facto abeyance of the censorship the basis of fell away, and to all appearance in place of the censorial bestowal of the equestrian horse came its acquisition by hereditary right thenceforth the senator's son was by birth an eques. Alongside, however, of this closed equestrian body, the equites tquo publico, stood from an early period of the republic the burgesses bound to render mounted service on their own horses, who are nothing but the highest class of the census they do not vote in the equestrian centuries, but are regarded otherwise as equites, and lay claim likewise to the honorary privileges of the equestrian order.
In the arrangement of Augustus the senatorial houses retained the hereditary equestrian right but by its side the censorial bestowal of the equestrian horse renewed as prerogative of the emperor and without restriction to definite time, and thereby the designation of equites for the first class of the census as such falls into abeyance.
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service in the infantry. The closed aristocratic corps of the equites proper came to set the tone for the whole legionary cavalry, taken from the citizens who were of highest position by descent and wealth. This enables us in some degree to understand why the equites during the Sicilian war refused to obey the order of the consul Gaius Aurelius Cotta that they should work at the trenches with
*BS. the legionaries (502), and why Cato, when commander-in- chief of the army in Spain, found himself under the necessity of addressing a severe reprimand to his cavalry. But this conversion of the burgess-cavalry into a mounted guard of nobles redounded not more decidedly to the injury of the commonwealth than to the advantage of the nobility, which acquired in the eighteen equestrian centuries a suffrage not merely separate but giving the tone to the rest.
Of a kindred character was the formal separation of the places assigned to the senatorial order from those occupied the theatre, by the rest of the multitude as spectators at the national
festivals. It was the great Scipio, who effected this change 194. in his second consulship in 560. The national festival was as much an assembly of the people as were the centuries convoked for voting ; and the circumstance that
the former had no resolutions to pass made the official announcement of a distinction between the ruling order and the body of subjects —which the separation implied —. all the more significant. The innovation accordingly met with much censure even from the ruling class, because it was simply invidious and not useful, and because it gave a very manifest contradiction to the efforts of the more prudent portion of the aristocracy to conceal their exclusive government under the forms of civil equality.
These circumstances explain, why the censorship became prop of dw tne piyot of tne kter republican constitution ; why an nobility. office, originally standing by no means in the first rank,
chap, xi THE GOVERNMENT AND THE GOVERNED II
came to be gradually invested with external insignia which did
not at all belong to it in itself and with an altogether unique aristocratic-republican glory, and was viewed as the crown
and completion of a well-conducted public career; and why the government looked upon every attempt of the opposition to introduce their men into this office, or even
to hold the censor responsible to the people for his ad ministration during or after his term of office, as an attack
on their palladium, and presented a united front of re sistance to every such attempt. It is sufficient in this respect to mention the storm which the candidature of Cato for the censorship provoked, and the measures, so extraordinarily reckless and in violation of all form, by which the senate prevented the judicial prosecution of
the two unpopular censors of the year 550. But with 204. their magnifying the glory of the censorship the government combined a characteristic distrust of this, their most impor
tant and for that very reason most dangerous, instrument. It was thoroughly necessary to leave to the censors absolute control over the personal composition of the senate and the equites ; for the right of exclusion could not well be separated from the right of summoning, and it was indispensable to retain such a right, not so much for the purpose of removing from the senate capable men of the opposition —a course which the smooth -going government of that age cautiously avoided —as for the purpose of pre serving around the aristocracy that moral halo, without which it must have speedily become a prey to the opposition. The right of ejection was retained ; but what they chiefly needed was the glitter of the naked blade—the edge of which they feared, they took care to blunt. —Besides the check involved in the nature of the office under which the lists of the members of the aristocratic corporations were liable to revision only at intervals of five years —and besides the limitations resulting
/'
it,
Remodel ling of the constitu tion according to the
mainly based on the senate, the equites, and the censorship —the nobility not only usurped in substance the government, but also remodelled the constitution according to their own views. It was
12 THE GOVERNMENT AND THE GOVERNED book hi
from the right of veto vested in the colleague and the
of cancelling vested in the successor, there was added a farther check which exercised a very sensible influence; a usage equivalent to law made it the duty of the censor not to erase from the list any senator or knight without specifying in writing the grounds for his decision, or, in other words, adopting, as a rule, a quasi-judicial procedure. —
right
In this political position
views of the part of their policy, with a view to keep up the appreciation nobility. of the public magistracies, to add to the number of these as little as possible, and to keep it far below what was
required by the extension of territory and the increase of
Inadequate business. Only the most urgent exigencies were barely
number of met by the division of the judicial functions hitherto
— discharged by a single praetor between two judges one
of whom tried the lawsuits between Roman burgesses,
and the other those that arose between non-burgesses or 243. between burgess and non-burgess —in 511, and by the
nomination of four auxiliary consuls for the four trans 227. marine provinces of Sicily (527), Sardinia including Corsica
227. 197. (527), and Hither and Further Spain (557). The far too summary mode of initiating processes in Rome, as well as the increasing influence of the official staff, are doubtless traceable in great measure to the practically inadequate numbers of the Roman magistracy.
magis trates.
Election of officers is the comitia.
