No More Learning

Now that this opposition-college,
excluded from all share in the public administration, became—particularly with reference to strictly urban afi‘airs —-a second supreme executive and one of the most
and most serviceable instruments of the government, or in other words of the senate, for managing the burgesses and
Hence despatches intended for the senate were addressed to Consuls, Praetors, Tribunes of the Plebs. and Senate (Cicero, ad Fain. xv. 2, at al. )
distinctive
originally usual
1
it
it,
can. in AND THE NEW ARISTOCRACY
405
especially for checking the excesses of the magistrates, it was certainly, as respected its original character, absorbed and politically annihilated; but this course was really enjoined by necessity. Clearly as the defects of the Roman aristocracy were apparent, and decidedly as the steady growth of aristocratic ascendency was connected with the practical setting aside of the tribunate, none can fail to see that government could not be long carried on with an authority which was not only aimless and virtually calculated to put off the suffering proletariate with a deceit ful prospect of relief, but was at the same time decidedly revolutionary and possessed of a-strictly speaking anarchical prerogative of obstruction to the authority of the magistrates and even of the state itself. But that faith in an ideal, which is the foundation of all the power and of all the impotence of democracy, had come to be closely associated in the minds of the Romans with the tribunate of the plebs; and we do not need to recall the case of Cola Rienzi in order to perceive that, however unsubstantial might be the advantage thence arising to the multitude, it could not be abolished without a formidable convulsion of the state. Accordingly with genuine political prudence they contented themselves with reducing it to a nullity under forms that should attract as little attention as
possible. The mere name of this essentially revolutionary magistracy was still retained within the aristocratically governed commonwealth-an incongruity for the present, and for the future, in the hands of a coming revolutionary party, a sharp and dangerous weapon. For the moment, however, and for a long time to come the aristocracy was so absolutely powerful and so completely possessed control over the tribunate, that no trace at all is to be met with of a collegiate opposition on the part of the tribunes to the senate; and the government overcame the forlorn move ments of opposition that now and then proceeded from
The senate. Its compo sition.
406 THE EQUALIZATION OF THE ORDERS, BOOK 11
individual tribunes, always without difficulty, and ordinarily by means of the tribunate itself.
In reality it was the senate that governed the common wealth, and did so almost without opposition after the equalization of the orders. Its very composition had undergone a change. The free prerogative of the chief magistrates in this matter, as it had been exercised after the setting aside of the old clan-representation (p. 98), had been already subjected to very material restrictions on the abolition of the presidency for life
331).
A further step towards the emancipation of the senate
from the power of the magistrates took place, when the adjustment of the senatorial lists was transferred from the supreme magistrates to subordinate functionaries-from the consuls to the censors (p. 37 5). Certainly, whether immediately at that time or soon afterwards, the right of the magistrate entrusted with the preparation of the list to omit from it individual senators on account of a stain
attaching to them and thereby to exclude them from the senate was, if not introduced, at least more precisely defined,1 and in this way the foundations were laid of that
1 This prerogative and the similar ones with reference to the equestrian and burgess-lists were perhaps not formally and legally assigned to the censors, but were always practically implied in their powers. It was the community, not the censor, that conferred burgess-rights ; but the person, to whom the latter in making up the list of persons entitled to vote did not assign a place or assigned an inferior one, did not lose his burgess-right, but could not exercise the privileges of a burgess, or could only exercise them in the inferior place, till the preparation of a new list. The same was the case with the senate; the person omitted by the censor from his list ceased to attend the senate, as long as the list in question remained valid—unless the presiding magistrate should reject it and reinstate the earlier list. Evidently therefore the important question in this respect
was not so much what was the legal liberty of the censors, as how far their authority availed with those magistrates who had to summon according to their lists. Hence it is easy to understand how this prerogative gradually rose in importance, and how with the increasing consolidation of the nobility such erasures assumed virtually the form of judicial decisions and were virtually respected as such. As to the adjustment of the senatorial list undoubtedly the enactment of the Ovinian plebircitu-m exercised a material share of influence-that the censors should admit to the senate " the best men out of all classes. "
crur. m AND THE NEW ARISTOCRACY
407
peculiar jurisdiction over morals on which the high repute of the censors was chiefly based 397). But censures of that sort—especially since the two censors had to be at one on the matter-might doubtless serve to remove particular persons who did not contribute to the credit of the assembly or were hostile to the spirit prevailing there, but could not bring the body itself into dependence on the magistracy.
But the right of the magistrates to constitute the senate according to their judgment was decidedly restricted by the Ovinian law, which was passed about the middle of this period, probably soon after the Licinian laws. That law at once conferred seat and vote in the senate provisionally on every one who had been curule aedile, praetor, or consul, and bound the next censors either formally to inscribe these expectants in the senatorial roll, or at any rate to exclude them from the roll only for such reasons as sufliced for the rejection of an actual senator. The number of those, however, who had been magistrates was far from suficing to keep the senate up to the normal number of three hundred and below that point could not be allowed to fall, especially as the list of senators was at the same time that of jurymen. Considerable room was thus always left for the exercise of the censorial right of election but those senators who were chosen not in consequence of having held oflice, but selection on the part of the censor —frequently burgesses who had filled non-curule public office, or distinguished themselves by personal valour, who had killed an enemy in battle or saved the life of burgess
-took part in voting, but not in debate 384). The main body of the senate, and that portion of into whose hands government and administration were concentrated, was thus according to the Ovinian law substantially based no longer on the arbitrary will of magistrate, but indirectly on election by the people. The Roman state in this way made some approach to, although did not reach, the
a it
(p.
it (p.
a
a
by
;
;
a
it
Powers of the senate.
The powers of the senate underwent scarcely any change in form. The senate carefully avoided giving a handle to opposition or to ambition by unpopular changes, or manifest violations, of the constitution; it permitted, though it did nor promote, the enlargement in a democratic direction of the power of the burgesses. But while the burgesses acquired the semblance, the senate acquired the substance of power -a
elections, and the whole control of the state.
Every new project of law was subjected to a preliminary deliberation in the senate, and scarcely ever did a magis trate venture to lay a proposal before the community with out or in opposition to the senate’s opinion. If he did so, the senate had—in the intercessory powers of the magis
trates and the annulling powers of the priests—an ample set of means at hand to nip in the bud, or subsequently to get rid of, obnoxious proposals; and in case of extremity it had in its hands as the supreme administrative authority not only the executing, but the power of refusing to execute, the decrees of the community. The senate further with tacit consent of the community claimed the right in urgent cases of absolving from the laws, under the reservation that the community should ratify the proceeding-a reservation which from the first was of little moment, and became by degrees so entirely a form that in later times they did not even take the trouble to propose the ratifying decree.
As to the elections, they passed, so far as they depended on the magistrates and were of political importance, practi cally into the hands of the senate. In this way it acquired,
Its in fluence in legislation.
