No More Learning

Few things have been so much discussed as the question to what places this ius of the twelve towns refers ; and yet the answer is not far to seek. There were in Italy and Cisalpine Gaul — laying aside some places that soon disappeared again —thirty-four Latin colonies established in all. The twelve most recent of these — Ariminum Beneventum, Firmum, Aesernia, Brundisium, Spoletium, Cremona, Placentia, Copia, Valentia, Bononia,and Aquileia —are those here referred to ; and because Ariminum was the oldest of these and the town for which this new organization was primarily established, partly perhaps also because it was the first Roman colony founded beyond Italy, the ius of these colonies rightly took its name from Ariminum. This at the same time demon strates the truth of the view—which already had on other grounds very high probability —that all the colonies established in Italy (in the wider sense of the term) after the founding of Aquileia belonged to the class of burgess-colonies.
We cannot fully determine the extent to which the curtailment of the rights of the more recent Latin towns was carried, as compared with the earlier. If intermarriage, as is not improbable but is in fact anything but definitely established ( i. 132 ; Diodor. p. 590, 62, fr. Vat. p. 130, Din J. ), formed a constituent element of the original federal equality of rights, it was, at any rate, no longer conceded to the Latin colonies of more recent origin.
chap, yii UNION OF ITALY 53 ***-
mhting community, and the acquisition of that franchise by non-burgesses was facilitated in every way, and was in fact often imposed on them as a punishment. But after the Roman community became sole sovereign and all the others were its servants, the state of matters changed. The Roman community began jealously to guard its fran chise, and accordingly put an end in the first instance to the old full liberty of migration; although the statesmen of that period were wise enough still to keep admission to the Roman franchise legally open at least to the men of eminence and of capacity in the highest class of subject communities. The Latins were thus made to feel that Rome, after having subjugated Italy mainly by their aid, had now no longer need of them as before.
Lastly, the relations of the non-Latin allied communities were subject, as a matter of course, to very various rules, just as each particular treaty of alliance had defined them. Several of these perpetual alliances, such as that with the Hernican communities 445), passed over to footing of complete equalization with the Latin. Others, in which this was not the case, such as those with Neapolis 469), Nola 47 and Heraclea 31), granted rights com paratively comprehensive while others, such as the Tarentine and Samnite treaties, may have approximated to despotism.
Non-Latin munitieg,
As general rule, may be taken for granted that not Dissolution only the Latin and Hernican national confederations —as °fnatlonal to which the fact expressly stated —but all such confede
rations subsisting in Italy, and the Samnite and Lucanian
leagues in particular, were legally dissolved or at any rate
reduced to insignificance, and that in general no Italian community was allowed the right of acquiring property or
of intermarriage, or even the right of joint consultation and resolution, with any other. Further, provision must have Fumlshlnf been made, under different forms, for placing the military L^'"1*
is
it
a
(i. 5),
;
(i. (p.
a (L
System of govern-
54
UNION OF ITALY book n
and financial resources of all the Italian communities at the disposal of the leading community. Although the burgess militia " on the one hand, and the contingents of the " Latin name on the other, were still regarded as the main and integral constituents of the Roman army, and in that way
its national character was on the whole preserved, the Roman cives sine suffragio were called forth to join its ranks, and not only so, but beyond doubt the non-Latin federate communities also were either bound to furnish ships of war, as was the case with the Greek cities, or were placed on the roll of contingent-furnishing Italians (formula togatorum), as must have been ordained at once or gradually in the case of the Apulians, Sabellians, and Etruscans. In general this contingent, like that of the Latin communities, appears to have had its numbers definitely fixed, although, in case of necessity, the leading community was not
from making a larger requisition. This at the same time involved an indirect taxation, as every community was bound itself to equip and to pay its own contingent Accordingly it was not without design that the supply of the most costly requisites for war devolved chiefly on the Latin, or non-Latin federate communities; that the war marine was for the most part kept up by the Greek cities ; and that in the cavalry service the allies, at least subsequently, were called upon to furnish a proportion thrice as numerous as the Roman burgesses, while in the infantry the old principle, that the contingent of the allies should not be more numerous than the burgess army, still remained in force for a long time at least as the rule.
The system, on which this fabric was constructed and kept together, can no longer be ascertained in detail from the few notices that have reached us. Even the numerical proportions of the three classes of subjects relatively to each other and to the full burgesses, can no longer be
precluded
chap, vii UNION OF ITALY
55
determined even approximately ; * and in like manner the geographical distribution of the several categories over Italy is but imperfectly known. The leading ideas on which the structure was based, on the other hand, are so obvious that it is scarcely necessary specially to set them forth. First of all, as we have already said, the immediate circle of the ruling community was extended—partly by the settlement of full burgesses, partly by the conferring of passive burgess -rights — as far as was possible without completely decentralizing the Roman community, which
1 It is to be regretted that we are unable to give satisfactory information
as to the proportional numbers. We may estimate the number of Roman burgesses capable of bearing arms in the later regal period as about 20,000 123). Now from the fall of Alba to the conquest of Veii the immediate territory of Rome received no material extension in perfect accordance with which we find that from the first institution of the twenty-
one tribes about 259 360), which involved no, or at any rate no con- 495. siderable, extension of the Roman bounds, no new tribes were instituted
till 367. However abundant allowance we make for increase by the 387. excess of births over deaths, by immigration, and by manumissions,
absolutely impossible to reconcile with the narrow limits of a territory of hardly 650 square miles the traditional numbers of the census, according
to which the number of Roman burgesses capable of bearing arms in the second half of the third century varied between 104,000 and 150,000, and
362, regarding which a special statement extant, amounted to 152,573- 392. These numbers must rather stand on a parallel with the 84,700 burgesses
of the Servian census and in general the whole earlier census-lists, carried
back to the four lustres of Servius Tullius and furnished with copious numbers, must belong to the class of those apparently documentary tradi
tions which delight in, and betray themselves by the very fact of, such numerical details.
It was only with the second half of the fourth century that the large extensions of territory, which must have suddenly and considerably augmented the burgess roll, began. It reported on trustworthy authority and intrinsically credible, that about 416 the Roman burgesses 838. numbered 165,000; which very well agrees with the statement that ten
years previously, when the whole militia was called out against Latium and the Gauls, the first levy amounted to ten legions, that is, to 50,000 men. Subsequently to the great extensions of territory in Etruria, Latium, and Campania, in the fifth century the effective burgesses numbered, on an average, 250,000 immediately before the first Punic war, 280,000 to 290,000. These numbers are certain enough, but they are not quite available historically for another reason, namely, that in them probably the Roman full burgesses and the "burgesses without vote" not serving, like the Campanians, in legions of their own, —such, e. g. , as the Caerites, — are included together in the reckoning, while the latter must at any rate. defacto be counted among the subjects {Rom. Forsch. ii, 396).
;
;
is
is
in
is
it is
(i.
;
(i.