Among the innovations originated by the government — which were none the less innovations, that almost uniformly they changed not the letter, but merely the practice of the existing constitution —the most prominent were the measures by which the filling up of officers' posts as well as of civil magistracies was made to depend not, as the letter
chap. XI THE GOVERNMENT AND THE GOVERNED
13
of the constitution allowed and its spirit required, simply on merit and ability, but more and more on birth and seniority. As regards the nomination of staff-officers this was done not in form, but all the more in substance. It had already, in the course of the previous period, been in great part transferred from the general to the burgesses
397) m tms period came the further step, that the whole staff-officers of the regular yearly levy—the twenty- four military tribunes of the four ordinary legions — were nominated the comitia tributa. Thus line of de marcation more and more insurmountable was drawn between the subalterns, who gained their promotion from the general punctual and brave service, and the staff, which obtained its privileged position canvassing the burgesses 73). With view to check simply the worst abuses in this respect and to prevent young men
quite untried from holding these important posts, became necessary to require, as preliminary to the be stowal of staff appointments, evidence of certain number of years of service. Nevertheless, when once the military tribunate, the true pillar of the Roman military system, was laid down as the first stepping-stone in the political career of the young aristocrats, the obligation of service inevitably came to be frequently eluded, and the election
of officers became liable to all the evils of democratic canvassing and of aristocratic exclusiveness. was cutting commentary on the new institution, that in serious wars (as in 583) was found necessary to suspend this democratic mode of electing officers, and to leave once more to the general the nomination of his staff.
171.
In the case of civil offices, the first and chief object was
to limit re-election to the supreme magistracies. This was
certainly necessary, the presidency of annual kings was not consuls and to be an empty name and even in the preceding period re- censor"- election *o the consulship was not permitted till after the
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lapse of ten years, while in the case of the censorship it was altogether forbidden 402). No farther law was passed in the period before us but an increased stringency in its application obvious from the fact that, while the law as to
817. the ten years' interval was suspended in 537 during the con tinuance of the war in Italy, there was no farther dispensa tion from afterwards, and indeed towards the close of this period re-election seldom occurred at all. Moreover,
ISO. towards the end of this epoch (574) decree of the people was issued, binding the candidates for public magistracies to undertake them in fixed order of succession, and to observe certain intervals between the offices, and certain
limits of age. Custom, indeed, had long prescribed both of these but was sensibly felt restriction of the freedom of election, when the customary qualification was raised into
legal requirement, and the right of disregarding such re quirements in extraordinary cases was withdrawn from the elective body. In general, admission to the senate was thrown open to persons belonging to the ruling families without distinction as to ability, while not only were the poorer and humbler ranks of the population utterly precluded from access to the offices of government, but all Roman bur gesses not belonging to the hereditary aristocracy were practically excluded, not indeed exactly from the senate, but from the two highest magistracies, the consulship and the censorship. After Manius Curius and Gaius Fabri- cius 394), no instance can be pointed out of consul who did not belong to the social aristocracy, and probably no instance of the kind occurred at all. But the number of the gentes, which appear for the first time in the lists of consuls and censors the half-century from the beginning of the war with Hannibal to the close of that with Perseus,
extremely limited and far the most of these, such as the Flaminii, Terentii, Porcii, Acilii, and Laelii, may be referred to elections the opposition, or are traceable to
14
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chap, XI THE GOVERNMENT AND THE GOVERNED
special aristocratic connections. The election of Gaius Laelius in 564, for instance, was evidently due to the Scipios. WO. The exclusion of the poorer classes from the government
was, no doubt, required by the altered circumstances of the case. Now that Rome had ceased to be a purely Italian state and had adopted Hellenic culture, it was no longer possible to take a small farmer from the plough and to set
him at the head of the community. But it was neither
nor beneficial that the elections should almost without exception be confined to the narrow circle of the curule houses, and that a " new man " could only make his way into that circle by a sort of usurpation. 1 No doubt a
1 The stability of the Roman nobility may be clearly traced, more
especially in the case of the patrician gentes, by means of the consular
and aedilician Fasti. As is well known, the consulate was held by one
patrician and one plebeian in each year from 388 to 581 (with the 866-178. exception of the years 399, 400, 401, 403, 405, 409, 411, in which both
consuls were patricians). Moreover, the colleges of curule aediles were composed exclusively of patricians in the odd years of the Varronian reckoning, at least down to the close of the sixth century, and they are
known for the sixteen years 541, 545. 547. 549. 55*. 553. 555. 557. 56*. 565, 567, 575, 585, 589, 591, 593. These patrician consuls and aediles are, as respects their gentes, distributed as follows :—
necessary
Cornell! , ■
Valerii. ,•IO 8 Claudll. . •4 8 a Aemilii. . >9 6 a
Fabii . . . 6 Manlii. . 4 Postumii . . >a Servilii. .
6 z 6 1 6 •
15 15 *4 4
3 4 a 3 3 I a 3 — 6 a a
Quincttt . .
Furii. .
Sulpicil . .
Veturil .
Papirii . . •
Nautii. > a — — Jnffl. . . ,1 —X Fotia. x — —
70 70 39
Thus the fifteen or sixteen houses of the high nobility, that powerful in the state at the time of the Licinian laws, maintained their
a
— a — 3 1 —
15
Consuls. Consuls. Cunilc aediles
388-500. 501-581. of those 16 patrician collegt*.
Family govern-
16 THE GOVERNMENT AND THE GOVERNED book m
certain hereditary character was inherent not merely in the nature of the senate as an institution, in so far as it rested from the outset on a representation of the clans 97), but in the nature of aristocracy generally, in so far as statesmanly wisdom and statesmanly experience are bequeathed from the
able father to the able son, and the inspiring spirit of an
illustrious ancestry fans every noble spark within the human
breast into speedier and more brilliant flame. In this sense
the Roman aristocracy had been at all times hereditary in
fact, had displayed its hereditary character with great
naivete" in the old custom of the senator taking his sons with
him to the senate, and of the public magistrate decorating
his sons, as were by anticipation, with the insignia of the
highest official honour —the purple border of the consular,
and the golden amulet-case of the triumphator. But, while
in the earlier period the hereditariness of the outward dignity
had been to certain extent conditioned by the inheritance
of intrinsic worth, and the senatorial aristocracy had guided
the state not primarily by virtue of hereditary right, but by
virtue of the highest of all rights of representation —the
right of the excellent, as contrasted with the ordinary, man
—
after the end of the Hannibalic war) from its original high position, as the aggregate of those in the community who were most experienced in counsel and action, down to an order of lords filling up its ranks hereditary succession, and exercising collegiate misrule.