Influence on the elections.
408 THE EQUALIZATION OF THE ORDERS, BOOK 1!
great institution of modern times, representative popular government, while the aggregate of the non-debating senators furnished—what it is so necessary and yet so difli
cult to get in governing corporations-a compact mass of members capable of forming and entitled to pronounce an opinion, but voting in silence.
decisive influence over legislation and the oflicial
can. it! AND THE NEW ARISTOCRACY 409
as has been mentioned already 402), the right to appoint the dictator. Great regard had certainly to be shown to the community; the right of bestowing the public magistracies could not be withdrawn from it; but, as has likewise been already observed, care was taken that this election of magistrates should not be constructed into the conferring of definite functions, especially of the posts of supreme command when war was imminent. Moreover the newly introduced idea of special functions on the one hand, and on the other the right practically conceded to the senate of dispensation from the laws, gave to an important share in oflicial appointments. Of the influence which the senate exercised in settling the oflicial spheres of the consuls in particular, we have already spoken 40 One of the most important applications of the dispensing right was the dispensation of the magistrate from the legal term of his tenure of oflice—a dispensation which, as con trary to the fundamental laws of the community, might not according to Roman state-law be granted in the precincts of the city proper, but beyond these was at least so far valid that the consul or praetor, whose term was prolonged, continued after its expiry to discharge his functions “in a consul’s or praetor’s stead” (pm com-ale, pro praetore). Of course this important right of extending the term of oflice —essentially on par with the right of nomination— belonged by law to the community alone, and at the
beginning was in fact exercised by it; but in 447, and 307. regularly thenceforward, the command of the commander-in
chief was prolonged mere decree of the senate. To
this was added, in fine, the preponderating and skilfully concerted influence of the aristocracy over the elections, which guided them ordinarily, although not always, to the choice of candidates agreeable to the government.
Finally as regards administration, war, peace and Swami“ . . . . govern
alliances, the founding of colonies, the assignation of mem,
.
a by
(p.
it
I).
(p.
410 THE EQUALIZATION OF THE ORDERS, BOOK 1I
lands, building, in fact every matter of permanent and general importance, and in particular the whole system of finance, depended absolutely on the senate. It was the senate which annually issued general instructions to the magistrates, settling their spheres of duty and limiting the troops and moneys to be placed at the disposal of each; and recourse was had to its counsel in every case of importance. The keepers of the state-chest could make no payment to any magistrate with the exception of the consul, or to any private person, unless authorized by a previous decree of the senate. In the management, how ever, of current affairs and in the details of judicial and military administration the supreme governing corporation did not interfere; the Roman aristocracy had too much political judgment and tact to desire to convert the control of the commonwealth into a guardianship over the individual official, or to turn the instrument into a machine.
That this new government of the senate amidst all its retention of existing forms involved a complete revolutioniz ing of the old commonwealth, is clear. That the free action of the burgesses should be arrested and benumbed; that the magistrates should be reduced to be the presidents of its sittings and its executive commissioners; that a corporation for the mere tendering of advice should seize the inheritance of both the authorities sanctioned by the constitution and should become, although under very modest forms, the central government of the state—these were steps of revolution and usurpation. Nevertheless, if any revolution or any usurpation appears justified before the bar of history by exclusive ability to govern, even its rigorous judgment must acknowledge that this corporation timeously comprehended and worthily fulfilled its great task. Called to power not by the empty accident of birth, but substantially by the free choice of the nation ; confirmed
CHAP. 111 AND THE NEW ARISTOCRACY
4! !
every fifth year by the stern moral judgment of the worthiest men ; holding oflice for life, and so not dependent on the expiration of its commission or on the varying opinion of the people; having its ranks close and united ever after the equalization of the orders; embracing in it all the political intelligence and practical statesmanship that the
absolute in dealing with all financial questions and in the guidance of foreign policy; having
complete power over the executive by virtue of its brief duration and of the tribunician intercession which was at the service of the senate after the termination of the quarrels between the orders-the Roman senate was the noblest organ of the nation, and in consistency and political Sagacity, in unanimity and patriotism, in grasp of power and unwavering courage, the foremost political corporation of all times-still even now an “assembly of kings,” which knew well how to combine despotic energy with republican self-devotion. Never was a state represented in its external relations more firmly and worthily than Rome in its best
times by its senate. In matters of internal administration it certainly cannot be concealed that the moneyed and landed aristocracy, which was especially represented in the senate, acted with partiality in affairs that bore upon its peculiar interests, and that the sagacity and energy of the body were often in such cases employed far from benefi cially to the state. Nevertheless the great principle established amidst severe conflicts, that all Roman burgesses were equal in the eye of the law as respected rights and duties, and the opening up of a political career (or in other words, of admission to the senate) to every one, which was the result of that principle, concurred with the brilliance
people possessed;
of military and political successes in
harmony of the state and of the nation, and relieved the distinction of classes from that bitterness and malignity which marked the struggle of the patricians and plebeians.
preserving the
412 EQUALIZATION
OF THE ORDERS 300K 11
And, as the fortunate turn taken by external politics had the effect of giving the rich for more than a century ample space for themselves and rendered it unnecessary that they should oppress the middle class, the Roman people was enabled by means of its senate to carry out for a longer term than is usually granted to a people the grandest of all human undertakings-a wise and happy self-government.
can. rv FALL OF THE ETRUSCAN POWER
413
CHAPTER IV
mm. or run ETRUSCAN rowan-"rm: CELTS
IN the previous chapters we have presented an outline of Etrusoo the development of the Roman constitution during the first 2:33‘ two centuries of the republic; we now recur to the corn- maritime mencement of that epoch for the purpose of tracing the supremq- external history of Rome and of Italy. About the time of
the expulsion of the Tarquins from Rome the Etruscan
had reached its height. The Tuscans, and the
power
Carthaginians
possessed undisputed supremacy on the Tyrrhene Sea. Although Massilia amidst continual and severe struggles maintained her independence, the seaports of Campania
and of the Volscian land, and after the battle of Alalia Corsica also 186), were in the possession of the Etruscans. In Sardinia the sons of the Carthaginian general Mago laid the foundation of the greatness both of their house and of their city the complete conquest of
the island (about 260); and in Sicily, while the Hellenic 500. colonies were occupied with their internal feuds, the
Phoenicians retained possession of the western half without material opposition. The vessels of the Etruscans were no less dominant in the Adriatic; and their pirates were dreaded even in the more eastern waters.