Division and classi fication
of the subjects.
was an urban one and was intended to remain so. When the system of incorporation was extended up to and perhaps even beyond its natural limits, the communities that were subsequently added had to submit to a position of subjection ; for a pure hegemony as a permanent relation was intrinsically impossible. Thus not through any arbitrary monopolizing of sovereignty, but through the inevitable force of circumstances, by the side of the class of ruling burgesses a second class of subjects took its place. It was one of the primary expedients of Roman rule to subdivide the governed by breaking up the Italian con federacies and instituting as large a number as possible of comparatively small communities, and to graduate the pressure of that rule according to the different categories of subjects. As Cato in the government of his household took care that the slaves should not be on too good terms with one another, and designedly fomented variances and factions among them, so the Roman community acted on a great scale. The expedient was not generous, but it was effectual.
It was but a wider application of the same expedient, when in each dependent community the constitution was remodelled after the Roman pattern and a government of the wealthy and respectable families was installed, which was naturally more or less keenly opposed to the multitude and was induced by its material interests and by its wish for local power to lean on Roman support. The most remarkable instance of this sort is furnished by the treatment of Capua, which appears to have been from the first treated with suspicious precaution as the only Italian c». y that could come into possible rivalry with Rome. The Campanian nobility received a privileged jurisdiction, separate places of assembly, and in every respect a distinct ive position ; indeed they even obtained not inconsiderable pensions—sixteen hundred of them at 450 stateres (about
56
UNION OF ITALY BOOK II
Aristo cratic re modelling of the con stitutions of the Italian communi ties.
chap, vii UNION OF ITALY
57
annually —charged on the Campanian exchequer.
It was these Campanian equites, whose refusal to take part
in the great Latino-Campanian insurrection of 414 mainly 840. contributed to its failure, and whose brave swords decided
the day in favour of the Romans at Sentinum in 459 295,
489); whereas the Campanian infantry at Rhegium
was the first body of troops that in the war with Pyrrhus revolted from Rome 18). Another remarkable instance of the Roman practice of turning to account for their own interest the variances between the orders in the dependent communities favouring the aristocracy, furnished by the treatment which Volsinii met with in 489. 26ft. There, just as Rome, the old and new burgesses must have stood opposed to one another, and the latter must have attained legal means equality of political rights.
In consequence of this the old burgesses of Volsinii resorted
to the Roman senate with request for the restoration of their old constitution — step which the ruling party in the
city naturally viewed as high treason, and inflicted legal punishment accordingly on the petitioners. The Roman senate, however, took part with the old burgesses, and, when the city showed no disposition to submit, not only destroyed by military violence the communal constitution
of Volsinii which was In recognized operation, but also,
razing the old capital of Etruria, exhibited to the Italians fearfully palpable proof of the mastery of Rome.
But the Roman senate had the wisdom not to overlook Modera- the fact, that the only means of giving permanence to ~vem- despotism moderation on the part of the despots. On menu that account there was left with, or conferred on, the
£30)
communities an autonomy, which included shadow of independence, special share in the military and political successes of Rome, and above all free communal constitution —so far as the Italian confederacy extended, there existed no community of Helots. On that account
dependent
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by
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by
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Inter mediate function aries.
also Rome from the very first, with a clear-sightedness and magnanimity perhaps unparalleled in history, waived the most dangerous of all the rights of government, the right of taxing her subjects. At the most tribute was perhaps imposed on the dependent Celtic cantons : so far as the Italian confederacy extended, there was no tributary com munity. On that account, lastly, while the duty of bearing arms was partially devolved on the subjects, the ruling burgesses were by no means exempt from it ; it is probable that the latter were proportionally far more numerous than the body of the allies ; and in that body, again, probably the Latins as a whole were liable to far greater demands upon them than the non-Latin allied communities. There was thus a certain reasonableness in the appro priation by which Rome ranked first, and the Latins next to her, in the distribution of the spoil acquired in war.
The central administration at Rome solved the difficult problem of preserving its supervision and control over the mass of the Italian communities liable to furnish contin gents, partly by means of the four Italian quaestorships, partly by the extension of the Roman censorship over the
whole of the dependent communities. The quaestors of the fleet (p. 45), along with their more immediate duty, had to raise the revenues from the newly acquired domains and to control the contingents of the new allies ; they were the first Roman functionaries to whom a residence and district out of Rome were assigned by law, and they formed the necessary intermediate authority between the Roman senate and the Italian communities. Moreover, as is shown by
the later municipal constitution, the chief functionaries in every Italian community,1 whatever might be their title, had to undertake a valuation every fourth or fifth year—an
1 Not merely in every Latin one; for the censorship or so-called quinquennalitas occurs, as is well known, also among communities whose constitution was not formed according to the Latin scheme.
Valuation of the empire.
58
UNION OF ITALY book n
chap, vii UNION OF ITALY
59
institution, the suggestion of which must necessarily have emanated from Rome, and which can only have been intended to furnish the senate with a view of the resources in men and money of the whole of Italy, corresponding to the census in Rome.
Lastly, with this military administrative union of the
Italy whole peoples dwelling to the south of the Apennines, as j^TM
far as the Iapygian promontory and the straits of Rhegium, was connected the rise of a new name common to them all —that of "the men of the toga" (togati), which was their oldest designation in Roman state law, or that of the "Italians," which was the appellation originally in use among the Greeks and thence became universally current The various nations inhabiting those lands were probably first led to feel and own their unity, partly through their common contrast to the Greeks, partly and mainly through their common resistance to the Celts ; for, although an Italian community may now and then have made common cause with the Celts against Rome and employed the opportunity to recover independence, yet in the long run sound national feeling necessarily prevailed. As the " Gallic field " down to a late period stood contrasted in law with the Italian, so the " men of the toga " were thus named in contrast to the Celtic "men of the hose"
and it is probable that the repelling of the Celtic invasions played an important diplomatic part as a reason or pretext for centralizing the military resources of Italy in the hands of the Romans. Inasmuch as the Romans on the one hand took the lead in the great national struggle and on the other hand compelled the Etruscans, Latins, Sabellians, Apulians, and Hellenes (within the bounds to be immediately described) alike to fight under their standards, that unity, which hitherto had been undefined and latent rather than expressed, obtained firm consolidation and recognition in state law; and the
(braccati);
Earliest boundaries of the
Italian confeder acy.
6o UNION OF ITALY BOOK II
name Italia, which originally and even in the Greek authors of the fifth century —in Aristotle for instance — pertained only to the modern Calabria, was transferred to the whole land of these wearers of the toga.
The earliest boundaries of this great armed confederacy led by Rome, or of the new Italy, reached on the western coast as far as the district of Leghorn south of the Arnus,1 on the east as far as the Aesis north of Ancona. The townships colonized by Italians, lying beyond these limits, such as Sena Gallica and Ariminum beyond the Apennines, and Messana in Sicily, were reckoned geographically as situated out of Italy — even when, like Ariminum, they were members of the confederacy or even, like Sena, were Roman burgess communities. Still less could the Celtic cantons beyond the Apennines be reckoned among the togati, although perhaps some of them were already among the clients of Rome.