Indeed, matters had already at this time reached such height, that out of the grave evil of oligarchy there emerged the still worse evil of usurpation of power by particular
ground without material change in their relative numbers—which no doubt were partly kept up by adoption —for the next two centuries, and indeed down to the end of the republic. To the circle of the plebeian nobility new gentes doubtless were from time to time added but the old plebeian houses, such as the Licinii, Fulvii, Atilii, Domitii, Marcii. Junii, predominate very decidedly in the Fasti throughout three cen turies.
sank in this epoch (and with specially great rapidity
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chap, xi THE GOVERNMENT AND THE GOVERNED
17
families. We have already spoken (ii. 484) of the offensive family-policy of the conqueror of Zama, and of his unhappily successful efforts to cover with his own laurels the incapacity and pitifulness of his brother; and the nepotism of the Flaminini was, if possible, still more shameless and scandalous than that of the Scipios. Absolute freedom of election in fact turned to the advantage of such coteries far more than of the electing body. The election of Marcus Valerius Corvus to the consulship at twenty-three had doubt less been for the benefit of the state ; but now, when Scipio obtained the aedileship at twenty-three and the consulate at thirty, and Flamininus, while not yet thirty years of age, rose from the quaestorship to the consulship, such proceedings involved serious danger to the republic. Things had already reached such a pass, that the only effective barrier against family rule and its consequences had to be found in a government strictly oligarchical ; and this was the reason why even the party otherwise opposed to the oligarchy agreed to restrict the freedom of election.
The government bore the stamp of this gradual change Gotwb. in the spirit of the governing class. It is true that the TM^he administration of external affairs was still dominated at noblliiy. this epoch by that consistency and energy, by which the
rule of the Roman community over Italy had been estab
lished. During the severe disciplinary times of the war
as to Sicily the Roman aristocracy had gradually raised
itself to the height of its new position; and if it unconsti tutionally usurped for the senate functions of government
which by right fell to be shared between the magistrates
and the comitia alone, it vindicated the step by its certainly
far from brilliant, but sure and steady, pilotage of the
vessel of the state during the Hannibalic storm and the complications thence arising, and showed to the world
that the Roman senate was alone able, and in
respects alone deserved, to rule the wide circle of the
vou m
many 67
Internal adminis tration.
18 THE GOVERNMENT AND THE GOVERNED book iii
Italo- Hellenic states. But admitting the noble attitude of the ruling Roman senate in opposition to the outward foe — an attitude crowned with the noblest results — we may not overlook the fact, that in the less conspicuous, and yet far more important and far more difficult, administra tion of the internal affairs of the state, both the treatment of the existing arrangements and the new institutions betray an almost opposite spirit, or, to speak more correctly, indicate that the opposite tendency has already acquired the predominance in this Meld.
In relation, first of all, to the individual burgess the government was no longer what it had been. The term " magistrate " meant a man who was more than other men ; and, if he was the servant of the community, he was for that very reason the master of every burgess. But the
of the rein was now visibly relaxed. Where coteries and canvassing flourish as they did in the Rome of that age, men are chary of forfeiting the reciprocal services of their fellows or the favour of the multitude by stern words and impartial discharge of official duty. If now and then magistrates appeared who displayed the gravity and the sternness of the olden time, they were ordinarily, like Cotta (502) and Cato, new men who had not sprung from the bosom of the ruling class. It was
already something singular, when Paullus, who had been named commander-in-chief against Perseus, instead of tendering his thanks in the usual manner to the burgesses, declared to them that he presumed they had chosen him as general because they accounted him the most capable of command, and requested them accordingly not to help him to command, but to be silent and obey.
The supremacy and hegemony of Rome in the terri tories of the Mediterranean rested not least on the strict ness of her military discipline and her administration of justice. Undoubtedly she was still, on the whole, at that
Decline In the admi nistration.
As to military discipline and admi nistration
of Justice.
163.
tightness
chap, xi THE GOVERNMENT AND THE GOVERNED
19
time infinitely superior in these respects to the Hellenic, Phoenician, and Oriental states, which were without ex ception thoroughly disorganized ; nevertheless grave abuses were already occurring in Rome. We have previously
501 /. ) pointed out how the wretched character of
the commanders-in-chief —and that not merely in the case
of demagogues chosen perhaps by the opposition, like Gaius Flaminius and Gaius Varro, but of men who were good aristocrats — had already in the third Macedonian
war imperilled the weal of the state. And the mode in which justice was occasionally administered shown
the scene in the camp of the consul Lucius Quinctius Flamininus at Placentia (562). To compensate favourite ltl youth for the gladiatorial games of the capital, which through his attendance on the consul he had missed the opportunity of seeing, that great lord had ordered Boian
of rank who had taken refuge in the Roman camp to be summoned, and had killed him at banquet with his own hand. Still worse than the occurrence itself, to which
various parallels might be adduced, was the fact that the perpetrator was not brought to trial and not only so, but when the censor Cato on account of erased his name from the roll of the senate, his fellow -senators invited the expelled to resume his senatorial stall in the theatre — he was, no doubt, the brother of the liberator of the Greeks, and one of the most powerful coterie-leaders in the senate.