By land also their power seemed to be on the increase. To acquire possession of Latium was of the most decisive
who were in close alliance with them,
by
(p.
subjuga tion of Latium by Etruria.
importance to Etruria, which was separated by the Latins alone from the Volscian towns that were dependent on it and from its possessions in Campania. Hitherto the firm bulwark of the Roman power had sufliciently protected Latium, and had successfully maintained against Etruria the frontier line of the Tiber. But now, when the whole Tuscan league, taking advantage of the confusion and the weakness of the Roman state after the expulsion of the Tarquins, renewed its attack more energetically than before under the king Lars Porsena of Clusium, it no longer encountered the wonted resistance. Rome surrendered,
414
FALL OF THE ETRUSCAN POWER BOOK II
507. and in the peace (assigned to 247) not only ceded all her possessions on the right bank of the Tiber to the adjacent Tuscan communities and thus abandoned her exclusive command of the river, but also delivered to the conqueror all her weapons of war and promised to make use of iron thenceforth only for the ploughshare. It seemed as if the union of Italy under Tuscan supremacy was not far distant.
Etruscans driven back from Latium.
506.
But the subjugation, with which the coalition of the Etruscan and Carthaginian nations had threatened both Greeks and Italians, was fortunately averted by the com bination of peoples drawn towards each other by family aflinity as well as by common peril. The Etruscan army, which after the fall of Rome had penetrated into Latium, had its victorious career checked in the first instance before the walls of Aricia by the well-timed intervention of the Cumaeans who had hastened to the succour of the Aricines
We know not how the war ended, nor, in particular, whether Rome even at that time tore up the ruinous and disgraceful peace. This n ‘. 1ch only is certain, that on this occasion also the Tuscans were unable to maintain their ground permanently on the left bank of the Tiber.
Soon the Hellenic nation was forced to engage in a still more comprehensive and still more decisive conflict with
(248).
may. IV THE CELTS
41s
the barbarians both of the west and of the east. It was
about the time of the Persian wars. The relation in which
the Tyrians stood to the great king led Carthage also to
follow in the wake of Persian policy-there exists a credible tradition even as to an alliance between the Carthaginians
and Xerxes—and, along with the Carthaginians, the Etruscans. It was one of the grandest of political com binations which simultaneously directed the Asiatic hosts
against Greece, and the Phoenician hosts against Sicily, to extirpate at a blow liberty and civilization from the face of
the earth. The victory remained with the Hellenes. _ The Victories
battle of Salamis (274) saved and avenged Hellas of Salamis and [480.
proper; and on the same day—so runs the story—the Himera, rulers of Syracuse and Agrigentum, Gelon and Theron, and their vanquished the immense army of the Carthaginian general effects. Hamilcar, son of Mago, at Himera so completely, that the
Fall of the Etrusoo Cartha ginian maritime supremacy.
war was thereby terminated, and the Phoenicians, who by no means cherished at that time the project of subduing the whole of Sicily on their own account, returned to their previous defensive policy. Some of the large silver pieces are still preserved which were coined for this campaign from the ornaments of Damareta, the wife of Gelon, and other noble Syracusan dames: and the latest times gratefully remembered the gentle and brave king of Syracuse and the glorious victory whose praises Simonides sang.
The immediate effect of the humiliation of Carthage
was the fall of the maritime supremacy of her Etruscan allies. Anaxilas, ruler of Rhegium and Zancle, had already closed the Sicilian straits against their privateers
by means of a standing fleet (about 272) ; soon afterwards 482. (280) the Cumaeans and Hiero of Syracuse achieved a 474. decisive victory near Cumae over the Tyrrhene fleet, to which the Carthaginians vainly attempted to render aid.
This is the victory which Pindar celebrates in his first Pythian ode; and there is still extant an Etruscan helmet,
Maritime supremacy of the Tarentines and Syra cusans.
which Hiero sent to Olympia, with the inscription: “Hiaron son of Deinomenes and the Syrakosians to Zeus, Tyrrhane spoil from Kyma. ”1
While these extraordinary successes against the Cartha ginians and Etruscans placed Syracuse at the head of the Greek cities in Sicily, the Doric Tarentum rose to un disputed pre-eminence among the Italian Hellenes, after the Achaean Sybaris had fallen about the time of the expulsion of the kings from Rome (243). The terrible
416
FALL OF THE ETRUSCAN POWER BOOK It
511.
474. defeat of the Tarentines by the Iapygians (280), the
most severe disaster which a Greek army had hitherto sustained, served only, like the Persian invasion of Hellas, to unshackle the whole might of the national spirit in the development of an energetic democracy. Thenceforth the Carthaginians and the Etruscans were no longer paramount in the Italian waters; the Tarentines pre dominated in the Adriatic and Ionic, the Massiliots and Syracusans in the Tyrrhene, seas. The latter in particular restricted more and more the range of Etruscan piracy. After the victory at Cumae, Hiero had occupied the island of Aenaria (Ischia), and by that means interrupted the communication between the Campanian and the northern
(52. Etruscans. About the year 302, with a view thoroughly to check Tuscan piracy, Syracuse sent forth a special ex pedition, which ravaged the island of Corsica and the Etruscan coast and occupied the island of Aethalia (Elba). Although Etrusco-Carthaginian piracy was not wholly re pressed--—Antium, for example, having apparently continued a haunt of privateering down to the beginning of the fifth century of Rome-the powerful Syracuse formed a strong bulwark against the allied Tuscans and Phoenicians. For a moment, indeed, it seemed as if the Syracusan power must be broken by the attack of the Athenians, whose naval expedition against Syracuse in the course of the
1 Fuipor 6 Aewopéveos xai. 'rol Zlvpaxéaror 10? Al Tiipaw' dl'b K614”.
can. iv THE CELTS
411
Peloponnesian war (339-341) was supported by the 415-418. Etruscans, old commercial friends of Athens, with three fifty-oared galleys. But the victory remained, as is well
known, both in the west and in the east with the Dorians.
After the ignominious failure of the Attic expedition, Syracuse became so indisputably the first Greek maritime power that the men, who were there at the head of the state, aspired to the sovereignty of Sicily and Lower Italy, and of both the Italian seas; while on the other hand the Carthaginians, who saw their dominion in Sicily now seriously in danger, were on their part also obliged to make, and made, the subjugation of the Syracusans and the reduction of the whole island the aim of their policy. We cannot here narrate the decline of the intermediate Sicilian states, and the increase of the Carthaginian power in the island, which were the immediate results of these
we notice their effect only so far as Etruria is concerned. The new ruler of Syracuse, Dionysius (who Dionysius reigned 348-387), inflicted on Etruria blows which were
severely felt. The far-scheming king laid the foundation 406-867. of his new colonial power especially in the sea to the east
of Italy, the more northern waters of which now became,
for the first time, subject to a Greek maritime power.
About the year 367, Dionysius occupied and colonized the 387.
port of Lissus and island of Issa on the Illyrian coast, and
the ports of Ancona, Numana, and Atria, on the coast of
Italy. The memory of the Syracusan dominion in this
remote region is preserved not only by the “trenches of Philistus,” a canal constructed at the mouth of the Po
beyond doubt by the well-known historian and friend of Dionysius who spent the years of his exile (3 68 et seq. ) at 335, Atria, but also by the alteration in the name of the Italian
eastern sea itself, which from this time forth, instead of its
earlier designation of the “Ionic Gulf” 16 received
the appellation still current at the present day, and probably
struggles;
vol~
27
l
(p. 5),
Romans opposed to the Etruscans of Veii.