The new Italy had thus become a political unity ; it was also in the course of becoming a national unity. Already the ruling Latin nationality had assimilated to itself the Sabines and Volscians and had scattered isolated Latin communities over all Italy; these germs were merely developed, when subsequently the Latin language became the mother-tongue of every one entitled to wear the Latin toga. That the Romans already clearly recognized this as their aim, is shown by the familiar extension of the Latin name to the whole body of contingent-furnishing Italian allies. 2 Whatever can still be recognized of this grand
1 This earliest boundary is probably indicated by the two small town ships Adfines, of which one lay north of Arezzo on the road to Florence, the second on the coast not far from Leghorn. Somewhat further to the south of the latter, the brook and valley of Vada are still called Fin me delta
First steps towards the Latin izing of Italy.
fine, Valle deltafine (Targioni Tozzetti, Viaggj, iv. 430).
9 In strict official language, indeed, this was not the case. The fullest 111. designation of the Italians occurs in the agrarian law of 643, line ai ;— \ceivis] Romanus sociumve ntminisve L. atini, quibus ex formula togatorum [milita in terra Italia imperare soleni] ; in like manner at the 29th line
of the same the peregrinus is distinguished from the Latimus, and In the
chap, vil UNION OF ITALY 61
politir. il structure testifies to the great political sagacity of
its nameless architects ; and the singular cohesion, which
that confederation composed of so many and so diversified ingredients subsequently exhibited under the severest
shocks, stamped their great work with the seal of success.
From the time when the threads of this net drawn as New skilfully as firmly around Italy were concentrated in the Posltion<rf hands of the Roman community, it was a great power, and a great took its place in the system of the Mediterranean states in Power- the room of Tarentum, Lucania, and other intermediate
and minor states erased by the last wars from the list of political powers. Rome received, as it were, an official recognition of its new position by means of the two solemn embassies, which in 481 were sent from Alexandria to 273. Rome and from Rome to Alexandria, and which, though primarily they regulated only commercial relations, beyond doubt prepared the way for a political alliance. As Carthage was contending with the Egyptian government regarding Cyrene and was soon to contend with that of Rome regarding Sicily, so Macedonia was contending with
the former for the predominant influence in Greece, with the latter proximately for the dominion of the Adriatic coasts. The new struggles, which were preparing on all sides, could not but influence each other, and Rome, as mistress of Italy, could not fail to be drawn into the wide arena which the victories and projects of Alexander the Great had marked out as the field of conflict for his successors.
decree of the senate as to the Bacchanalia in 568 the expression is used : 186. ne quis ceivis Romanus neve nominis Latini neve socium quisquam. But
in common use very frequently the second or third of these three sub divisions is omitted, and along with the Romans sometimes only those Latini nominis are mentioned, sometimes only the socii (Weissenborn on
I. iv. xxii. 50, 6), while there is no difference in the meaning. The designation homines nominis Latini ac socii Italici (Sallust. Jug. 40), correct as it is in itself, is foreign to the official usui loquendi, which knows Italia, but not Italici.
LAW— RELIGION— MILITARY SYSTEM book u
CHAPTER VIII
LAW RELIGION MILITARY SYSTEM CONDITION NATIONALITY
ECONOMIC
Develop- jN
law.
Police.
the development which law underwent during this period within the Roman community, probably the most important material innovation was that peculiar control which the community itself, and in a subordinate
its office-bearers, began to exercise over the manners and habits of the individual burgesses. The germ of it is to be sought in the right of the magistrate to inflict property-fines (multae) for offences against order 192). In the case of all fines of more than two sheep and thirty oxen or, after the cattle-fines had been the decree of the people
480. in 324 commuted into money, of more than 3020 libral asses 0£3o), the decision soon after the expulsion of the kings passed by way of appeal into the hands of the community 320); and thus procedure by fine acquired an importance which was far from originally possessing. Under the vague category of offences against order men might include any accusations they pleased, and by the higher grades in the scale of fines they might accomplish whatever they desired. The dangerous character of such
was brought to light rather than obviated the mitigating proviso, that these property- fines, where they were not fixed law at definite sum,
should not amount to half the estate belonging to the
arbitrary procedure
degree
by
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a
by
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it
chap, viii ECONOMIC CONDITION— NATIONALITY
63
person fined. To this class belonged the police-laws, which from the earliest times were especially abundant in the Roman community. Such were those enactments of the Twelve Tables, which prohibited the anointing of a dead body by persons hired for the purpose, the dressing it out with more than one cushion or more than three purple- edged coverings, the decorating it with gold or gaudy chaplets, the use of dressed wood for the funeral pile, and the perfuming or sprinkling of the pyre with frankincense or myrrh-wine ; which limited the number of flute-players in the funeral procession to ten at most ; and which forbade
wailing women and funeral banquets—in a certain measure the earliest Roman legislation against luxury. Such also were the laws—originating in the conflicts of the orders— directed against usury as well as against an undue use of the common pasture and a disproportionate appropriation of the occupiable domain-land. But far more fraught with danger than these and similar fining-laws, which at any rate formulated once for all the trespass and often also the measure of punishment, was the general prerogative of
every magistrate who exercised jurisdiction to inflict a fine for an offence against order, and, if the fine reached the amount necessary to found an appeal and the person fined did not submit to the penalty, to bring the case before the community. Already in the course of the fifth century quasi-criminal proceedings had been in this way instituted against immorality of life both in men and women, against the forestalling of grain, witchcraft, and similar matters. Closely akin to this was the quasi-jurisdiction of the censors, which likewise sprang up at this period. They were invested with authority to adjust the Roman budget and the burgess-roll, and they availed themselves of partly to impose of their own accord taxes on luxury which differed only in form from penalties on partly to abridge or withdraw the political privileges of the burgess who was
it,
it,
Modifica- thetawi
64
LAW— RELIGION— MILITARY SYSTEM book ll
reported to have been guilty of any infamous action i. 406). The extent to which this surveillance was already carried is shown by the fact that penalties of this nature were inflicted for the negligent cultivation of a man's own land, and that such a man as Publius Cornelius
290. 277. Rufinus (consul in 464, 477) was struck off the list of 275. senators by the censors of 479, because he possessed silver plate to the value of 3360 sesterces (^34). No doubt,
according to the rule generally applicable to the edicts of magistrates 335), the sentences of the censors had legal force only during their censorship, that on an average for the next five years, and might be renewed or not by the next censors at pleasure. Nevertheless this censorial prerogative was of so immense importance, that in virtue of the censorship, originally subordinate
400).
and much evil, and we do not mean to combat the view of those who hold that the evil preponderated. But we must not forget that—amidst the morality external certainly but stern and energetic, and the powerful enkindling of public spirit, that were the genuine characteristics of this period — these institutions remained exempt as yet from any really base misuse; and they were the chief instruments in repressing individual freedom, they were also the means by which the public spirit and the good old manners and order of the Roman community were with might and main upheld.