The financial system of the Roman community also Aitothe retrograded rather than advanced during this epoch. The manfSf*th^
amount of their revenues, indeed, was visibly on the in- finances. crease. The indirect taxes —there were no direct taxes in
Rome — increased in consequence of the enlargement of
the Roman territory, which rendered necessary, for example, to institute new customs- offices along the Cam-
pan:an and Bruttian coasts at Puteoli, Castra (Squillace),
and elsewhere, 555 and 575. The same reason led to 1W. 171
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20 THE GOVERNMENT AND THE GOVERNED book in
104. the new salt-tariff of 550 fixing the scale of prices at which salt was to be sold in the different districts of Italy, as it was no longer possible to furnish salt at one and the same price to the Roman burgesses now scattered through out the land; but, as the Roman government probably supplied the burgesses with salt at cost price, if not below
this financial measure yielded no gain to the state. Still more considerable was the increase in the produce of the domains. The duty indeed, which of right was payable to the treasury from the Italian domain-lands granted for occupation, was in the great majority of cases neither demanded nor paid. On the other hand the scriptura was retained and not only so, but the domains recently acquired the second Punic war, particularly the greater
of the territory of Capua (ii. 365) and that of Leontini (ii. 313), instead of being given up to occupation, were parcelled out and let to petty temporary lessees, and the attempts at occupation made in these cases were opposed with more than usual energy by the government by which means the state acquired considerable and secure source of income. The mines of the state also,
the important Spanish mines, were turned to profit on lease. Lastly, the revenue was augmented
the tribute of the transmarine subjects. From extraordinary sources very considerable sums accrued during this epoch to the state treasury, particularly the produce of the spoil in the war with Antiochus, 200 millions of sesterces (^2,000,000), and that of the war with Perseus, 210 millions of sesterces (,£2,100,000) — the latter, the largest sum in cash which ever came at one time into the Roman treasury.
But this increase of revenue was for the most part counterbalanced the increasing expenditure. The provinces, Sicily perhaps excepted, probably cost nearly as much as they yielded the expenditure on highways and
portion
particularly
by ;
by ;
a
in
;
it,
chap, xi THE GOVERNMENT AND THE GOVERNED 21
other structures rose in proportion to the extension of ter ritory ; the repayment also of the advances (tributa) received from the freeholder burgesses during times of severe war formed a burden for many a year afterwards on the Roman treasury. To these fell to be added very considerable losses occasioned to the revenue by the mismanagement, negligence, or connivance of the supreme magistrates. Of the conduct of the officials in the provinces, of their luxurious living at the expense of the public purse, of their embezzlement more especially of the spoil, of the incipient
of bribery and extortion, we shall speak in the sequel. How the state fared generally as regarded the farm
ing of its revenues and the contracts for supplies and build
ings, may be estimated from the circumstance, that the senate resolved in 587 to desist from the working of the 167. Macedonian mines that had fallen to Rome, because the lessees of the minerals would either plunder the subjects or cheat the exchequer —truly a naive confession of impotence,
in *vhich the controlling board pronounced its own censure.
Not only was the duty from the occupied domain-land allowed tacitly to fall into abeyance, as has been already mentioned, but private buildings in the capital and else where were suffered to encroach on ground which was public property, and the water from the public aqueducts
was diverted to private purposes : great dissatisfaction was
created on one occasion when a censor took serious step? against such trespassers, and compelled them either to desist from the separate use of the public property, or to pay the legal rate for the ground and water. The conscience of the Romans, otherwise in economic matters so scrupulous, showed, so far as the community was concerned, a remark able laxity. " He who steals from a burgess," said Cato, " ends his days in chains and fetters ; but he who steals from the community ends them in gold and purple. " notwithstanding the fact that the public property of the
system
If,
22 THE GOVERNMENT AND THE GOVERNED book hi
Roman community was fearlessly and with impunity plun dered by officials and speculators, Polybius still lays stress on the rarity of embezzlement in Rome, while Greece could hardly produce a single official who had not touched the public money, and on the honesty with which a Roman commissioner or magistrate would upon his simple word of honour administer enormous sums, while in the case of the paltriest sum in Greece ten letters were sealed and twenty witnesses were required and yet everybody cheated, this merely implies that social and economic demoralization had advanced much further in Greece than in Rome, and in
that direct and palpable peculation was not as yet so flourishing in the one case as in the other. The general financial result is most clearly exhibited to us by the state of the public buildings, and by the amount of cash in the treasury. We find in times of peace a fifth, in times of war a tenth, of the revenues expended on public build ings ; which, in the circumstances, does not seem to have been a very copious outlay. With these sums, as well as with fines which were not directly payable into the treasury,
much was doubtless done for the repair of the highways in and near the capital, for the formation of the chief Italian roads,1 and for the construction of public buildings. Per haps the most important of the building operations in the capital, known to belong to this period, was the great repair and extension of the network of sewers throughout the city,
184. contracted for probably in 570, for which 24,000,000 sesterces (^240,000) were set apart at once, and to which it may be presumed that the portions of the cloacae still ex tant, at least in the main, belong. To all appearance how ever, even apart from the severe pressure of war, this period
1 The expenses of these were, however, probably thrown in great part on the adjoining inhabitants. The old system of making requisitions of task-work was not abolished : it must not unfrequently have happened that the slaves of the landholders were called away to be employed in the construction of roads. (Cato, de R, R. a. )
particular,
chap, xi THE GOVERNMENT AND THE GOVERNED
was inferior to the last section of the preceding epoch in respect of public buildings; between 482 and 607 no new aqueduct was constructed at Rome. The treasure of the state, no doubt, increased ; the last reserve in 545, when they found themselves under the necessity of laying hands on amounted only to ,£164,000 (4000 pounds of gold
344), whereas short time after the close of this period (597) close on ,£860,000 precious metals were stored in the treasury. But, when we take into account the enor mous extraordinary revenues which the generation after the close of the Hannibalic war came into the Roman trea sury, the latter sum surprises us rather by its smallness than
its magnitude. So far as with the extremely meagre statements before us allowable to speak of results, the finances of the Roman state exhibit doubtless an excess of income over expenditure, but are far from presenting brilliant result as whole.