This rapid collapse of the Etruscan maritime power would be inexplicable but for the circumstance that, at the very time when the Sicilian Greeks were attacking them by sea, the
Etruscans found themselves assailed with the severest blows on every side by land. About the time of the battles of Salamis, Himera, and Cumae a furious war raged for many years, according to the accounts of the Roman annals,
418
FALL OF THE ETRUSCAN POWER 300K I!
referable to these events, of the sea “of Hadria. "1 But not content with these attacks on the possessions and com mercial communications of the Etruscans in the eastern sea, Dionysius assailed the very heart of the Etruscan power by storming and plundering Pyrgi, the rich seaport
of Caere (369). From this blow it never recovered. When the internal disturbances that followed the death of Dionysius in Syracuse gave the Carthaginians freer scope, and their fleet resumed in the Tyrrhene sea that ascendency which with but slight interruptions they thenceforth main tained, it proved a burden no less grievous to Etruscans than to Greeks; so that, when Agathocles of Syracuse in
810. 444 was making preparations for war with Carthage, he was even joined by eighteen Tuscan vessels of war. The Etruscans perhaps had their fears in regard to Corsica, which they probably still at that time retained. The old Etrusco-Phoenician symmachy, which still existed in the
884-322. time of Aristotle (370-432), was thus broken up ; but the Etruscans never recovered their maritime strength.
488-474. between Rome and Veii (2 71-280). The Romans suffered in its course severe defeats. Tradition especially preserved 477. the memory of the catastrophe of the Fabii (277), who had in consequence of internal commotions voluntarily banished themselves from the capital 59) and had undertaken the
497. Hecataeus after 257 u. c. ) and Herodotus also (:7o-afier 345) 484-409. only know Hatrias as the delta of the Po and the sea that washes its
shores (O. Muller, Etrurker, p. r40; Gzogr. Graeci min. ed. C. Miller, p. 23). The appellation of Adriatic sea. in its more extended scale.
first occurs in the so-ealled Scylax about 418 me.
i.
1
i.
(+
(p. 3
can. rv THE CELTS
419
defence of the frontier against Etruria, and who were slain to the last man capable of bearing arms at the brook Cremera But the armistice for 400 months, which in room of a peace terminated the war, was so far favourable to the Romans that it at least restored the status quo of the regal period; the Etruscans gave up Fidenae and the district won by them on the right bank of the Tiber. We cannot ascertain how far this Romano-Etruscan war was connected directly with the war between the Hellenes and the Persians, and with that between the Sicilians and Carthaginians; but whether the Romans were or were not allies of the victors of Salamis and of Himera, there was at any rate a coincidence of interests as well as of results.
The Samnites as well as the Latins threw themselves The
upon the Etruscans ; and hardly had their Campanian igmpggsam settlement been cut off from the motherland in consequence the Emis of the battle of Cumae, when it found itself no longer able $52M,» to resist the assaults of the Sabellian mountain tribes.
Capua, the capital, fell in 3 3o ; and the Tuscan population 424.
there was soon after the conquest extirpated or expelled by
the Samnites. It is true that the Campanian Greeks also,
isolated and weakened, suffered severely from the same
invasion: Cumae itself was conquered by the Sabellians in
But the Hellenes maintained their ground at Neapolis 420. especially, perhaps with the aid of the Syracusans, while the Etruscan name in Campania disappeared from history excepting some detached Etruscan communities, which prolonged a pitiful and forlorn existence there.
Events still more momentous, however, occurred about the same time in Northern Italy. A new nation was knocking at the gates of the Alps: it was the Celts; and their first pressure fell on the Etruscans.
The Celtic, Galatian, or Gallic nation received from the Character common mother endowments different from those of its
Italian, Germanic, and Hellenic sisters. With various solid
3 34.
430
FALL OF THE ETRUSCAN POWER BOOK 11
qualities and still more that were brilliant, it was deficient in those deeper moral and political qualifications which lie at the root of all that is good and great in human develop ment. It was reckoned disgraceful, Cicero tells us, for the free Celts to till their fields with their own hands. They preferred a pastoral life to agriculture; and even in the fertile plains of the Po they chiefly practised the rearing of swine, feeding on the flesh of their herds, and staying with them in the oak forests day and night. Attachment to their native soil, such as characterized the Italians and the Germans, was wanting in the Celts; while on the other hand they delighted to congregate in towns and villages, which accordingly acquired magnitude and importance among the Celts earlier apparently than in Italy. Their political constitution was imperfect. Not only was the national unity recognized but feebly‘as a bond of connec tion-as in fact, the case with all nations at first—but the individual communities were deficient concord and firm control, in earnest public spirit and consistency of aim. The only organization for which they were fitted was a military one, where the bonds of discipline relieved the in dividual from the troublesome task of self-control. The prominent qualities of the Celtic race,” says their historian Thierry, “were personal bravery, in which they excelled all nations; an open impetuous temperament, accessible to every impression much intelligence, but at the same time extreme mobility, want of perseverance, aversion to
discipline and order, ostentation and perpetual discord— the result of boundless vanity.
” Cato the Elder more briefly describes them, nearly to the same effect; “the Celts devote themselves mainly to two things-fighting and esprit? ‘ Such qualities-those of good soldiers but of bad citizens-explain the historical fact, that the Celts have
Pin-aqua Gallic due: res indurtrioriuimperugvil‘ur: run militants‘ d avg'ute loqui (Cato, Orig. ii. fr. 2. Jordan).
1.
1
;
. “
in
is,
CHAP- Iv THE CELTS
421
shaken all states and have founded none. Everywhere we find them ready to rove or, in other words, to march ; pre ferring moveable property to landed estate, and gold to everything else ; following the profession of arms as a system of organized pillage or even as a trade for hire, and with such success at all events that even the Roman historian Sallust acknowledges that the Celts bore off the prize from the Romans in feats of arms. They were the true soldiers of-fortune of antiquity, as figures and descriptions represent them : with big but not sinewy bodies, with shaggy hair and long mustaches-quite a contrast to the Greeks and Romans, who shaved the head and upper lip; in variegated embroidered dresses, which in combat were not unfre quently thrown off; with a broad gold ring round the neck; wearing no helmets and without missile weapons of any sort, but furnished instead with an immense shield, a long ill tempered sword, a dagger and a lance—all ornamented with gold, for they were not unskilful at working in metals. Everything was made subservient to ostentation, even wounds, which were often subsequently enlarged for the purpose of boasting a broader scar. Usually they fought on foot, but certain tribes on horseback, in which case every freeman was followed by two attendants likewise mounted ; war-chariots were early in use, as they were among the Libyans and the Hellenes in the earliest times. Various traits remind us of the chivalry of the Middle Ages; particularly the custom of single combat, which was foreign to the Greeks and Romans. Not only were they accus tomed during war to challenge a single enemy to fight, after having previously insulted him by words and gestures; during peace also they fought with each other in splendid suits of armour, as for life or death. After such feats carousals followed as a matter of course. In this way they led, whether under their own or a foreign banner, a restless soldier-life; they were dispersed from Ireland and Spain to
Celtic migrations.
