No More Learning

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. It is in the nature of the case evident
438 SUBJUGATION
OF THE LATINS BOOK ll
SUBJUGATXON
CHAPTER V
or THE LATINS AND CAMPANIANS BY ROME
shaken and that the change in the constitution of Rome could not but re-estab
lbhe¢
499! 496!
affect both the relations of the Roman state towards Latium and the internal organization of the Latin communities themselves; and that it did so, is obvious from tradition. The fluctuations which the revolution in Rome occasioned in the Romano-Latin confederacy are attested by the legend, unusually vivid and various in its hues, of the victory at the lake Regillus, which the dictator or consul Aulus Postumius (2 5 5? 258 ? ) is said to have gained over the Latins with the help of the Dioscuri, and still more definitely by the renewal of the perpetual league between Rome and Latium by Spurius Cassius in his
powerfully
493. second consulate (261). These narratives, however, give us no information as to the main matter, the legal relation between the new Roman republic and the Latin con federacy; and what from other sources we learn regarding that relation comes to us without date, and can only be inserted here with an approximation to probability.
The nature of a hegemony implies that it becomes gradually converted into sovereignty by the mere inward force of circumstances; and the Roman hegemony over
CBAP. v AND CAMPANIAN S BY ROME
439
Latium formed no exception to the rule. It was based Original
upon the essential equality of rights between the Roman equality of rights
state on the one side and the Latin confederacy on the between
but at least in matters of war and the Rome and Iatium.
other
treatment of the acquisitions thereby made this relation between the single state on the one hand and the league of states on the other virtually involved hegemony. According to the original constitution of the league not only was the right of making wars and treaties with foreign states-in other words, the full right of political self determination—reserved in all probability both to Rome and to the individual towns of the Latin league; and when
130)
joint war took place, Rome and Latium probably furnished the like contingent, each, as rule, an “army” of 8400 men but the chief command was held by the Roman general, who then nominated the olficers of the staff, and so the leaders~of-division (trz'bum' mih'tum), according to his own choice. In case of victory the moveable part of the spoil, as well as the conquered territory, was shared between Rome and the confederacy; when the establish ment of fortresses in the conquered territory was resolved on, their garrisons and population were composed partly of Roman, partly of confederate colonists; and not only so, but the newly-founded community was received as a sovereign federal state into the Latin confederacy and furnished with seat and vote in the Latin diet.
These stipulations must probably even in the regal Encroach.
period, certainly in the republican epoch, have undergone ments on that
alteration more and more to the disadvantage of the con- equality of federacy and to the further development of the hegemony rights.
of Rome. The earliest that fell into abeyance was beyond As to Wm doubt the right of the confederacy to make wars and $2,,‘
The original equality of the two armies
5:; viii. 14, and Dionys. 15; but most clearly from Polyb. vi. a6.
evident from Liv.
I 8,
a ;1
is
i.
a
(p. ;
a
a
in
44° SUBJUGATION
OF THE LATINS aoox r!
treaties with foreigners;1 the decision of war and treaty
As to the passed once for all to Rome. The staff oflicers for the
oflicering of the army.
Latin troops must doubtless in earlier times have been likewise Latins ; afterwards for that purpose Roman citizens were taken, if not exclusively, at any rate predominantly. 2 On the other hand, afterwards as formerly, no stronger contingent could he demanded from the Latin confederacy as a whole than was furnished by the Roman community; and the Roman commander-in-chief was likewise bound not to break up the Latin contingents, but to keep the contingent sent by each community as a separate division of the army under the leader whom that community had appointed. 8 The right of the Latin confederacy to an equal share in the moveable spoil and in the conquered land continued to subsist in form; in reality, however, the substantial fruits of war beyond doubt went, even at an early period, to the leading state. Even in the founding of the federal fortresses or the so-called Latin colonies as a rule presumably most, and not unfrequently all, of the
1 Dionysius (viii. I5) expressly states, that in the later federal treaties between Rome and Latium the Latin communities were interdicted from calling out their contingents of their own motion and sending them into the field alone.