Along with these changes humanizing and moderniz- m8 tendency showed itself slowly, but yet clearly enough,
the development of Roman law. Most of the enact
became in rank and consideration the first of all
375, The government of the senate rested essentially on this twofold police control supreme and subordinate, vested in the community and its officials, and furnished with powers as extensive as they were arbitrary. Like every such arbitrary government, was productive of much good
magistracy,
in
a
if
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it
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is
(i.
chap, vin ECONOMIC CONDITION— NATIONALITY
65
ments of the Twelve Tables, which coincide with the laws of Solon and therefore may with reason be considered as in substance innovations, bear this character ; such as the securing the right of free association and the autonomy of the societies that originated under it ; the enactment that forbade the ploughing up of boundary-balks ; and the mitigation of the punishment of theft, so that a thief not caught in the act might henceforth release himself from the plaintiffs suit by payment of double compensation. The law of debt was modified in a similar sense, but not till upwards of a century afterwards, by the Poetelian law
The right freely to dispose of property, which according to the earliest Roman law was accorded to the owner in his lifetime but in the case of death had hitherto been conditional on the consent of the community, was liberated from this restriction, inasmuch as the law of the Twelve Tables or its interpretation assigned to the private testament the same force as pertained to that confirmed in the curies. This was an important step towards the break ing up of the clanships, and towards the full carrying out of individual liberty the disposal of property. The fearfully absolute paternal power was restricted by the enactment, that son thrice sold by his father should not relapse into his power, but should thenceforth be free to which — by legal inference that, strictly viewed, was no doubt absurd—was soon attached the possibility that father might voluntarily divest himself of dominion over his son by emancipation. In the law of marriage civil marriage was permitted 112); and although the full marital power was associated as necessarily with true civil as with true religious marriage, yet the permission of connection instead of marriage 73, note), formed without that power, constituted first step towards relaxa tion of the full power of the husband. The first step towards legal enforcement of married life was the tax on
389).
vol. 11
37
a a
a
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(i.
a
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(i.
66 LAW— RELIGION— MILITARY SYSTEM book ii
old bachelors (aes uxorium), with the introduction of 408. which Camillus began his public career as censor in 351.
Adminis- Changes more comprehensive than those effected in
° justice.
Code of common
the 'aw *tse^ were introduced into — what was more import ant in a political point of view, and more easily admitted of alteration —the system of judicial administration. First ^ ^ came the important limitation of the supreme judicial power by the embodiment of the common law in a written code, and the obligation of the magistrate thenceforth to decide no longer according to varying usage, but according to the written letter, in civil as well as in criminal pro-
451. 450. cedure (303, 304). The appointment of a supreme magistrate in Rome exclusively for the administration of
867. justice in 387 383), and the establishment of separate New police functionaries which took place contemporaneously
function- anes.
m Rome, and was imitated under Roman influence in all
the Latin communities
and precision of justice. These police-magistrates or aediles had, of course, certain jurisdiction at the same time assigned to them. On the one hand, they were the ordin ary civil judges for sales concluded in open market, for the cattle and slave markets in particular; and on the other hand, they ordinarily acted in processes of fines and
amercements as judges of first instance or—which was in Roman law the same thing—as public prosecutors. In consequence of this the administration of the laws impos ing fines, and the equally indefinite and politically import ant right of fining in general, were vested mainly in them. Similar but subordinate functions, having especial reference to the poorer classes, pertained to the three night- or blood- masters (ires viri nocturni or capitales), first nominated in
383, 452), secured greater speed
289. 465 they were entrusted with the duties of nocturnal police as regards fire and the public safety and with the superintendence of executions, with which certain summary jurisdiction was very soon, perhaps even from
a
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67
the outset, associated. 1 Lastly from the increasing extent of the Roman community it became necessary, out of re gard to the convenience of litigants, to station in the more remote townships special judges competent to deal at least with minor civil causes. This arrangement was the rule for the communities of burgesses sine suffragio (p. 49), and was perhaps even extended to the more remote communities of full burgesses,8 —the first germs of a Romano-municipal jurisdiction developing itself by the side of that which was strictly Roman.
In civil procedure (which, however, according to the Changes in ideas of that period included most of the crimes committed proce ur& against fellow-citizens) the division of a process into the settlement of the question of law before the magistrate
(ius), and the decision of the question of fact by a private
person nominated by the magistrate (judicium) —a division
doubtless customary even in earlier times — was on the
abolition of the monarchy prescribed by law 322) and
to that separation the private law of Rome was mainly
indebted for its logical clearness and practical precision. *
The view formerly adopted, that these tres viri belonged to the earliest period, erroneous, for colleges of magistrates with odd numbers are foreign to the oldest state-arrangements (Chronol. p. 15, note 12).
Probably the well-accredited account, that they were first nominated
in 465 (Liv. Ep. 11), should simply be retained, and the otherwise 289. suspicious inference of the falsifier Licinius Macer (in Liv. vii. 46), which makes mention of them before 450, should be simply rejected. At first SOI. undoubtedly the tres viri were nominated by the superior magistrates, as
was the case with most of the later magistrates minores; the Papirian pUHscitum, which transferred the nomination of them to the community (Festus, v. sacrament urn, p. 344, Mull. ), was at any rate not issued till
after the institution of the office of praetor peregrinus, or at the earliest towards the middle of the sixth century, for names the praetor qui inter
cives ius dicit.
This inference suggested by what Livy says (ix. 20) as to the re organization of the colony of Antium twenty years after was founded and self-evident that, while the Romans might very well impose on the inhabitant of Ostia the duty of settling all his lawsuits in Rome, the same course could not be followed with townships like Antium and Sena.
People are in the habit of praising the Romans as a nation specially privileged in respect to jurisprudence, and of gazing with wonder on their admirable law as a mystical gift of heaven presumably by way of speci-
,--
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it
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is
is
68 LAW— RELIGION— MILITARY SYSTEM book ii
In actions regarding property, the decision as to what constituted possession, which hitherto had been left to the arbitrary caprice of the magistrate, was subjected gradually to legal rules ; and, alongside of the law of property, a law of possession was developed — another step, by which the magisterial authority lost an important part of its powers. In criminal processes, the tribunal of the people, which hitherto had exercised the prerogative of mercy, became a court of legally secured appeal. If the accused after hearing (guaestio) was condemned by the magistrate and appealed to the burgesses, the magistrate proceeded in presence of these to the further hearing (anquisitio), and, when he after three times discussing the matter before the community had repeated his decision, in the fourth diet the sentence was confirmed or rejected by the burgesses. Modification was not allowed. A similar republican spirit breathed in the principles, that the house protected the
burgess, and that an arrest could only take place out of doors; that imprisonment during investigation was to be avoided ; and that it was allowable for every accused and not yet condemned burgess by renouncing his citizenship to withdraw from the consequences of condemnation, so far as they affected not his property but his person — prin
ally excusing themselves for the worthlessness of their own legal system. A glance at the singularly fluctuating and undeveloped criminal law of the Romans might show the untenableness of ideas so confused even to those who may think the proposition too simple, that a sound people has a sound law, and a morbid people an unsound.