The change in the spirit of the government was most distinctly apparent in the treatment of the Italian and extra- Italian subjects of the Roman community. Formerly there had been distinguished in Italy the ordinary, and the Latin, allied communities, the Roman burgesses situ suffragio, and the Roman burgesses with the full franchise. Of these four classes the third was the course of this period almost completely set aside, inasmuch as the course which had been earlier taken with the communities of passive burgesses in Latinm andSabina, was now applied also to those of the former Volscian territory, and these gradually —the last perhaps being in the year 566 Arpinum, Fundi, and Formiae —obtained full burgess-rights. In Campania Capua along with number of minor com munities in the neighbourhood was broken up in consequence
of its revolt from Rome in the Hannibalic war. Although some few communities, such as Velitrae in the Volscian territory, Teanum and Cumae Campania, may have re-
23
872-147. 209.
157.
Italian "ty60*-
Passive bur8esiB,«
188.
in
a
in
in
a
a
it is
by
ii.
it,
a;
in
Doditkit
Ulia.
370).
The position of the non-Latin allies had, as we have
Latins.
having changed sides to acquiesce in revision of the existing treaties to their disadvantage. The reduced position of the non-Latin allies attested the emigration from
177. their communities into the Latin when in 577 the Samnites and Paelignians applied to the senate for a re duction of their contingents, their request was based on the ground that during late years 4000 Samnite and Paelignian families had migrated to the Latin colony of Fregellae.
That the Latins—which term now denoted the few towns in old J-atjum that were not included in the Roman burgess
THE GOVERNMENT AND THE GOVERNED book hi
mained on their earlier legal footing, yet, looking at the matter in the main, this franchise of a passive character may be held as now superseded.
On the other hand there emerged a new class in a position of peculiar inferiority, without communal freedom and the right to carry arms, and, in part, treated almost like public slaves (Jieregrini dediticit) ; to which, in parti cular, the members of the former Campanian, southern Picentine, and Bruttian communities, that had been in alliance with Hannibal 365), belonged. To these were added the Celtic tribes tolerated on the south side of the Alps, whose position in relation to the Italian confederacy
24
indeed only known imperfectly, but
characterized as inferior by the clause embodied in their treaties of alliance with Rome, that no member of these communities should ever be allowed to acquire Roman citizenship
mentioned before 366), undergone change greatly to their disadvantage consequence of the Hannibalic war. Only few communities in this category, such as Neapolis, Nola, Rhegium, and Heraclea, had during all the vicissitudes of that war remained steadfastly on the Roman side, and therefore retained their former rights as allies unaltered
by far the greater portion were obliged in consequence of
sufficiently
is
(ii.
by
:
a
a
;
a
(ii.
in (ii.
is
is
chap. XI THE GOVERNMENT AND THE GOVERNED
union, such as Tibur and Praeneste, the allied cities placed
in law on the same footing with them, such as several of the Hernican towns, and the Latin colonies dispersed through
out Italy — were still at this time in a better position, is implied in their very name ; but they too had, in proportion, hardly less deteriorated. The burdens imposed on them
were unjustly increased, and the pressure of military service
was more and more devolved from the burgesses upon them
and the other Italian allies. For instance, in 536, nearly 21& twice as many of the allies were called out as of the burgesses : after the end of the Hannibalic war all the burgesses received their discharge, but not all the allies ; the latter were chiefly employed for garrison duty and for the odious service in Spain; in the triumphal largess of 577 the allies 177. received not as formerly an equal share with the burgesses,
but only the half, so that amidst the unrestrained rejoicing
of that soldiers' carnival the divisions thus treated as inferior
followed the chariot of victory in sullen silence : in the assignations of land in northern Italy the burgesses received
ten jugera of arable land each, the non-burgesses three
jugera each. The unlimited liberty of migration had already
at an earlier period been taken from the Latin communities,
and migration to Rome was only allowed to them in the
event of their leaving behind children of their own and a
portion of their estate in the community which had been
their home (ii. 52). But these burdensome requirements were
in various ways evaded or transgressed ; and the crowding
of the burgesses of Latin townships to Rome, and the com
plaints of their magistrates as to the increasing depopulation
of the cities and the impossibility under such circumstances
of furnishing the fixed contingent, led the Roman government
to institute police-ejections from the capital on a large scale
(567, 577). The measure might be unavoidable, but it was 187, 177. none the less severely felt Moreover, the towns laid out
by Rome in the interior of Italy began towards the close of
as
184-177.