Asia Minor, constantly occupied in fighting and so-called feats of heroism. But all their enterprises melted away like snow in spring; and nowhere did they create a great state or develop a distinctive culture of their own.
Such is the description which the ancients give us of this nation. Its origin can only be conjectured. Sprung from the same cradle from which the Hellenic, Italian, and Germanic peoples issued,1 the Celts doubtless like these migrated from their eastern motherland into Europe, where at a very early period they reached the western ocean and established their headquarters in what is now France, cross ing to settle in the British isles on the north, and on the south passing the Pyrenees and contending with the Iberian tribes for the possession of the peninsula. This, their first great migration, flowed past the Alps, and it was from the lands to the westward that they first began those move ments of smaller masses in the opposite direction-move ments which carried them over the Alps and the Haemus and even over the Bosporus, and by means of which they became and for many centuries continued to be the terror of the whole civilized nations of antiquity, till the victories of Caesar and the frontier defence organized by Augustus for ever broke their power.
The native legend of their migrations, which has been preserved to us mainly by Livy, relates the story of these
1 It has recently been maintained by expert philologists that there is a closer- afl'mity between the Celts and Italians than there is even between the latter and the Hellenes. In other words they hold that the branch of the great tree, from which the peoples of Indo-Germanic extraction in the west and south of Europe have sprung, divided itself in the first instance into Greeks and Italo-Celts, and that the latter at a considerably later period became subdivided into Italians and Celts. This hypothesis com mends itself much to acceptance in a geographical point of view, and the facts which history presents may perhaps be likewise brought into harmony with because what has hitherto been regarded as Graeco-Italian civiliza tion may very well have been Graeco-Celto-Italian-in fact we know nothing of the earliest stage of Celtic culture. Linguistic investigation, however, seems not to have made as yet such progress as to warrant the inaction of it: results in the primitive history of the peoples.
422
FALL OF THE ETRUSCAN POWER soon it
it,
cm. iv THE CELTS
4433
later retrograde movements as follows. 1 The Gallic confederacy, which was headed then as in the time of Caesar by the canton of the Bituriges (around Bourges), sent forth in the days of king Ambiatus two great hosts led by the two nephews of the king. One of these nephews, Sigovesus, crossed the Rhine and advanced in the direction of the Black Forest, while the second, Bellovesus, crossed the Graian Alps (the Little St. Bernard) and descended into the valley of the Po. From the former proceeded the Gallic settlement on the middle Danube; from the latter the oldest Celtic settlement in the modern Lombardy, the canton of the Insubres with Mediolanum (Milan) as its capital. Another host soon followed, which founded the canton of the Cenomani with the towns of Brixia (Brescia) and Verona. Ceaseless streams thenceforth poured over the Alps into the beautiful plain; the Celtic tribes with the Ligurians whom they dislodged and swept along with them wrested place after place from the Etruscans, till the whole left bank of the P0 was in their hands. After the fall of the rich Etruscan town Melpum (presumably in the district of Milan), for the subjugation of which the
1 The legend is related by Livy, v. 34, and Justin, xxiv. 4, and Caesar also has had it in view (B. 0. vi. 24). But the association of the migration of Bellovesus with the founding of Massilia, by which the former is chronologically fixed down to the middle of the second century of Rome, undoubtedly belongs not to the native legend, which of course did not specify dates, but to later ehronologizing research; and it deserves no credit. Isolated incursions and immigrations may have taken place at a very early period ; but the great overflowing of northern Italy by the Celts cannot be placed before the age of the decay of the Etruscan power, that is, not before the second half of the third century of the city.
In like manner, after the judiclousi-nvestigations of Wickham and Cramer, we cannot doubt that the line of march of Bellovesus, like that of Hannibal, lay not over the Cottian Alps (Mont Genévre) and through the territory of the Taurini. but over the Graian Alps (the Little St. Bernard) and through the territory of the Salassi. The name of the mountain is given by Livy doubtless not on the authority of the legend, but on his own conjecture.
Whether the representation that the Italian Boii came through the more easterly pass of the Poenine Alps rested on the ground of a genuine legendary reminiscence, or only on the ground of an assumed connection with the Bolt dwelling to the north of the Dam-be, is a question that must remain undecided.
The Celts assail the Etruscans in North em Italy.
474.
414
FALL OF THE ETRUSCAN POWER soox u
Attack on Etruria by the Romans.
Celts already settled in the basin of the Po had united with newly arrived tribes (3 58 these latter crossed to the right bank of the river and began to press upon the Umbrians and Etruscans in their original abodes. Those who did so were chiefly the Boii, who are alleged to have penetrated into Italy by another route, over the Poenine Alps (the Great St. Bernard): they settled in the modern Romagna, where the old Etruscan town Felsina, with its name changed by its new masters to Bononia, became their capital. Finally came the Senones, the last of the larger Celtic tribes which made their way over the Alps; they took up their abode along the coast of the Adriatic from Rimini to Ancona. But isolated bands of Celtic settlers must have advanced even far in the direction of Umbria, and up to the border of Etruria proper; for stone inscriptions in the Celtic language have been found even at Todi on the upper Tiber. The limits of Etruria on the north and east became more and more contracted, and about the middle of the fourth century the Tuscan nation found themselves substantially restricted to the territory which thenceforth bore and still bears their name.