Apart from the more general political conditions on which jurisprudence also, and indeed juris prudence especially, depends, the causes of the excellence of the Roman civil law lie mainly in two features : first, that the plaintiff and defendant were specially obliged to explain and embody in due and binding form the grounds of the demand and of the objection to comply with it ; and secondly, that the Romans appointed a permanent machinery for the edictal development of their law, and associated it immediately with practice. By the former the Romans precluded the pettifogging practices of advocates, by the latter they obviated incapable law-making, so far as such things can be prevented at all ; and by means of both in conjunction they satisfied, as far as is possible, the two conflicting requirements, that law shall constantly be fixed, and that it shall constantly be in accordance with the spirit of the age.
chap, viii ECONOMIC CONDITION—NATIONALITY
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ciples, which certainly were not embodied in formal laws and accordingly did not legally bind the prosecuting magistrate, but yet were by their moral weight of the greatest influence, particularly in limiting capital punish ment But, if the Roman criminal law furnishes a remark able testimony to the strong public spirit and to the increasing humanity of this epoch, it on the other hand suffered in its practical working from the struggles between the orders, which in this respect were specially baneful. The co-ordinate primary jurisdiction of all the public
in criminal cases, that arose out of these conflicts 354), led to the result, that there was no longer any fixed authority for giving instructions, or any serious preliminary investigation, in Roman criminal pro cedure. And, as the ultimate criminal jurisdiction was exercised in the forms and by the organs of legislation, and never disowned its origin from the prerogative of mercy as, moreover, the treatment of police fines had an injurious reaction on the criminal procedure which was externally very similar; the decision in criminal causes was pro nounced —and that not so much by way of abuse, as in some degree by virtue of the constitution —not according to fixed law, but according to the arbitrary pleasure of the judges. In this way the Roman criminal procedure was completely void of principle, and was degraded into the sport and instrument of political parties; which can the less be excused, seeing that this procedure, while especially applied to political crimes proper, was applicable also to others, such as murder and arson. The evil was aggravated
the clumsiness of that procedure, which, in concert with the haughty republican contempt for non-burgesses, gave rise to growing custom of tolerating, side by side with the more formal process, summary criminal, or rather police, procedure against slaves and common people. Here too the passionate strife regarding political processes
magistrates
a
a
by
;
(i.
Religion.
overstepped natural limits, and introduced institutions which materially contributed to estrange the Romans step by step from the idea of a fixed moral order in the administration of justice.
We are less able to trace the progress of the religious conceptions of the Romans during this epoch. In general they adhered with simplicity to the simple piety of their ancestors, and kept equally aloof from superstition and
70
LAW— RELIGION— MILITARY SYSTEM book ii
New gods, from unbelief. How vividly the idea of spiritualizing all earthly objects, on which the Roman religion was based, still prevailed at the close of this epoch, is shown by the new " God of silver " (Argentinus), who presumably came into existence only in consequence of the introduction of
269. the silver currency in 485, and who naturally was the son of the older " God of copper " (Aesculanus).
The relations to foreign lands were the same as hereto fore ; but here, and here especially, Hellenic influences were on the increase. It was only now that temples began to rise in Rome itself in honour of the Hellenic gods. The oldest was the temple of Castor and Pollux, which had been vowed in the battle at lake Regillus 438) and was
485. consecrated on 15th July 269. The legend associated with that two youths of superhuman size and beauty had been
seen fighting on the battle-field in the ranks of the Romans and immediately after the battle watering their foaming steeds in the Roman Forum at the fountain of Iuturna, and announcing the great victory, bears stamp thoroughly un- Roman, and was beyond doubt at very early period modelled on the appearance of the Dioscuri—similar down to its very details — in the famous battle fought about a century before between the Crotoniates and Locrians at the river Sagras. The Delphic Apollo too was not only con sulted—as was usual with all peoples that felt the influence of Grecian culture—and presented moreover after special successes, such as the capture of Veii, with tenth of the
a
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(i.
chap, viii ECONOMIC CONDITION—NATIONALITY
71
spoil (360), but also had a temple built for him in the city 394.
(323, renewed 401). The same honour was towards the 481. 858. close of this period accorded to Aphrodite (459), who was 295.
in some enigmatical way identified with the old Roman
garden goddess, Venus ; * and to Asklapios or Aesculapius,
who was obtained by special request from Epidaurus in the Peloponnesus and solemnly conducted to Rome (463). 291. Isolated complaints were heard in serious emergencies as
to the intrusion of foreign superstition, presumably the art
of the Etruscan haruspices (as in 326) ; but in such cases 428.
the police did not fail to take proper cognisance of the
matter.
In Etruria on the other hand, while the nation stagnated and decayed in political nullity and indolent opulence, the
of the nobility, stupid fatalism, wild and meaningless mysticism, the system of soothsaying and of mendicant prophecy gradually developed themselves, till they reached the height at which we afterwards find them. In the sacerdotal system no comprehensive changes, so far as we know, took place. The more stringent enact-
ments, that were made about 465 regarding the collection of the process-fines destined to defray the cost of public worship, point to an increase in the ritual budget of the state —a necessary result of the increase in the number of its gods and its temples. It has already been mentioned as one of the evil effects of the dissensions between the orders that an illegitimate influence began to be conceded to the colleges of men of lore, and that they were employed for the annulling of political acts 377) —a course by which on the one hand the faith of the people was shaken, and on the other hand the priests were permitted to exercise very injurious influence on public affairs.
complete revolution occurred during this epoch in
Venus probably first appears in the later sense as Aphrodite on occasion of the dedication of the temple consecrated in this year (Liv. x. 31 Becker, TopographTM, p. 473).
theological monopoly
Sacerdotal system-
289.
;1A
a
(i.
Military "
the military system. The primitive Graeco-Italian military organization, which was probably based, like the Homeric, on the selection of the most distinguished and effective warriors — who ordinarily fought on horseback — to form a
special vanguard, had in the later regal period been super seded by the legio— the old Dorian phalanx of hoplites, probably eight file deep 118). This phalanx thence forth undertook the chief burden of the battle, while the cavalry were stationed on the flanks, and, mounted or dismounted according to circumstances, were chiefly em- ployed as reserve. From this arrangement there were developed nearly at the same time the phalanx of sarrissae
Macedonia and the manipular arrangement in Italy, the former formed by closing and deepening, the latter by breaking up and multiplying, the ranks, in the first instance the division of the old legio of 8400 into two legiones of 4200 men each. The old Doric phalanx had been wholly adapted to close combat with the sword and especially with the spear, and only an accessory and subordinate position in the order of battle was assigned to missile weapons. In the manipular legion the thrusting- lance was confined to the third division, and instead of the first two were furnished with new and peculiar Italian missile weapon, the pilum— square or round piece of wood, four and half feet long, with triangular or quadrangular iron point — which had been originally perhaps invented for the defence of the ramparts of the camp, but was soon transferred from the rear to the front ranks, and was hurled the advancing line into the ranks of the enemy at distance of from ten to twenty paces.