36 THE GOVERNMENT AND THE GOVERNED book ill
this period to receive instead of Latin rights the full franchise, which previously had only been given to the maritime colonies ; and the enlargement of the Latin body by the accession of new communities, which hitherto had gone on so regularly, thus came to an end. Aquileia,
188. the establishment of which began in 571, was the latest of the Italian colonies of Rome that received Latin rights; the full franchise was given to the colonies, sent forth nearly at the same time, of Potentia, Pisaurum, Mutina, Parma, and Luna (570-577). The reason for this evidently lay in the decline of the Latin as compared with the Roman franchise. The colonists conducted to the new settlements were always, and now more than ever, chosen in preponderat ing number from the Roman burgesses; and even among the poorer portion of these there was a lack of people willing, for the sake even of acquiring considerable material advan tages, to exchange their rights as burgesses for those of the
Latin franchise.
Lastly, in the case of non-burgesses—communities as
Roman
franchise
more
difficult of was almost completely foreclosed. The earlier course a*
well ag individual —admission to the Roman franchise
acquisition, incorporating the subject communities in that of Rom< 860. had been dropped about 400, that the Roman burgess
body might not be too much decentralized by its undue extension ; and therefore communities of half-burgesses were instituted 53). Now the centralization of the community was abandoned, partly through the admission of the half-burgess communities to the full franchise, partly through the accession of numerous more remote burgess- colonies to its ranks but the older system of incorporation was not resumed with reference to the allied communities.
It cannot be shown that after the complete subjugation of Italy even single Italian community exchanged its position as an ally for the Roman franchise probably none after that date in reality acquired Even the transition of in
it
;
a
;
(ii.
chap, xi THE GOVERNMENT AND THE GOVERNED
27
dividual Italians to the Roman franchise was confined almost solely to the case of magistrates of the Latin communities
52) and, special favour, of individual
admitted to share at the founding of burgess-colonies. 1
cannot be denied that these changes defacto and de jure in the relations of the Italian subjects exhibit at least an intimate connection and consistency. The situation of
the subject classes was throughout deteriorated propor tion to the gradations previously subsisting, and, while the government had formerly endeavoured to soften the dis tinctions and to provide means of transition from one to another, now the intermediate links were everywhere set aside and the connecting bridges were broken down. As within the Roman burgess-body the ruling class separated itself from the people, uniformly withdrew from public burdens, and uniformly took for itself the honours and advantages, so the burgesses in their turn asserted their distinction from the Italian confederacy, and excluded more and more from the joint enjoyment of rule, while transferring to double or triple share in the common burdens. As the nobility, in relation to the plebeians, re turned to the close exclusiveness of the declining patriciate, so did the burgesses in relation to the non-burgesses the plebeiate, which had become great through the liberality of
its institutions, now wrapped itself up the rigid maxims
non-burgesses
of patricianism. The abolition of the
cannot in itself be censured, and, so far as concerned the
Thus, as well known, Ennius of Rudiae received burgess-rights from one of the triumvirs, Q. Fulvius Nobilior, on occasion of the founding of the burgess-colonies of Potentia and Pisaurum (Cic. Brut. 20, 79) whereupon, according to the well-known custom, he adopted the
fraenomen of the latter. The non-burgesses who were sent to share in the foundation of a burgess-colony, did not, at least in this epoch, thereby acquire de jure Roman citizenship, although they frequently usurped (Liv. xxxiv. 42) but the magistrates charged with the founding of colony were empowered, by a clause in the decree of the people relative to each case, to confer burgess-rights on limited number of persons (Cic
pro Balb, 21, 48).
passive burgesses
a
;
is
by it
a it
it
;
1
(ii. It
in
;
it a
in
aS THE GOVERNMENT AND THE GOVERNED hook hi
motive which led to belongs presumably to another connection to be discussed afterwards; but through its abolition an intermediate link was lost. Far more fraught with peril, however, was the disappearance of the distinction between the Latin and the other Italian communities. The privileged position of the Latin nation within Italy was the foundation of the Roman power that foundation gave way, when the Latin towns began to feel that they were no longer privileged partakers in the dominion of the powerful cognate community, but substantially subjects of Rome like the rest, and when all the Italians began to find their position equally intolerable. true, that there were still distinctions the Bruttians and their companions in misery were already treated exactly like slaves and con ducted themselves accordingly, deserting, for instance, from the fleet in which they served as galley-slaves, whenever they could, and gladly taking service against Rome and the Celtic, and above all the transmarine, subjects formed by the side of the Italians class still more oppressed and intentionally abandoned by the government to contempt and maltreatment at the hands of the Italians. But such distinctions, while implying gradation of classes among the subjects, could not withal afford even remote com pensation for the earlier contrast between the cognate, and the alien, Italian subjects. A profound dissatisfaction prevailed through the whole Italian confederacy, and fear alone prevented from finding loud expression. The proposal made in the senate after the battle at Cannae, to give the Roman franchise and seat in the senate to two men from each Latin community, was made at an un
seasonable time, and was rightly rejected but shows the apprehension with which men in the ruling community even then viewed the relations between Latium and Rome. Had second Hannibal now carried the war to Italy, may be doubted whether he would have again been thwarted
a
it
;
It is
;
it
a
it
a
a a
;
:
it,
chap, xi THE GOVERNMENT AND THE GOVERNED
by the steadfast resistance of the Latin name to a foreign domination.