3 These Latin staff-officers were the twelve praefecti . totiorum, who subsequently, when the old phalanx had been resolved into the later legions and alae, had the charge of the two alas of the federal contingents, six to each ala, just as the twelve war-tribunes of the Roman army had charge of the two legions, six to each legion. Polybius (vi. 26, 5) states that the consul nominated the former, as he originally nominated the latter. Now, as according to the ancient maxim of law, that every person under obligation of service might become an oflicer (p. 106), it was legally allowable for the general to appoint a Latin as leader of a Roman, as well as conversely a Roman as leader of a Latin, legion, this led to the practical result that the tribuni militum were wholly, and the
praefecti raciorum at least ordinarily, Romans.
‘ These were the decuflanes tumarum and fraefecti cohorlium (Polyb.
vi. :1, 5; Liv. xxv. r4; Sallust. Jug. 69, at 01. ) Of course, as the Roman consuls were in law and ordinarily also in fact commanders-in chief, the presidents of the community in the dependent towns also were perhaps throughout, or at least very frequently, placed at the head of the community-contingcnts (Liv. xxiii. r9; Orelli, Inur. 7022). indeed, the usual name given to the Latin magistrates (praetarer) indicates that they were oficers.
A: to ac qulsitionl in war.
CHAP. v AND CAMPANIANS BY ROME
44!
colonists were Romans; and although by the transfer ence they were converted from Roman burgesses into members of an allied community, the newly planted town ship in all probability frequently retained a preponderant -and for the confederacy dangerous-attachment to the real mother-city.
The rights, on the contrary, which were secured by the Private federal treaties to the individual burgess of one of the allied rights. communities in every city belonging to the league, under
went no restriction. These included, in particular, full equality of rights as to the acquisition of landed property
and moveable estate, as to trafiic and exchange, marriage and testament, and an unlimited liberty of migration; so that not only was a man who had burgess-rights in a town of the league legally entitled to settle in any other, but where ever he settled, he as a right'sharer (mum'cqis) participated in all private and political rights and duties with the ex ception of eligibility to office, and was even-although in a limited fashion-entitled to vote at least in the comitia tributa. 1
Of some such nature, in all probability, was the relation between the Roman community and the Latin confederacy in the first period of the republic. We cannot, however ascertain what elements are to be referred to earlier stipulations, and what to the revision of the alliance in 261.
With somewhat greater certainty the remodelling of the arrangements of the several communities belonging to the Latin confederacy, after the pattern of the consular
1 Such a metoikos was not like an actual burgess assigned to a specific
voting district once for all, but before each particular vote the district in
which the metoeci were upon that occasion to vote was fixed by lot. ties afier
In reality this probably amounted to the concession to the Latins of one vote in the Roman camih'a fributa. As a place in some tribe was a preliminary condition of the ordinary centuriate suffrage, if the metoen' shared in the voting in the assembly of the centuries—which we do not know—a similar allotment must have been fixed for the latter. In the curies they must have taken part like the plebeians.
493.
the Roman pattern.
Remodel ling ot' the arrange ments of the Latin communi
442 SUBJUGATION
OF THE LATINS BOOK ll
constitution in Rome, may be characterized as an innova tion and introduced in this connection. For, although the different communities may very well have arrived at the abolition of royalty in itself independently of each other 31 the identity in the appellation of the new annual kings in the Roman and other commonwealths of Latium, and the comprehensive application of the peculiar
of collegiateness,1 evidently point to some external connection. At some time or other after the expulsion of the Tarquins from Rome the arrangements of the Latin communities must have been throughout revised in accordance with the scheme of the consular constitution. This adjustment of the Latin constitutions in conformity with that of the leading city may possibly belong only to later period; but internal probability rather favours the supposition that the Roman nobility,
Ordinarily, as well known, the Latin communities were presided over by two praetors. Besides these there occur in several communities single magistrates, who in that case bear the title of dictator as in Alba (Orelli-Henzen, later. 2293), Tusculum (p. 445, note 2), Lanuvium (Cicero, pro Mil. 1o, 27; 17, 45; Asconius, in Mil. p. 32, OrelL; Orelli, n. 2786, 5157, 6086); Compitum (Orelli, 3324); Nomentum
(Orelli, 208, 6138, 7032; comp. Henzen, Bullett. 1858, 169); and Aricia (Orelli, n. 1455). To these falls to be added the similar dictator in the eivitas rine sufiagia of Caere (Orelli, n. 3787, 5772 also Garrucci Din. arc/l. p. 31, although erroneously placed after Sutrium); and further the officials of the like name at Fidenae (Orelli, 112). All these magistracies or priesthoods that originated in magistracies (the dictator of Caere to be explained in accordance with Liv. ix. 43 Anagninir magirtratibus praeter quam sacrorum curatiane inlerdictum), were annual (Orelli, 208). The statement of Macer likewise and of the annalists who borrowed from him, that Alba was at the time of its fall no longer under kings, but under annual directors (Dionys. v. 74; Plutarch, Romul. 27; Liv. 23), presumably a mere inference from the institution, with which he was acquainted, of the sacerdotal Alban dictatorship which was beyond doubt annual like that of Nomentum; a view in which, moreover, the democratic partisanship of its author may have come into play. It
may be question whether the inference valid, and whether, even if Alba at the time of its dissolution wa under rulers holding oflice for life, the abolition of monarchy in Rome might not subsequently lead to the conversion of the Alban dictatorship into an annual ofiice.