At the same time the sword acquired far greater im portance than the short knife of the phalangite could ever have had for the volley of javelins was intended in the first instance merely to prepare the way for an attack sword in hand. While, moreover, the phalanx had, as
Manipular ^on"
? 2
LAW—RELIGION— MILITARY SYSTEM book ir
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chap. Vin ECONOMIC CONDITION— NATIONALITY
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were a single mighty lance, to be hurled at once upon the enemy, in the new Italian legion the smaller units, which existed also in the phalanx system but were in the order of battle firmly and indissolubly united, were tactically separated from each other. Not merely was the close square divided, as we have said, into two equally strong halves, but each of these was separated in the direction of its depth into the three divisions of the hastatt, prinapes, and triarii, each of a moderate depth probably amounting in ordinary cases to only four files; and was broken up along the front into ten bands (manipuli), in such a way that between every two divisions and every two maniples there was left a perceptible interval. It was a mere con tinuation of the same process of individualizing, by which the collective mode of fighting was discouraged even in the diminished tactical unit and the single combat became prominent, as is evident from the (already mentioned) de cisive part played by hand-to-hand encounters and combats with the sword. The system of entrenching the camp
underwent also a peculiar development The place where . f
Entrench- ment of camp,
the army encamped, even were it only for a single night,
was invariably provided with a regular circumvallation and
as it were converted into a fortress. Little change took Cavalry, place on the other hand in the cavalry, which in the mani-
retained the secondary part which it had occupied by the side of the phalanx. The system of officer- OfficeTM. ing the army also continued in the main unchanged ;
only now over each of the two legions of the regular army
there were set just as many war-tribunes as had hitherto commanded the whole army, and the number of staff-
officers was thus doubled. It was at this period probably
that the clear line of demarcation became established
between the subaltern officers, who as common soldiers
had to gain their place at the head of the maniples by the
sword and passed by regular promotion from the lower to
pular legion
/"'
Military discipline,
liberty
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LAW—RELIGION— MILITARY SYSTEM book ii
the higher maniples, and the military tribunes placed at the head of whole legions — six to each — in whose case there was no regular promotion, and for whom men of the better class were usually taken. In this respect it must have become a matter of importance that, while previously the subaltern as well as the staff-officers had been uniformly
362. nominated by the general, after 392 some of the latter posts were filled up through election by the burgesses
Lastly, the old, fearfully strict, military discipline remained unaltered. Still, as formerly, the general was at
to behead any man serving in his camp, and to scourge with rods the staff- officer as well as the common soldier; nor were such punishments inflicted merely on account of common crimes, but also when an officer had allowed himself to deviate from the orders which he had received, or when division had allowed itself to be surprised or had fled from the field of battle. On the
other hand, the new military organization necessitated far more serious and prolonged military training than the previous phalanx system, in which the solidity of the mass
kept even the inexperienced in their ranks. If nevertheless no special soldier-class sprang up, but on the contrary the army still remained, as before, burgess army, this object was chiefly attained abandoning the former mode ofrank ing the soldiers according to property 116) and arranging them according to length of service. The Roman recruit now entered among the light-armed " skirmishers " (rorarii), who fought outside of the line and especially with stone slings, and he advanced from this step by step to the first and then to the second division, till at length the soldiers of long service and experience were associated together in the corps of the iriarii, which was numerically the weakest but imparted its tone and spirit to the whole army.
The excellence of this military organization, which became the primary cause of the superior political position
397)-
Training and classes
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7S
of the Roman community, chiefly depended on the three Military great military principles of maintaining a reserve, of com- m^p^BIe bining the close and distant modes of fighting, and of legion, combining the offensive and the defensive. The system
of a reserve was already foreshadowed in the earlier employment of the cavalry, but it was now completely
developed by the partition of the army into three divisions
and the reservation of the flower of the veterans for the last
and decisive shock. While the Hellenic phalanx had developed the close, and the Oriental squadrons of horse
armed with bows and light missile spears the distant, modes
of fighting respectively, the Roman combination of the
heavy javelin with the sword produced results similar, as
has justly been remarked, to those attained in modern
warfare by the introduction of bayonet-muskets ; the volley
of javelins prepared the way for the sword encounter,
exactly in the same way as a volley of musketry now
precedes a charge with the bayonet. Lastly, the elaborate
system of encampment allowed the Romans to combine
the advantages of defensive and offensive war and to
decline or give battle according to circumstances, and in
the latter case to fight under the ramparts of their camp
just as under the walls of a fortress — the Roman, says a
Roman proverb, conquers by sitting still.
That this new military organization was in the main a Roman, or at any rate Italian, remodelling and improvement
of the old Hellenic tactics of the phalanx, is plain. If legion, some germs of the system of reserve and of the individual
izing of the smaller subdivisions of the army are found to
occur among the later Greek strategists,
Xenophon, this only shows that they felt the defectiveness
of the old system, but were not well able to obviate
The manipular legion appears fully developed in the war
with Pyrrhus when and under what circumstances arose, whether at once or gradually, can no longer be ascertained.
especially
Origin
. ,
;
it
it.
National economy.
The fanners.
In the national economy agriculture was, and continued
76
LAW— RELIGION— MILITARY SYSTEM book ii
The first tactical system which the Romans encountered, fundamentally different from the earlier Italo-Hellenic system, was the Celtic sword-phalanx. It is not impossible that the subdivision of the army and the intervals between the maniples in front were arranged with a view to resist, as they did resist, its first and only dangerous charge ; and it accords with this hypothesis that Marcus Furius Camillus, the most celebrated Roman general of the Gallic epoch, is presented in various detached notices as the reformer of the Roman military system. The further traditions associated with the Samnite and Pyrrhic wars are neither sufficiently accredited, nor can they with certainty be duly arranged;1 although it is in itself probable that the pro longed Samnite mountain warfare exercised a lasting influence on the individual development of the Roman soldier, and that the struggle with one of the first masters of the art of war, belonging to the school of the great Alexander, effected an improvement in the technical features of the Roman military system.
to j^ ^ soc;ai
community and of the new Italian state. The common assembly and the army consisted of Roman farmers ; what as soldiers they had acquired by the sword, they secured as
1 According to Roman tradition the Romans originally carried quad rangular shields, after which they borrowed from the Etruscans the round hoplite shield (clupeus, dawls), and from the Samnites the later square shield (scutum, Svpeos), and the javelin (veru) (Diodor. Vat. Fr. p. 54 ; Sallust, Cat. 51, 38 ; Virgil, Aen. vii. 665 ; Festus, Ep. v. Samnites, p. 337, MOIL ; and the authorities cited in Marquardt, Handb. iii. 2, 341). But it may be regarded as certain that the hoplite shield or, in other words, the tactics of the Doric phalanx were imitated not from the Etruscans, but directly from the Hellenes. As to the scutum, that large, cylindrical, convex leather shield must certainly have taken the place of the flat copper clupeus, when the phalanx was broken up into maniples ; but the undoubted derivation of the word from the Greek casts suspicion on the derivation of the thing itself from the Samnites. From the Greeks the Romans derived also the sling (funda from (r0e,'86ri;, like fides from aQISn), 393). The pilum was considered by the ancients as quite a Roman invention.
sta^ political basis both of the Roman
(i.