But by far the most important institution which this The epoch introduced into the Roman commonwealth, and that PTonncea at the same time which involved the most decided and
fatal deviation from the course hitherto pursued, was the
new provincial magistracies. The earlier state-law of Rome
knew nothing of tributary subjects : the conquered com
munities were either sold into slavery, or merged in the
Roman commonwealth, or lastly, admitted to an alliance
which secured to them at least communal independence
and freedom from taxation. But the Carthaginian posses
sions in Sicily, Sardinia, and Spain, as well as the kingdom
of Hiero, had paid tribute and rent to their former masters :
if Rome was desirous of retaining these possessions at all, it was in the judgment of the short-sighted the most
and undoubtedly the most convenient, course to administer the new territories entirely in accordance with the rules heretofore observed. Accordingly the Romans simply retained the Carthagino-Hieronic provincial constitution, and organized in accordance with it those provinces also, such as Hither Spain, which they wrested from the barba rians. It was the shirt of Nessus which they inherited from the enemy. Beyond doubt at first the Roman government intended, in imposing taxes on their subjects, not strictly to enrich themselves, but only to cover the cost of administration and defence ; but they already deviated from this course, when they made Macedonia and Illyria tributary without undertaking the government or the guardianship of the frontier there. The fact, however, that they still maintained moderation in the imposition of burdens was of little consequence, as compared with the conversion of their sovereignty into a right yielding profit at all ; the fall
was the same, whether a single apple was taken or the tree was plundered.
»9
judicious,
Position *****
Punishment followed in the steps of wrong. The new provincial system necessitated the appointment of governors, whose position was absolutely incompatible not only with the welfare of the provinces, but with the Roman constitu tion. As the Roman community in the provinces took the
place of the former ruler of the land, so their governor appeared there in the king's stead ; the Sicilian praetor, for example, resided in the palace of Hiero at Syracuse. It is true, that by right the governor nevertheless ought to
administer his office with republican honesty and frugality. Cato, when governor of Sardinia, appeared in the towns subject to him on foot and attended by a single servant, who carried his coat and sacrificial ladle; and, when he returned home from his Spanish governorship, he sold his war-horse beforehand, because he did not hold himself entitled to charge the state with the expenses of its transport. There is no question that the Roman governors —although certainly but few of them pushed their con scientiousness, like Cato, to the verge of being niggardly and ridiculous —made in many cases a powerful impression on the subjects, more especially on the frivolous and unstable Greeks, by their old-fashioned piety, by the reverential stillness prevailing at their repasts, by their comparatively upright administration of office and of
justice, especially by their proper severity towards the worst bloodsuckers of the provincials —the Roman revenue- farmers and bankers—and in general by the gravity and dignity of their deportment. The provincials found their government comparatively tolerable. They had not been pampered by their Carthaginian stewards and Syracusan masters, and they were soon to find occasion for recalling with gratitude the present rods as compared with the coming scorpions: it is easy to understand how, in later times, the sixth century of the city appeared as the golden era of provincial rule. But it was not practicable for any
30
THE GOVERNMENT AND THE GOVERNED book hi
chap, xi THE GOVhKWidENT AND THE GOVERNED
31
length of time to be at once republican and king. Playing
the part of governors demoralized the Roman ruling class
with fearful rapidity. Haughtiness and arrogance towards
the provincials were so natural in the circumstances, as scarcely to form matter of reproach against the individual magistrate. But already it was a rare thing — and the rarer, because the government adhered rigidly to the old principle of not paying public officials — that a governor returned with quite clean hands from his province ; it was already remarked upon as something singular that Paullus,
the conqueror of Pydna, did not take money. The bad custom of delivering to the governor " honorary wine " and other "voluntary" gifts seems as old as the provincial constitution itself, and may perhaps have been a legacy
from the Carthaginians ; even Cato in his administration of Sardinia in 556 had to content himself with regulating and 198. moderating such contributions. The right of the magistrates,
and of those travelling on the business of the state generally,
to free quarters and free conveyance was already employed as
a pretext for exactions. The more important right of the magistrate to make requisitions of grain in his province— partly for the maintenance of himself and his retinue (in allam), partly for the provisioning of the army in case of
war, or on other special occasions at a fair valuation —was already so scandalously abused, that on the complaint of
the Spaniards the senate in 583 found it necessary to 171. withdraw from the governors the right of fixing the price of
the supplies for either purpose (ii. 393). Requisitions had begun to be made on the subjects even for the popular festivals in Rome; the unmeasured vexatious demands made on the Italian as well as extra-Italian communities
by the aedile Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus, for the festival which he had to provide, induced the senate officially to interfere against them (572). The liberties 182. which Roman magistrates at the close of this period
Control over the governors.
allowed themselves to take not only with the unhappy subjects, but even with the dependent free-states and kingdoms, are illustrated by the raids of Gaius Volso in Asia Minor 471), and above all the scandalous proceedings in Greece during the war with Perseus
500/).
The government had no right to be surprised at such
things, for provided no serious check on the excesses of this capricious military administration. Judicial control,
true, was not entirely wanting. Although, according to the universal but more than questionable rule of allowing no complaint to be brought against commander-in-chief during his term of office 319), the Roman governor could ordinarily be called to account only after the mischief had been done, yet he was amenable both to criminal and to civil prosecution. In order to the institution of the former, tribune of the people virtue of the judicial power pertaining to him had to take the case in hand and bring to the bar of the people the civil action was remitted by the senator who administered the corresponding praetorship to jury appointed, according to the constitution of the tribunal in those times, from the ranks of the senate. In both cases, therefore, the control lay in the hands of the ruling class, and, although the latter was still sufficiently upright and honourable not absolutely to set aside well-founded complaints, and the senate even in various instances, at the call of those aggrieved, condescended itself to order the institution of civil process, yet the complaints of poor men and foreigners against powerful members of the ruling aristocracy— submitted to judges and jurymen far remote from the scene and, not involved in the like guilt, at least belonging to the same order as the accused—could from the first only reckon on success in the event of the wrong being clear and crying; and to complain in vain was
32
THE GOVERNMENT AND THE GOVERNED book in
if
it
(ii.