All these Iatin magistracies substantially coincide in reality, as well as specially in name, with the arrangement established in Rome by the revolution in a way which not adequately explained by the mere similarity of the political circumstances underlying them.
principle
is
i. a
is
i.
(p. 5),
is
is
:;
p. ;
1
is
a
CHAP- V AND CAMPANIANS BY ROME
443
after having effected the abolition of royalty for life at home, suggested a similar change of constitution to the communities of the Latin confederacy, and at length introduced aristocratic government everywhere in Latium notwithstanding the serious resistance, imperilling the stability of the Romano-Latin league itself, which seems to have been offered on the one hand by the expelled Tarquins, and on the other by the royal clans and by partisans well affected to monarchy in the other communi ties of Latium. The mighty development of the power of Etruria that occurred at this very time, the constant assaults of the Veientes, and the expedition of Porsena, may have materially contributed to secure the adherence of the Latin nation to the once-established form of union, or, in other words, to the continued recognition of the
of Rome, and disposed them for its sake to acquiesce in a change of constitution for which, beyond doubt, the way had been in many respects prepared even in the bosom of the Latin communities, nay perhaps to submit even to an enlargement of the rights of I hegemony.
supremacy
The permanently united nation was able not only to maintain, but also to extend on all sides its power. We have already (p. 414) mentioned that the Etruscans remained only for a short time in possession of supremacy over Latium, and that the relations there soon returned to the position in which they stood during the regal period; but it was not till more than a century after the expulsion of the kings from Rome that any real extension of the Roman boundaries took place in this direction.
With the Sabines who occupied the middle mountain
from the borders of the Umbrians down to the
region between the Tiber and the Anio, and who, at the Sabines. epoch when the history of Rome begins, penetrated
and conquering as far as Latium itself, the
range
fighting
223:“
Extension
253°“ Latium to
ihniiefitb.
Atthe
At the
Romans notwithstanding their immediate neighbourhood subsequently came comparatively little into contact. The feeble sympathy of the Sabines with the desperate re sistance offered by the neighbouring peoples in the east and south, is evident even from the accounts of the annals; and —what is of more importance—we find here no fortresses to keep the land in subjection, such as were so numerously established especially in the Volscian plain. Perhaps this lack of opposition was connected with the fact that the Sabine hordes probably about this very time poured them selves over Lower Italy. Allured by the pleasantness of the settlements on the Tifernus and Volturnus, they appear to have interfered but little in the conflicts of which the region to the south of the Tiber was the arena.
Far more vehement and lasting was the resistance of
444 SUBJUGATION
OF THE LATINS BOOK It
expense of the Aequi, who, having their settlements to the eastward of the Aequi
and Volsci. Rome as far as the valleys of the Turano and Salto and on the northern verge of the Fucine lake, bordered with the Sabines and Marsi,1 and of the Volsci, who to the south of the Rutuli settled around Ardea, and of the Latins extend ing southward as far as Cora, possessed the coast almost as far as the river Liris along with the adjacent islands and in the interior the whole region drained by the Liris. We do not intend to narrate the feuds annually renewed with these two peoples-feuds which are related in the Roman chronicles in such a way that the most insignificant foray is scarcely distinguishable from a momentous war, and historical connection is totally disregarded; it is suflicient to indicate the permanent results. We plainly perceive that it was the especial aim of the Romans and Latins
1 The country of the Aequi embraces not merely the valley of the Anio above Tibur and the territory of the later Latin colonies Carsioli (on the upper part of the Turano) and Alba (on the Fucine lake), but also the district of the later municipium of the Aequiculi, who are nothing but that remnant of the Aequi to which, after the subjugation by the Romans, and after the assignation of the largest portion of the territory to Roman or
Latin colonists, municipal independence was left.