Subjected to these simultaneous and, as were, concerted assaults on the part of very different peoples— the Syracusans, Latins, Samnites, and above all the Celts —the Etruscan nation, that had just acquired so vast and sudden an ascendency in Latium and Campania and on
both the Italian seas, underwent still more rapid and
violent collapse. The loss of their maritime
and the subjugation of the Campanian Etruscans belong to the same epoch as the settlement of the Insubres and Cenomani on the Po; and about this same period the Roman burgesses, who had not very many years before been humbled to the utmost and almost reduced to bondage Porsena, first assumed an attitude of aggression towards Etruria. By the armistice with Veii in 280 Rome
supremacy
by
a
it
? ),
can. IV THE CELTS
425
had recovered its ground, and the two nations were restored in the main to the state in which they had stood in the time of the kings. When it expired in the year 309, the warfare began afresh ; but it took the form of border frays and pillaging excursions which led to no material result on either side. Etruria was still too powerful for Rome to be able seriously to attack At length the revolt of the Fidenates, who expelled the Roman garrison, murdered the Roman envoys, and submitted to Lars Tolumnius, king of the Veientes, gave rise to more considerable war, which ended favourably for the Romans; the king Tolumnius fell in combat by the hand of the Roman consul Aulus Cornelius Cossus 26 Fidenae was taken, and new armistice for 2oo months was concluded in 329. During this truce the troubles of Etruria became more and more aggravated, and the Celtic arms were already approaching the settlements that hitherto had been spared on the right bank of the Po. When the armistice expired in the end of 346, the Romans on their part resolved to undertake a war of conquest against Etruria and on this
occasion the war was carried on not merely to vanquish Veii, but to crush
The history of the war against the Veientes, Capenates, and Falisci, and of the siege of Veii, which said, like that of Troy, to have lasted ten years, rests on evidence far from trustworthy. Legend and poetry have taken possession of these events as their own, and with reason; for the struggle in this case was waged, with unprecedented exertions, for an unprecedented prize. was the first occasion on which Roman army remained in the field summer and winter, year after year, till its object was attained. It was the first occasion on which the com munity paid the levy from the resources of the state. But
was also the first occasion on which the Romans attempted to subdue nation of alien stock, and carried
44‘
428. 425.
408
Conquest of Vcii.
a
it
a
it.
It
;
is
a
(3
a
? ),
it.
426
FALL OF THE ETRUSCAN POWER BOOK n
their arms beyond the ancient northern boundary of the Latin land. The struggle was vehement, but the issue was scarcely doubtful. The Romans were supported by the Latins and Hemici, to whom the overthrow of their dreaded neighbour was productive of scarcely less satisfac tion and advantage than to the Romans themselves ; whereas Veii was abandoned by its own nation, and only the adjacent towns of Capena and Falerii, along with Tar quinii, furnished contingents to its help. The contemporary attacks of the Celts would alone suffice to explain the non intervention of the northern communities; it is aflirmed however, and there is no reason to doubt, that this inaction of the other Etruscans was primarily occasioned by internal factions in the league of the Etruscan cities, and particu larly by the opposition which the regal form of government retained or restored by the Veientes encountered from the aristocratic governments of the other cities. Had the Etruscan nation been able or willing to take part in the conflict, the Roman community would hardly have been able—undeveloped as was the art of besieging at that time —to accomplish the gigantic task of subduing a large and
strong city. But isolated and forsaken as Veii was, it suc cumbed (3 58) after a valiant resistance to the persevering and heroic spirit of Marcus Furius Camillus, who first opened up to his countrymen the brilliant and perilous career of foreign conquest. The joy which this great success excited in Rome had its echo in the Roman custom, continued down to a late age, of concluding the festal games with a “sale of Veientes,” at which, among the mock spoils sub mitted to auction, the most wretched old cripple who could be procured wound up the sport in a purple mantle and ornaments of gold as “king of the Veientes. ” The city was destroyed, and the soil was doomed to perpetual desolation. Falerii and Capena hastened to make peace ; the powerful Volsinii, which with federal indecision had
’
- ‘
can. IV THE CELTS
427
remained quiet during the agony of Veii and took up arms after its capture, likewise after a few years (363) consented 801. to peace. The statement that the two bulwarks of the
Etruscan nation, Melpum and Veii, yielded on the same day, the former to the Celts, the latter to the Romans, may be merely a melancholy legend; but it at any rate involves a. deep historical truth. The double assault from the north and from the south, and the fall of the two frontier strong
holds, were the beginning of the end of the great Etruscan nation.
For a moment, however, it seemed as if the two peoples, The Celts
through whose co-operation Etruria saw her very existence put in jeopardy, were about to destroy each other, and the reviving power of Rome was to be trodden under foot by foreign barbarians. This turn of things, so contrary to what might naturally have been expected, the Romans brought upon themselves by their own arrogance and short sightedness.
The Celtic swarms, which had crossed the river after the
fall of Melpum, rapidly overflowed northern Italy—not merely the open country on the right bank of the Po and along the shore of the Adriatic, but also Etruria proper to
the south of the Apennines. A few years afterwards (363) 391, Clusium situated in the heart of Etruria (Chiusi, on the borders of Tuscany and the Papal State) was besieged by
the Celtic Senones ; and so humbled were the Etruscans
that the Tuscan city in its straits invoked aid from the destroyers of Veii. Perhaps it would have been wise to grant it and to reduce at once the Gauls by arms, and the Etruscans by according to them protection, to a state of dependence on Rome; but an intervention with aims so extensive, which would have compelled the Romans to undertake a serious struggle on the northern Tuscan frontier, lay beyond the horizon of the Roman policy at that time. N0 course was therefore left but to refrain from
‘3? :
Battle on the Allia.
who marched as bands of armed emigrants, troubling them selves little as to the means of cover or of retreat ; but it was evident that none in Rome anticipated the dangers involved in so sudden and so mighty an invasion. It was not till the Gauls were marching upon Rome that a Roman
military force crossed the Tiber and sought to bar their way. Not twelve miles from the gates, opposite to the confluence of the rivulet Allia with the Tiber, the armies
428
FALL OF THE ETRUSCAN POWER 300: It
all interference. Foolishly, however, while declining to send auxiliary troops, they despatched envoys. With still greater folly these sought to impose upon the Celts by haughty language, and, when this failed, they conceived that they might with impunity violate the law of nations in dealing with barbarians ; in the ranks of the Clusines they took part in a skirmish, and in the course of it one of them stabbed and dismounted a Gallic oflicer. The barbarians acted in this case with moderation and prudence. They sent in the first instance to the Roman community to demand the surrender of those who had outraged the law of nations, and the senate was ready to comply with the reasonable request. But with the multitude compassion for their countrymen outweighed justice towards the foreigners ; satisfaction was refused by the burgesses ; and according to some accounts they even nominated the brave champions of
890. their fatherland as consular tribunes for the year 364,1 which was to he so fatal in the Roman annals. Then the Brennus or, in other words, the “king of the army” of the Gauls broke up the siege of Clusium, and the whole Celtic host-—the numbers of which are stated at 70,000 men-turned against Rome. Such expeditions into un known 'and distant regions were not unusual for the Gauls,
890- met, and a battle took place on the 18th July, 364. Even
1 This is according to the current computation 390 8. 0. ; but, in fact, the capture of Rome occurred in O]. 98, 1:388 8. 6. , and has been thrown out of its proper place merely by the confusion of the Roman calendar.
CBAP- iv THE CELTS
429
now they went into battle-not as against an army, but as against freebooters—with arrogance and foolhardiness and under inexperienced leaders, Camillus having in con
sequence of the dissensions of the orders withdrawn from taking part in affairs. Those against whom they were to fight were but barbarians ; what need was there of a camp, or of securing a retreat? These barbarians, however, were
men whose courage despised death, and their mode of fighting was to the Italians as novel as it was terrible; sword in hand the Celts precipitated themselves with furious onset on the Roman phalanx, and shattered it at the first shock. The overthrow was complete; of the
Romans, who had fought with the river in their rear, a
large portion met their death in the attempt to cross it;
such as escaped threw themselves by a flank movement
into the neighbouring Veii. The victorious Celts stood
between the remnant of the beaten army and the capital.