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77
colonists by the plough. The insolvency of the middle class of landholders gave rise to the formidable internal crises of the third and fourth centuries, amidst which it seemed as if the young republic could not but be destroyed. The revival of the Latin farmer-class, which was produced during the fifth century partly by the large assignations of land and incorporations, partly by the fall in the rate of interest and the increase of the Roman population, was at once the effect and the cause of the mighty development of Roman power. The acute soldier's eye of Pyrrhus
justly discerned the cause of the political and military ascendency of the Romans in the flourishing condition of
the Roman farms. But the rise also of husbandry on a Farming
estate*>
large scale among the Romans appears to fall within this period. In earlier times indeed there existed landed estates of—at least comparatively —large size ; but their manage ment was not farming on a large scale, it was simply a husbandry of numerous small parcels 245). On the other hand the enactment in the law of 387, not incom- 867. patible indeed with the earlier mode of management but
yet far more appropriate to the later, viz. that the land holder should be bound to employ along with his slaves proportional number of free persons 381), may well be regarded as the oldest trace of the later centralized farming of estates;1 and deserves notice that even here at its first emergence essentially rests on slave-holding. How
arose, must remain an undecided point; possibly the Carthaginian plantations in Sicily served as models to the oldest Roman landholders, and perhaps even the appearance of wheat in husbandry by the side of spelt 240), which Varro places about the period of the decemvirs, was con nected with that altered style of management. Still less
Varro (De S. R. a, evidently conceives the author of the Licinian agrarian law as farming in person his extensive lands although, we may add, the story may easily have been invented to explain the cognomen
(«W4
;
(i.
i. 9)
it it
1
(i.
it
(i.
a
Inland in Italy.
can we ascertain how far this method of husbandry had already during this period spread ; but the history of the wars with Hannibal leaves no doubt that it cannot yet have become the rule, nor can it have yet absorbed the Italian farmer class. Where it did come into vogue, how ever, it annihilated the older clientship based on the
precarium; just as the modern system of large farms has been formed in great part by the suppression of petty holdings and the conversion of hides into farm-fields. It admits of no doubt that the restriction of this agricultural clientship very materially contributed towards the distress of the class of small cultivators.
Respecting the internal intercourse of the Italians with eacn otner our written authorities are silent ; coins alone furnish some information. We have already mentioned
251) that in Italy, with the exception of the Greek cities and of the Etruscan Populonia, there was no coinage during the first three centuries of Rome, and that cattle in the first instance, and subsequently copper by weight, served as the medium of exchange. Within the present epoch occurred the transition on the part of the Italians from the system of barter to that of money and in their money they were naturally led at first to Greek models. The circum stances of central Italy led however to the adoption of copper instead of silver as the metal for their coinage, and the unit of coinage was primarily based on the previous unit of value, the copper pound hence they cast their coins instead of stamping them, for no die would have sufficed for pieces so large and heavy. Yet there seems from the first to have been fixed ratio for the relative value of copper and silver (250 and with reference to that ratio the copper coinage seems to have been issued; so that, for example, in Rome the large copper piece, the as, was equal in value to scruple (^¥ of pound) of silver.
circumstance historically more remarkable, that
78
LAW— RELIGION— MILITARY SYSTEM book ii
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chaf. viii ECONOMIC CONDITION— NATIONALITY
79
coining in Italy most probably originated in Rome, and in fact with the decemvirs, who found in the Solonian legisla tion a pattern for the regulation of their coinage ; and that from Rome it spread over a number of Latin, Etruscan, Umbrian, and east-Italian communities, —a clear proof of the superior position which Rome from the beginning of the fourth century held in Italy. As all these communities subsisted side by side in formal independence, legally the monetary standard was entirely local, and the territory of every city had its own monetary system. Nevertheless the standards of copper coinage in central and northern Italy may be comprehended in three groups, within which the coins in common intercourse seem to have been treated as homogeneous. These groups are, first, the coins of the cities of Etruria lying north of the Ciminian Forest and those of Umbria ; secondly, the coins of Rome and Latium ; and lastly, those of the eastern seaboard. We have already observed that the Roman coins held a certain ratio to silver by weight ; on the other hand we find those of the east coast of Italy placed in a definite proportional relation to the silver coins which were current from an early period in southern Italy, and the standard of which was adopted by the Italian immigrants, such as the Bruttians, Lucanians, and Nolans, by the Latin colonies in that quarter, such as Cales and Suessa, and even by the Romans themselves for their possessions in Lower Italy. Accordingly the inland traffic of Italy must have been divided into corresponding provinces, which dealt with one another like foreign nations.
In transmarine commerce the relations we have previ- Trans- ously described 256) between Sicily and Latium, Etruria ^^^^ and Attica, the Adriatic and Tarentum, continued to sub
sist during the epoch before us or rather, strictly speaking,
belonged to for although facts of this class, which as
rule are mentioned without date, have been placed together
for the purpose of presenting general view under the first
a a
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a
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80 LAW— RELIGION— MILITARY SYSTEM book ii
period, the statements made apply equally to the present. The clearest evidence in this respect of course, that of the coins. As the striking of Etruscan silver money after an Attic standard 257), and the penetrating of Italian and especially of Latin copper into Sicily 259) testify to the two former routes of traffic, so the equivalence, which we have just mentioned, between the silver money of Magna Graecia and the copper coinage of Picenum and Apulia, forms, with numerous other indications, an evidence of the active traffic which the Greeks of Lower Italy, the Tarentines in particular, held with the east Italian seaboard. The commerce again, which was at an earlier period perhaps still more active, between the Latins and the Campanian Greeks seems to have been disturbed the Sabellian im migration, and to have been of no great moment during the first hundred and fifty years of the republic The refusal of the Samnites in Capua and Cumae to supply the Romans
411. with grain in the famine of 343 may be regarded as an indication of the altered relations which subsisted between Latium and Campania, till at the commencement of the fifth century the Roman arms restored and gave increased impetus to the old intercourse.
Touching on details, we may be allowed to mention, as one of the few dated facts in the history of Roman commerce,
tOO. the notice drawn from the annals of Ardea, that in 454 the first barber came from Sicily to Ardea and to dwell for moment on the painted pottery which was sent chiefly from Attica, but also from Corcyra and Sicily, to Lucania, Cam pania, and Etruria, to serve there for the decoration of tombs— traffic, as to the circumstances of which we are accidentally better informed than as to any other article of transmarine commerce. The commencement of this import trade probably falls about the period of the expulsion of the Tarquins for the vases of the oldest style, which are of very rare occurrence in Italy, were probably painted in
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chap, viii ECONOMIC CONDITION—NATIONALITY 8i
the second half of the third century of the city, while those 500-450. of the chaste style, occurring in greater numbers, belong to
the first half, those of the most finished beauty to the second 450-400. half, of the fourth century ; and the immense quantities of 400-350. the other vases, often marked by showiness and size but
seldom by excellence in workmanship, must be assigned as
a whole to the following century. It was from the Hellenes 350-250. undoubtedly that the Italians derived this custom of embel
lishing tombs; but while the moderate means and fine discernment of the Greeks confined the practice in their
case within narrow limits, it was stretched in Italy by bar
baric opulence and barbaric extravagance far beyond its
original and proper bounds. It is a significant circumstance, however, that in Italy this extravagance meets us only in
the lands that had a Hellenic semi-culture. Any one who
can read such records will perceive in the cemeteries of Etruria and Campania —the mines whence our museums have
been replenished —a significant commentary on the accounts
of the ancients as to the Etruscan and Campanian semi-
culture choked amidst wealth and arrogance 436, 457).
The homely Samnite character on the other hand remained
at all times stranger to this foolish luxury the absence
of Greek pottery from the tombs exhibits, quite as palpably
as the absence of Samnite coinage, the slight development
of commercial intercourse and of urban life in this region.
still more worthy of remark that Latium also, although not less near to the Greeks than Etruria and Campania, and in closest intercourse with them, almost wholly refrained from such sepulchral decorations. more than probable —especially on account of the altogether different character of the tombs in the unique Praeneste — that in this result we have to recognize the influence of the stern Roman morality or — the expression be preferred — of the rigid Roman police. Closely connected with this subject are the already-
mentioned interdicts, which the law of the Twelve Tables
VOL. 11
38
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It is
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Capital in Rome.