CRAP. V AND CAMPANIAN S BY ROME
445
to separate the Aequi from the Volsci, and to become masters of the communications between them; in the region between the southern slope of the Alban range, the Volscian mountains and the Pomptine marshes, moreover,
the Latins and the Volscians appear to have come first
into contact and to have even had their settlements inter mingled. 1 In this region the Latins took the first steps beyond the bounds of their own land, and federal fortresses
on foreign soil-Latin colonies, as they were called-were
first established, namely: in the plain Velitrae (as is alleged, about 260) beneath the Alban range itself, and Suessa in the 494. Pomptine low lands, in the mountains Norba (as is alleged,
in 262) and Signia (alleged to have been strengthened in 492. 259), both of which lie at the points of connection between 495. the Aequian and Volscian territories. The object was League attained still more fully by the accession of the Hemici to with the
Hernici. the league of the Romans and Latins (268), an accession 486.
which isolated the Volscians completely, and provided the league with a bulwark against the Sabellian tribes dwelling on the south and east; it is easy therefore to perceive why this little people obtained the concession of full equality with the two others in counsel and in distribution of the
The feebler Aequi were thenceforth but little for midable; it was suflicient to undertake from time to time a plundering expedition against them. The Rutuli also, who bordered with Latium on the south in the plain along the coast, early succumbed; their town Ardea was converted into a Latin colony as early as 3n. 2 The Volscians
1 To all appearance Velitrae, although situated in the plain, was originally Volscian, and so a Latin colony; Cora, on the other hand, on the Volscian mountains, was originally Latin.
2 Not long afterwards must have taken place the founding of the Nemus Diarrae in the forest of Aricia, which, according to Cato's account (p. 12, Jordan), a Tusculan dictator accomplished for the urban com munities of old Latium, Tusculum, Aricia, Lanuvium, Laurentum, Cora, and Tibur, and of the two Latin colonies (which therefore stand last) Suessa Pometia and Ardea (popular Ardealir Rutulur). The absence of Praeneste and of the smaller communities of the old Latium shows, as was
spoil.
Crises within the Romano Latin league.
882.
waged no further wars against Rome.
But the more decided the successes that the league
of Romans, Latins, and Hernici achieved against the Etruscans, Aequi, Volsci, and Rutuli, the more that league became liable to disunion. The reason lay partly in the increase of the hegemonic power of Rome, of which we have already spoken as necessarily springing out of the existing circumstances, but which nevertheless was felt as a
implied in the nature of the case, that not all the communities of the Latin league at that time took part in the conseu'ation. That it falls before 372 is proved by the emergence of Pometia (p. 449), and the list quite accords with what can otherwise be ascertained as to the state of the league shortly after the accession of Ardea.
More credit may be given to the traditional statements regarding the years of the foundations than to most of the Oldest traditions, seeing that the numbering of the year aé urbe condita, common to the Italian cities, has to all appearance preserved, by direct tradition, the year in which the colonies were founded.
446 SUBJUGATION
OF THE LATINS BOOK II
opposed a more serious resistance. The first notable success, after those mentioned above, achieved over them by the Romans was, remarkably enough, the foundation of
893. Circeii in 361, which, as long as Antium and Tarracina continued free, can only have held communication with Latium by sea. Attempts were often made to occupy
467. Antium, and one was temporarily successful in 287 ; but in 459. 295 the town recovered its freedom, and it was not till after the Gallic conflagration that, in consequence of a violent war 889-877 of thirteen years (365-377), the Romans gained a decided superiority in the Antiate and Pomptine territory. Satricum,
not far from Antium, was occupied with a Latin colony 885. in 369, and not long afterwards probably Antium itself as well as Tarracina. 1 The Pomptine territory was secured by
882. 379. the founding of the fortress Setia (372, strengthened in 375),
and was distributed into farm-allotments and
883. districts in the year 371 and following years. After this date the Volscians still perhaps rose in revolt, but they
1 The two do not appear as Latin colonies in the so-called Cassian list 882. 848. about 372, but they so appear in the Carthaginian treaty of 406; the
towns had thus become Latin colonies in the interval.