The latter was irretrievably abandoned to the enemy; the Capture of
small force that was left behind, or that had fled thither, Rune‘ was not sufficient to garrison the walls, and three days after
the battle the victors marched through the open gates into Rome. Had they done so at first, as they might have done,
not only the city, but the state also must have been lost; the brief interval gave opportunity to carry away or to bury the sacred objects, and, what was more important, to occupy the citadel and to furnish it with provisions for the
No one was admitted to the citadel who was incapable of bearing arms-there was not food for all. The mass of the defenceless dispersed among the neighbour ing towns; but many, and in particular a number of old men of high standing, would not survive the downfall of the city and awaited death in their houses by the sword of the barbarians. They came, murdered all they met with, plundered whatever property they found, and at length set
the city on fire on all sides before the eyes of the Roman
exigency.
Fmitless~ ness of the Celtic victory.
garrison in the Capitol. But they had no knowledge of the art of besieging, and the blockade of the steep citadel rock was tedious and difi‘icult, because subsistence for the great host could only be procured by armed foraging parties, and the citizens of the neighbouring Latin cities, the Ardeates in particular, frequently attacked the foragers with courage and success. Nevertheless the Celts persevered, with an energy which in their circumstances was unparalleled, for seven months beneath the rock, and the garrison, which had escaped a surprise on a dark night only in consequence of the cackling of the sacred geese in the Capitoline temple and the accidental awaking of the brave Marcus Manlius, already found its provisions beginning to fail, when the Celts received information as to the Veneti having invaded the Senonian territory recently acquired on the Po, and were thus induced to accept the ransom money that was offered to procure their withdrawal. The scornful throwing down of the Gallic sword, that it might be outweighed by Roman gold, indicated very truly how matters stood. The iron of the barbarians had conquered, but they sold their victory
and by selling lost
The fearful catastrophe of the defeat and the conflagra
tion, the 18th of July and the rivulet of the Allia, the spot where the sacred objects were buried, and the spot where the surprise of the citadel had been repulsed-all the details of this unparalleled event—were transferred from the recollection of contemporaries to the imagination of posterity; and we can scarcely realize the fact that two thousand years have actually elapsed since those world renowned geese showed greater vigilance than the sentinels at their posts. And yet—although there was an enactment in Rome that in future, on occasion of Celtic invasion no legal privilege should give exemption from military service; although dates were reckoned by the years from the conquest of the city although the event resounded
430
FALL OF THE ETRUSCAN POWER BOOK I!
;
a
it.
can. IV THE CELTS
431
throughout the whole of the then civilized world and found its way even into the Grecian annals—the battle of the
Allia and its results can scarcely be numbered
those historical events that are fruitful of consequences. It made no alteration at all in political relations. When the Gauls had marched off again with their gold-which only a legend of late and wretched invention represents the hero Camillus as having recovered for Rome-and when the fugitives had again made their way home, the foolish idea suggested by some faint-hearted
politicians, that the citizens should migrate to Veii, was set aside by a spirited speech of Camillus ; houses arose out of the ruins hastily and irregularly—the narrow crooked streets of Rome owed their origin to this epoch; and Rome again stood in her old commanding position.
Indeed it is not improbable that this occurrence contributed materially, though not just at the moment, to diminish the antagonism between Rome and Etruria, and above all to knit more closely the ties of union between Latium and Rome. The conflict between the Gauls and the Romans was not, like that between Rome and Etruria or between Rome and Samnium, a collision of two political powers which afl’ect and modify each other; it may be compared
to those catastrophes of nature, after which the organism,
if it is not destroyed, immediately resumes its equilibrium.
The Gauls often returned to Latium: as in the year 387, 361. when Camillus defeated them at Alba-the last victory of
the aged hero, who had been six times military tribune
with consular powers, and five times dictator, and had four times marched in triumph to the Capitol; in the year 393, 861. when the dictator Titus Quinctius Pennus
opposite to them not five miles from the city at the bridge
of the Anio, but before any encounter took place the Gallic host marched onward to Campania; in the year 394, when 860. the dictator Quintus Servilius Ahala fought in front of the
among
prudential
and
encamped
43: FALL OF THE ETRUSCAN POWER _ noon: :1
Colline gate with the hordes returning from Campania ; in 858. the year 396, when the dictator Gains Sulpicius Peticus 850. inflicted on them a signal defeat; in the year 404, when
they even spent the winter encamped upon the Alban mount and joined with the Greek pirates along the coast for plunder, till Lucius Furius Camillus, the son of the celebrated general, in the following year dislodged them- an incident which came to the ears of Aristotle who was
884 322 contemporary (370-432) in Athens. But these predatory expeditions, formidable and troublesome as they may have been, were rather incidental misfortunes than events of political significance; and their most essential result was, that the Romans were more and more regarded by them selves and by foreigners as the bulwark of the civilized nations of Italy against the onset of the dreaded barbarians --—a view which tended more than is usually supposed to further their subsequent claim to universal empire.
Further conquests of Rome in Etruria.
South Etruria Roman.
The Tuscans, who had taken advantage of the Celtic attack on Rome to assail Veii, had accomplished nothing, because they had appeared in insufficient force; the barbarians had scarcely departed, when the heavy arm of Latium descended on the Tuscans with undiminished weight. After the Etruscans had been repeatedly defeated, the whole of southern Etruria as far as the Ciminian hills remained in the hands of the Romans, who formed four new
387. tribes in the territories of Veii, Capena, and Falerii (36 7), and secured the northern boundary by establishing the . 383. 378. fortresses of Sutrium (371) and Nepete (381). With rapid
steps this fertile region, covered with Roman colonists, 358. became completely Romanized. About 396 the nearest Etruscan towns, Tarquinii, Caere, and Falerii, attempted to
revolt against the Roman encroachments, and the deep ex~ asperation which these had aroused in Etruria was shown by the slaughter of the whole of the Roman prisoners taken in the first campaign, three hundred and seven in number, in
can. rv THE CELTS
433
the market-place of Tarquinii; but it was the exasperation
of impotence. In the peace (403) Caere, which as situated 851. nearest to the Romans suffered the heaviest retribution,
was compelled to cede half its territory to Rome, and with
the diminished domain which was left to it to withdraw
from the Etruscan league, and to enter into the relationship
of subjects to Rome which had in the meanwhile been constituted primarily for individual Latin communities. It seemed, however, not advisable to leave to this more remote community alien in race from the Roman such communal independence as was still retained by the subject communities of Latium; the Caerite community received the Roman franchise not merely without the privilege of electing or of being elected at Rome, but also subject to the withholding of self. administration, so that the place of magistrates of its own was as regards justice and
the census taken by those of Rome, and a representative (pragfatus) of the Roman praetor conducted the adminis tration on the spot-a form of subjection, which in state
law first meets us here, whereby a state which had hitherto been independent became converted into a community continuing to subsist de jure, but deprived of all power of movement on its own part. Not long afterwards (411) 343, Falerii, which had preserved its original Latin nationality
even under Tuscan rule, abandoned the Etruscan league
and entered into perpetual alliance with Rome; and thereby the whole of southern Etruria became in one form
or other subject to Roman supremacy. In the case of Tarquinii and perhaps of northern Etruria generally, the Romans were content with restraining them for a lengthened period by a treaty of peace for 400 months (403). 851.