a
a it
;
by
a
(i.
a ait(ii.
a
is
by
chap, xi THE GOVERNMENT AND THE GOVERNED
almost certain destruction. The aggrieved no doubt found a sort of support in the hereditary relations of clientship, which the subject cities and provinces entered into with their conquerors and other Romans brought into close contact with them. The Spanish governors felt that no one could with impunity maltreat clients of Cato ; and the circumstance that the representatives of the three nations conquered by Paullus —the Spaniards, Ligurians, and Macedonians —would not forgo the privilege of carrying his bier to the funeral pile, was the noblest dirge in honour of that noble man. But not only did this special protection give the Greeks opportunity to display in Rome all their talent for abasing themselves in presence of their masters, and to demoralize even those masters by their ready servility — the decrees of the Syracusans in honour of
Marcellus, after he had destroyed and plundered their city and they had complained of his conduct in these respects to the senate in vain, form one of the most scandalous pages in the far from honourable annals of Syracuse — but, in connection with the already dangerous family -politics, this patronage on the part of great houses had also its politically perilous side. In this way the result perhaps was that the Roman magistrates in some degree feared the gods and the senate, and for the most part were moderate in their plundering ; but they plundered withal, and did so with impunity, if they but observed such moderation. The mischievous rule became established, that in the case of minor exactions and moderate violence the Roman magistrate acted in some measure within his sphere and was in law exempt from punishment, so that those who were aggrieved had to keep silence ; and from this rule succeeding ages did not fail to draw the fatal consequences.
Nevertheless, even though the tribunals had been as strict as they were lax, the liability to a judicial reckoning could only check the worst evils. The true security for a
vol. ill 68
33
THE GOVERNMENT AND THE GOVERNED book hi
Supervision good administration lay in a strict and uniform supervision
of the senate over the provinces and their governors.
by the supreme administrative authority : and this the senate utterly failed to provide. It was in this respect that the laxity and helplessness of the collegiate government became earliest apparent. By right the governors ought to have been subjected to an oversight far more strict and more special than had sufficed for the administration of Italian municipal affairs; and now, when the empire embraced great transmarine territories, the arrangements, through which the government preserved to itself the supervision of
the whole, ought to have undergone a corresponding expansion. In both respects the reverse was the case. The governors ruled virtually as sovereign ; and the most important of the institutions serving for the latter purpose, the census of the empire, was extended to Sicily alone, not to any of the provinces subsequently acquired. Thir emancipation of the supreme administrative officials frorc the central authority was more than hazardous. The Roman governor, placed at the head of the armies of the state, and in possession of considerable financial resources , subject to but a lax judicial control, and practically inde pendent of the supreme administration ; and impelled bj a sort of necessity to separate the interest of himself and of the people whom he governed from that of the Roma"v community and to treat them as conflicting, far more resembled a Persian satrap than one of the commissioners of the Roman senate at the time of the Samnite wars. The man, moreover, who had just conducted a legalizec military tyranny abroad, could with difficulty find his wa; back to the common civic level, which distinguished between those who commanded and those who obeyed, but not between masters and slaves. Even the government felt that their two fundamental principles —equality within the aristocracy, and the subordination of the power of the magistrates to the senatorial college—began in this instance
chap, xi THE GOVERNMENT AND THE GOVERNED
to give way in their hands. The aversion of the govern ment to the acquisition of new provinces and to the whole provincial system ; the institution of the provincial quaestorships, which were intended to take at least the financial power out of the hands of the governors ; and the abolition of the arrangement — in itself so judicious — for a longer tenure of such offices 392), very clearly evince the anxiety felt the more far-seeing of the Roman states men as to the fruits of the seed thus sown. But diagnosis
not cure. The internal government of the nobility con tinued to follow the direction once given to it; and the decay of the administration and of the financial system —paving the way for future revolutions and usurpations —steadily pursued its course, not unnoticed, yet unchecked.
If the new nobility was less sharply defined than the The
old aristocracy of the clans, and the encroachment on oppos ** the other burgesses as respected the joint enjoyment of
political rights was the one case de Jure, in the other
only de facto, the second form of inferiority was for that
very reason worse to bear and worse to throw off than the first. Attempts to throw off were, as matter of course, not wanting. The opposition rested on the support of the public assembly, as the nobility did on the senate in order to understand the opposition, we must first describe the Roman burgess-body during this period as regards its spirit and its position in the commonwealth.
Whatever could be demanded of an assembly ofCharacter burgesses like the Roman, which was not the moving ^fo*e spring, but the firm foundation, of the whole machinery — burgess-
y'
35
sure perception of the common good, sagacious deference towards the right leader, steadfast spirit in prosperous and evil days, and, above all, the capacity of sacrificing the individual for the general welfare and the comfort of the present for the advantage of the future—all
a
a
a
is
a
:
in it
if
if
by
(ii.
36 THE GOVERNMENT AND THE GOVERNED book ni
these qualities the Roman community exhibited in so high a degree that, when we look to its conduct as a whole, all censure is lost in reverent admiration. Even now good sense and discretion still thoroughly predominated. The whole conduct of the burgesses with reference to the government as well as to the opposition shows quite clearly that the same mighty patriotism before which even the genius of Hannibal had to quit the field prevailed also in the Roman comitia. No doubt they often erred ; but their errors originated not in the mischievous impulses of a rabble, but in the narrow views of burgesses and farmers. The machinery, however, by means of which the burgesses intervened in the course of public affairs became certainly more and more unwieldy, and the circumstances in which they were placed through their own great deeds far outgrew their power to deal with them.