burgess
can. v AND CAMPANIANS BY ROME
447
heavy burden in Latium; partly in particular acts of odious injustice perpetrated by the leading community. Of this nature was especially the infamous sentence of arbitration between the Aricini and the Rutuli in Ardea in 308, in 446. which the Romans, called in to be arbiters regarding a border territory in dispute between the two communities,
took it to themselves; and when this decision occasioned in Ardea internal dissensions in which the people wished to join the Volsci, while the nobility adhered to Rome, these dis sensions were still more disgracefully employed as a pretext for the—already mentioned—sending of Roman colonists into the wealthy city, amongst whom the lands of the adherents of the party opposed to Rome were distributed
The main cause however of the internal breaking 44! . up of the league was the very subjugation of the common
foe; forbearance ceased on one side, devotedness ceased
on the other, from the time when they thought that they
had no longer need of each other. The open breach between the Latins and Hernici on the one hand and the Romans on the other was more immediately occasioned partly by the capture of Rome by the Celts and the
weakness which it produced, partly by the definitive occupation and distribution of the Pomptine territory. The former allies soon stood opposed in the
field. Already Latin volunteers in great numbers had
taken part in the last despairing struggle of the Antiates:
now the most famous of the Latin cities, Lanuvium (371), 383. Praeneste (372-374, 400), Tusculum (373), Tibur (394, 382-880.
400), and even several of the fortresses established in the 35 4. 381.
Volscian land by the Romano-Latin league, such as Velitrae and Circeii, had to be subdued by force of arms, and the Tiburtines were not afraid even to make common cause
(312).
momentary
Rome with the once more advancing hordes of the Gauls. No concerted revolt however took place, and Rome mastered the individual towns without much trouble.
against
360. 854.
Closing of the Latin eonfedera- tion. [384.
In manifest connection with this crisis in the relations
498- 493.
1 In the list given by Dionysius (v. 61) of the thirty Latin federal cities-the only list which we possess—there are named the Ardeates, Aricini, Bovillani, Bubentani (site unknown), Corni (rather Cor'ani), Carventani (site unknown), Circeienses, Coriolani, Corbintes, Cabani (perhaps the Cabenses on the Alban Mount, Bull. dell’ Inst. 1861, p. 205), Fortinei (unknown), Gabini, Laurentes, Lanuvini, Lavinata, Labicani, Nomentani, Norbani, Praenestini, Pedani, Querquetulani (site unknown), Satricani, Scaptini, Setini, Tiburtini, Tusculani, Tellenii (site unknown), Tolerini (site unknown), and Veliterni. The occasional notices of communities entitled to participate, such as of Ardea (Liv. until. I), Laurentum (Liv. xxxvii. 3), Lanuvium (Liv. xli. 16), Bovillae, Gabii, Labici (Cicero, pro Plane. 9, 23) agree with this list. Dionysius givs it on occasion of the declaration of war by Latium against Rome in 256, and it was natural therefore to regard-as Niebuhr did-this list as derived from the well-known renewal of the league in 261. But, as in this list drawn up according to the Latin alphabet the letter gappears
. .
N“
443 SUBJUGATION OF THE LATINS k noox rr . fiy. ‘
VI‘
8B1. Tusculum was even compelled (in 373) to give up its
political independence, and to enter into the burgess-union of Rome as a subject community (a'vitas sine rufragr'o), so that the town retained its walls and an—although limited —self-administration, including magistrates and a burgess- assembly of its own, whereas its burgesses as Romans lacked the right of electing or being elected-the first instance of a whole burgess-body being incorporated as a dependent community with the Roman commonwealth.
The struggle with the Hernici was more severe 862-358. (392-396) ; the first consular commander-in-chief belong
ing to the plebs, Lucius Genucius, fell in it; but here too Renewal_of the Romans were victorious. The crisis terminated with $252? the renewal of the treaties between Rome and the Latin
358. and Hernican confederacies in 396. The precise contents of these treaties are not known, but it is evident that both confederacies submitted once more, and probably on harder terms, to the Roman hegemony. The institution which took place in the same year of two new tribes in the Pomptine territory shows clearly the mighty advances made by the Roman power.