In northern Italy likewise the peoples that had come Racificl into collision and conflict gradually settled on a permanent
footing and within more defined limits. The migrations Italy. over the Alps ceased, partly perhaps in consequence of the
v01. 1 28
434
FALL OF THE ETRUSCAN POWER B00: 11
desperate defence which the Etruscans made in their more restricted home, and of the serious resistance of the power ful Romans, partly perhaps also in consequence of changes unknown to us on the north of the Alps. Between the Alps and the Apennines, as far south as the Abruzzi, the Celts were now generally the ruling nation, and they were masters more especially of the plains and rich pastures; but from the lax and superficial nature of their settlement their dominion took no deep root in the newly acquired land and by no means assumed the shape of exclusive
How matters stood in the Alps, and to what extent Celtic settlers became mingled there with earlier Etruscan or other stocks, our unsatisfactory information as to the nationality of the later Alpine peoples does not permit us to ascertain; only the Raeti in the modern Grisons and Tyrol may be described as a probably
Etruscan stock. The Umbrians retained the valleys of the Apennines, and the Veneti, speaking a different language, kept possession of the north-eastern portion of the valley of the Po. Ligurian tribes maintained their footing in the western mountains, dwelling as far south as Pisa and Arezzo, and separating the Celt-land proper from Etruria. The Celts dwelt only in the intermediate flat country, the Insubres and Cenomani to the north of the Po, the Boii to the south, and-not to mention smaller tribes-the Senones on the coast of the Adriatic, from Ariminum to Ancona, in the so-called “country of the Gauls” (ager Galliaus). But even there Etruscan settle
ments must have continued partially at least to subsist, somewhat as Ephesus and Miletus remained Greek under the supremacy of the Persians. Mantua at any rate, which was protected by its insular position, was a Tuscan city even in the time of the empire, and Atria on the Po also, where numerous discoveries of vases have been made, appears to have retained its Etruscan character; the
possession.
can. IV THE CELTS
435
description of the coasts that goes under the name of Scylax, composed about 418, calls the district of Atria and 386. Spina Tuscan land. This alone, moreover, explains how Etruscan corsairs could render the Adriatic unsafe till far into the fifth century, and why not only Dionysius of Syracuse covered its coasts with colonies, but even Athens,
as a remarkable document recently discovered informs us, resolved about 429 to establish a colony in the Adriatic 825. for the protection of seafarers against the Tyrrhene pirates.
But while more or less of an Etruscan character con tinued to mark these regions, it was confined to isolated remnants and fragments of their earlier power; the Etruscan nation no longer reaped the benefit of such gains as were still acquired there by individuals in peaceful commerce or in maritime war. On the other hand it was probably from these half-free Etruscans that the germs
of such civilization as we subsequently find among the Celts and Alpine peoples in general (p. 278). The very fact that the Celtic hordes in the plains of Lombardy, to use the language of the so-called Scylax, abandoned their warrior-life and took to permanent settle ment, must in part be ascribed to this influence; the rudiments moreover of handicrafts and arts and the alphabet came to the Celts in Lombardy, and in fact to the Alpine peoples as far as the modern Styria, through the medium of the Etruscans.
Thus the Etruscans, after the loss of their possessions Etruria in Campania and of the whole district to the north of the 52:12:22;
and to the south of the Ciminian Forest, on the remained restricted to very narrow bounds; their season of dame‘ power and of aspiration had for ever passed away. The
closest reciprocal relations subsisted between this external
decline and the internal decay of the nation, the seeds of
which indeed were doubtless already deposited at a far
earlier period. The Greek authors of this age are full of
proceeded
Apennines
436
FALL OF THE ETRUSCAN POWER BOOK I!
descriptions of the unbounded luxury of Etruscan life 2 poets of Lower Italy in the fifth century of the city celebrate the Tyrrhenian wine, and the contemporary historians Timaeus and Theopompus delineate pictures of Etruscan unchastity and of Etruscan banquets, such as fall nothing short of the worst Byzantine or French demoraliza tion. Unattested as may be the details in these accounts, the statement at least appears to be well founded, that the detestable amusement of gladiatorial combats-the gangrene of the later Rome and of the last epoch of
antiquity generally-first came into vogue among the Etruscans. At any rate on the whole they leave no doubt as to the deep degeneracy of the nation. It pervaded even its political condition. As far as our scanty informa tion reaches, we find aristocratic tendencies prevailing, in the same way as they did at the same period in Rome, but more harshly and more perniciously. The abolition of royalty, which appears to have been carried out in all the cities of Etruria about the time of the siege of Veii, called into existence in the several cities a patrician government, which experienced but slight restraint from the laxity of the federal bond. That bond but seldom succeeded in combining all the Etruscan cities even for the defence of the land, and the nominal hegemony of Volsinii does not admit of the most remote comparison with the energetic vigour which the leadership of Rome communicated to the
Latin nation. The struggle against the exclusive claim put forward by the old burgesses to all public offices and to all public usufructs, which must have destroyed even the Roman state, had not its external successes enabled it in some measure to satisfy the demands of the oppressed proletariate at the expense of foreign nations and to open up other paths to ambition-that struggle against the exclusive rule and (what was specially prominent in
Etruria) the priestly monopoly of the clan-nobility-must
can. IV THE CELTS
437
have ruined Etruria politically, economically, and morally. Enormous wealth, particularly in landed property, became concentrated in the hands of a few nobles, while the masses
were impoverished ; the social revolutions which thence
arose increased the distress which they sought to remedy;
and, in consequence of the impotence of the central power,
no course at last remained to the distressed aristocrats
e. g. in Arretium in 45 3, and in Volsinii in 488—but to call 801. 266. in the aid of the Romans, who accordingly put an end to
the disorder but at the same time extinguished the remnant of independence. The energies of the nation were broken from the day of Veii and Melpum. Earnest attempts were still once or twice made to escape from ‘the Roman supremacy, but in such instances the stimulus was com municated to the Etruscans from without-from another
Italian stock, the Samnites.
Thehege many of Rome over lznhnn
THE great achievement of the regal period was the establish ment of the sovereignty of Rome over Latium under the form of hegemony.