82 LAW— RELIGION— MILITARY SYSTEM book 11
fulminated against purple bier-cloths and gold ornaments placed beside the dead ; and the banishment of all silver plate, excepting the salt-cellar and sacrificial ladle, from the Roman household, so far at least as sumptuary laws and the terror of censorial censure could banish it : even in architecture we shall again encounter the same spirit of hostility to luxury whether noble or ignoble. Although, however, in consequence of these influences Rome probably preserved a certain outward simplicity longer than Capua and Volsinii, her commerce and trade —on which, in fact, along with agriculture her prosperity from the beginning rested—must not be regarded as having been inconsider able, or as having less sensibly experienced the influence
of her new commanding position.
No urban middle class in the proper sense of that
term, no body of independent tradesmen and merchants, was ever developed in Rome. The cause of this was—in addition to the disproportionate centralization of capital which occurred at an early period —mainly the employment of slave labour. It was usual in antiquity, and was in fact a necessary consequence of slavery, that the minor trades in towns were very frequently carried on by slaves, whom their master established as artisans or merchants ; or by freedmen, in whose case the master not only fre quently furnished the capital, but also regularly stipulated for a share, often the half, of the profits. Retail trading and dealing in Rome were undoubtedly constantly on the increase; and there are proofs that the trades which minister to the luxury of great cities began to be concen trated in Rome—the Ficoroni casket for instance was designed in the fifth century of the city by a Praenestine artist and was sold to Praeneste, but was nevertheless manufactured in Rome. 1 But as the net proceeds even of
1 The conjecture that Novius Plautius, the artist who worked at this casket for Dindia Macolnia, in Rome, may have been a Campanian,
chap, vni ECONOMIC CONDITION—NATIONALITY
83
retail business flowed for the most part into the coffers of the great houses, no industrial and commercial middle- class arose to an extent corresponding to that increase. As little were the great merchants and great manufacturers marked off as a distinct class from the great landlords. On the one hand, the latter were from ancient times (L 261, 343) simultaneously traders and capitalists, and combined in their hands lending on security, trafficking on a great scale, the undertaking of contracts, and the executing of works for the state. On the other hand, from the emphatic moral importance which in the Roman commonwealth attached to the possession of land, and from its constituting the sole basis of political privileges— a basis which was infringed for the first time only towards the close of this epoch 396)— was undoubtedly at this period already usual for the fortunate speculator to
invest part of his capital in land. clear
also from the political privileges given to freedmen possess ing freeholds 396), that the Roman statesmen sought
this way to diminish the dangerous class of the rich who had no land.
But while neither an opulent urban middle class nor
strictly close body of capitalists grew up in Rome, was ment of constantly acquiring more and more the character of great city, great city. This plainly indicated by the increasing
number of slaves crowded together in the capital
attested the very serious slave conspiracy of 335), and 419.
still more by the increasing multitude of freedmen, which
was gradually becoming inconvenient and dangerous, as
we may safely infer from the considerable tax imposed on manumissions in 397 389) and from the limitation of 357.
the political rights of freedmen in 450 396). For not 804.
only was implied in the circumstances that the great
refuted by the old Praenestine tomb-stones recently discovered, on
which, among other Macolnii and Plautii, there occurs also Magulnius, «on of Plautius (/. . Magolnio fla. /. ).
Lucius
enough
Develop-
(as
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it aa
is
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(i.
is
(i.
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Urban 90
majority of the persons manumitted had to devote them selves to trade or commerce, but manumission itself among the Romans was, as we have already said, less an act of liberality than an industrial speculation, the master often finding it more for his interest to share the profits of the trade or commerce of the freedman than to assert his title to the whole proceeds of the labour of his slave. The increase of manumissions must therefore have necessarily kept pace with the increase of the commercial and indus trial activity of the Romans.
A similar indication of the rising importance of urban life in Rome is presented by the great development of the urban police. To this period probably belong in great measure the enactments under which the four aediles
divided the city into four police districts, and made pro vision for the discharge of their equally important and difficult functions —for the efficient repair of the network of drains small and large by which Rome was pervaded, as well as of the public buildings and places ; for the proper cleansing and paving of the streets ; for obviating the nuisances of ruinous buildings, dangerous animals, or foul smells; for the removing of waggons from the highway except during the hours of evening and night, and generally for the keeping open of the communication ; for the unin terrupted supply of the market of the capital with good and cheap grain ; for the destruction of unwholesome articles, and the suppression of false weights and measures ; and for the special oversight of baths, taverns, and houses of bad
fame.
In respect to buildings the regal period, particularly the
epoch of the great conquests, probably accomplished more than the first two centuries of the republic. Structures like the temples on the Capitol and on the Aventine and the great Circus were probably as obnoxious to the frugal fathers of the city as to the burgesses who gave their task
84
LAW— RELIGION— MILITARY SYSTEM BOOK il
Building.
chap, vin ECONOMIC CONDITION—NATIONALITY
85
work; and it is remarkable that perhaps the most con siderable building of the republican period before the Samnite wars, the temple of Ceres in the Circus, was a work of Spurius Cassius (261), who in more than one 493. respect sought to lead the commonwealth back to the traditions of the kings. The governing aristocracy more
over repressed private luxury with a rigour such as the rule of the kings, if prolonged, would certainly not have dis
But at length even the senate was no longer able impulse to resist the superior force of circumstances. It was Appius glven t0 Claudius who in his epoch-making censorship (442) threw 312. aside the antiquated rustic system of parsimonious hoarding,
and taught his fellow-citizens to make a worthy use of the
public resources. He began that noble system of public
works of general utility, which justifies, if anything can
justify, the military successes of Rome even from the point
of view of the welfare of the nations, and which even now
in its ruins furnishes some idea of the greatness of Rome to thousands on thousands who have never read a page of her
history. To him the Roman state was indebted for its
great military road, and the city of Rome for its first aqueduct Following in the steps of Claudius, the Roman
senate wove around Italy that network of roads and
fortresses, the formation of which has already been described 39), and without which, as the history of all military states from the Achaemenidae down to the creator
of the road over the Simplon shows, no military hegemony
can subsist. Following in the steps of Claudius, Manius Curius built from the proceeds of the Pyrrhic spoil second aqueduct for the capital (482) and some years previously 272. (464) with the gains of the Sabine war he opened up for 200. the Velino, at the point above Terni where falls into the Nera, that broader channel which the stream still flows,
with view to drain the beautiful valley of Rieti and thereby to gain space for large burgess settlement along
played.
a
a
in
;
it
a
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Embellish- the city.
86 LAW—RELIGION— MILITARY SYSTEM book 11
with a modest farm for himself. Such works, in the eyes of persons of intelligence, threw into the shade the aimless magnificence of the Hellenic temples.
The style of living also among the citizens now was altered. About the time of Pyrrhus silver plate began to make its appearance on Roman tables, and the chroniclers date the disappearance of shingle roofs
884. in Rome from 470.